The Honeytrap: Part 4 by Roberta Kray Page A

second, two seconds, three, until he was standing by the counter. It was only then that he finally breathed again.
    From this position, he could no longer see her. He placed his palms on the cool surface of the worktop. Would she follow him? He waited. He listened. But nothing happened. What next?
Just stay calm
, he told himself. If she was going to shoot him, she’d have done it by now. He wasn’t sure if this was true, but chose in that moment to believe it.
    He flicked the kettle on again, waited for the water to boil and made the coffee. When he eventually went back into the living room, Ellen was on the sofa. Her head was tilted back and her eyes were closed. The gun was on the coffee table. She didn’t move as he put the mugs down, taking care not to make a sound. Then, with the greatest of care, he reached for the gun, picked it up and slipped it into his jacket pocket. Where had she got the damn thing? Not from Danny Street, that was for sure. But there were plenty of other lowlifes in the area.
    Harry stood and watched her for a while. There was something surreal about the fact that only minutes ago she’d been pointing the revolver at his chest. What was going on in her head? Grief did strange things to people, but most of them didn’t resort to waving guns about. She was in the middle of some kind of breakdown, perhaps.
    He leaned in and studied her more closely. There was nothing to indicate that she’d taken anything dangerous, an overdose or the like. Her chest was rising and falling with the steady even breaths of someone who had simply fallen into a deep and exhausted sleep. He got a blanket from the bedroom and laid it over her. She stirred but didn’t open her eyes.
    Harry heard the faint sound of the buzzer go for the office downstairs. He hurried into the hall and picked up his own intercom.
    ‘Hello?’
    ‘It’s Jess.’
    He pressed the button to let her in before returning to the living room and scribbling a quick note:
Back in half an hour. Please wait for me
. He placed it on the coffee table, hoping that Ellen wouldn’t wake up before he returned.
    By the time he got downstairs, Jess was already outside the office. She had that fervent impatient expression that she always wore when she had the bit between her teeth. Before he’d even had time to say hello she was off.
    ‘So what do you think? This is looking really bad, Harry. If Brett’s telling the truth and Sylvie did leave with Keynes, then where the hell is she? And what happened to the car he was driving? He went back to Hampstead in a cab; I saw him with my own eyes.’ She barely drew breath before continuing. ‘We’re going to report her as missing, right? I mean properly this time. We can’t mess about. Have you talked to Valerie?’
    ‘Give me a chance. I’ve only just got back.’ Harry unlocked the door and put on the lights. ‘But I have been in touch with Mac. Once he gets here, we can go down to the station, file a proper report and get the ball rolling.’
    ‘And when’s that going to be?’
    ‘Soon. He’s on his way.’
    Jess paced to the window and back, her arms folded across her chest. ‘I should have talked to Guy Wilder earlier. Damn it! Do you think the police will pull in Keynes tonight?’
    ‘They might.’
    ‘They have to! This is serious. He could have done anything to her.’
    Harry, who still had half his mind on Ellen, sat down at Lorna’s desk. He leaned back in the chair and rubbed his chin. ‘I still don’t see why she left with him. I mean I understand how she’d have wanted to avoid Brett, but that’s a completely different thing to doing a disappearing act with the target.’
    ‘He must have forced her.’
    ‘Not according to Brett.’
    ‘Well, he’s not exactly a reliable witness. Maybe he just saw what he wanted to see. Anyway, the police need to check out those flats. She could be there! What if she is?’
    Harry shifted forward again and booted up Lorna’s computer. ‘We