Dead Money (A Detective Inspector Paul Amos Lincolnshire Mystery) (20 page)

Maybe he was dressed down for Fridays in his black polo neck sweater and slacks and grey-flecked sports jacket, absolutely my favourite of all his outfits. Maybe he was dashing off to work (he always took the first vehicle that came along: a taxi or a Number 9 bus) and he got taken short. Maybe, maybe. And where was Mafalda? Gone already to the Think Tank, I suspect, because it was the cleaning woman who found him. Or maybe Mafalda was out of town, rallying the hunting faction who had so lately been licking their wounds.

Or maybe he died in the night because Chas had said that rigor was already established by the time they fetched him to us, and the cleaning woman, as far as I remember, came at nine in the morning. Maybe he died in the night, in which case, was he alone (Eddie hated sleeping alone) or was there somebody with him? Someone like me, who just threw up and sneaked off.

He had asked me if I wanted to go to bed and cuddle. And I said, Oh, don’t make a pass at me, Eddie, please don’t. Which was stupid of me because why the hell else would he have brought me home? After it was over, I retreated to the bathroom, and when I emerged, he had laid a dressing gown and toothbrush at the bottom of the spiral staircase which led up to the guest bedroom. He had gone to the room he shared with Mafalda and had shut the door. And I crept away into the night, as though I had stolen something.

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