THERE was a girl in red stilettos lying in Henry Westcott’s barn. Or rather, she was lying under Henry Westcott’s pig.

Mike had met the police car at the gate. ‘There’s someone mucking around at Henry’s place,’ the sergeant had told him curtly. ‘Jacob saw the light from his place. Want to back us up-give us a bit more manpower?’

He didn’t. Jacob Jeffries was a rifle-toting bone-head, and the thought of making a posse with him was enough to make Mike queasy. Still, Sergeant Morris was the only policeman in the district and he’d helped Mike out of tight spots in the past. Checking deserted farmhouses for thieves was risky, and Jacob might look tough but, given any real danger, he’d run a mile.

So he’d come, leaving Strop guarding his precious Aston Martin. But now…

Mike stopped dead as the police sergeant threw open the barn door and flooded the place with light. They’d been expecting petty thieves, or maybe even Henry himself, but they certainly hadn’t been expecting this.

The girl was lying flat in the straw, her arm immersed to the elbow in pig. She was young-in her twenties, from the look of her-slightly built and fiery.

Fiery?

Yes. Definitely fiery. She was practically all scarlet. The girl was wearing a tiny, tight-fitting, crimson skirt. The slim legs stretched out behind her on the straw were clad in clear stockings with a crimson seam, and her feet were clad in red stilettos. She was wearing a white blouse, but her flaming curls were tumbling about her shoulders and hiding most of it so he could mostly see just legs and redness.