Night's Child (A Detective Murdoch Mystery)

259 Pages·2010·0.99 MB·English

by  Maureen Jennings

CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY

EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TREAT YOURSELF TO OTHER DETECTIVE…
EXCEPT THE DYING
UNDER THE DRAGON’S TAIL
POOR TOM IS COLD
LET LOOSE THE DOGS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY MAUREEN JENNINGS
COPYRIGHT
For Iden as always, and this one for
Peter Outerbridge, the best Murdoch imaginable
“…he is but Night’s child.”
(said of Tarquin, who has ravished Lucrece)
–William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece
PROLOGUE
She hadn’t liked Leonard Sims one bit. He was sly and spiteful, never
missing an opportunity to make a jibe at her expense. In spite of her resolve not
to, she’d often been reduced to tears and he’d laughed at her in triumph.
See. You’ve got the backbone of a slug. You feel like one too.
No one cared enough to protect her from his unrelenting cruelty, but
perhaps they didn’t even notice. That was the more likely explanation, and she
was used to not being noticed. So when she understood that Leonard Sims was
dead, she was glad at first. Serves him right, she thought. He’d pushed just once
too often. But then she had to go with them when they carried the body in a chest
down to the frozen lake. They needed a cab to get there and at first none came by
because it was late and the snow was thick and blowing in everybody’s face. The
because it was late and the snow was thick and blowing in everybody’s face. The
cabbie hadn’t wanted to take them, said his horse was tired and he was on his
way to the stables.
This poor girl has got to visit her old aunt who lives near the shore. You
can see how perishing she is. Open your heart.
The cabbie agreed when they paid him double the usual fare.
They didn’t bother to tell her what they were doing and, of course, she
didn’t ask. After the cabbie left, she had to stand there, in her too-thin coat,
shivering with cold, to keep lookout. She was so afraid, she was actually
whimpering, but the swirling snow blotted up the sounds as the two men
vanished into the darkness.
They hauled the chest across the lake to where a short promontory thrust
out from the shore. Here they must have shoved it under the overhang. It took
them almost ten minutes to trudge there and back through the knee-high snow
and they both cursed the weather.
Never mind. When the ice melts, the bloody thing will sink to the bottom
and never be found. Goodbye, Sins, and they had both laughed at the joke.