A Clear Conscience Page 25

  Helen read with her hip propped against the work surface, found she had turned to face the wall with the corner of a unit pressing into her stomach, painfully. It was a rounded edge, but it hurt. So did the contents of the letter. She needed the concentration of that slight pain in order to think. Of Cath, and her unreal perfume, and her odour of sanctity. Secreting in a garden a knife she would know how to sharpen, the knowledge of which she denied. Why hide it if she did not know Joe had used it?

  Because she had used it?

  ‘No,’ Helen said out loud. ‘No, no, NO!’

  She went back to the bedroom. They had promised each other they would break their habit of keeping secrets.

  Bailey was still asleep. Sleeping the slumber of the just. To which she was no longer entitled.

  About the Author

  FRANCES FYFIELD has spent much of her professional life practicing as a criminal lawyer, work which has informed her highly acclaimed novels. She has been the recipient of both the Gold and Silver Crime Writers’ Association Daggers. She is also a regular broadcaster on Radio 4, most recently as the presenter of the series “Tales from the Stave.” She lives in London and in Deal, overlooking the sea, which is her passion.

  www.francesfyfieldc.co.uk

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Also by Frances Fyfield

  A Question Of Guilt

  Shadows On The Mirror

  Trial By Fire

  Shadow Play

  Perfectly Pure And Good

  Without Consent

  Blind Date

  Staring At The Light

  Undercurrents

  The Nature Of The Beast

  Seeking Sanctuary

  Looking Down

  The Playroom

  Half Light

  Safer Than Houses

  Let’s Dance

  The Art Of Drowning

  Blood From Stone

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  This book was originally published in 1995 by Pantheon Books.

  A CLEAR CONSCIENCE. Copyright © 1994 by Frances Fyfield. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780062301482

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