IT WAS ONLY A SHORT drive to Nat Kingston's home. They arrived to find the gates wide open and an ambulance parked at the front door. Rafferty pulled up outside the gates and waited. Five minutes later, the front door opened, and the ambulance crew appeared carrying a stretcher. Its occupant was obviously dead, as the blankets covered the face. And after seeing a shattered looking Eckersley trailing the little procession, Rafferty didn't need two guesses as to who lay under the blankets. Now was obviously not the time to question the secretary.
After glancing at Llewellyn's shuttered face, Rafferty sat and watched, without speaking, as Eckersley climbed in the back of the ambulance. The doors closed, and it made its way at a suitably funereal pace out through the gates.
Rafferty crossed
