Dead Man's Grip

door opened and a uniformed Filipina maid stared out nervously.
    They strode over.
    ‘We’re looking for Mr and Mrs Revere,’ Pat Lanigan said, holding up his shield.
    Dennis Bootle flashed his, too.
    The maid looked even more nervous now and Pat instantly felt sorry for her. Someone wasn’t treating her right. You could always tell that with people.
    She mouthed something too quiet for him to hear, then ushered them through into a vast hallway with a grey flagstone floor and a grand circular staircase sweeping up in front of them. The walls were hung with ornately framed mirrors and abstract modern art.
    Following her nervy hand signals, they walked after her through into a palatial, high-ceilinged drawing room, with a minstrel’s gallery above them. It was like being on the set of a movie about Tudor England, Pat Lanigan thought. There were exposed oak beams and tapestries hanging on the walls, alongside ancestral portraits – none of which he recognized. Bought at auctions rather than inherited, he surmised.
    The furniture was all antiques: sofas, chairs, a chaise longue. A large picture window looked out over a lawn, bushes and Long Island Sound beyond. The flagstone floor in here was strewn with rugs and there was a faintly sweet, musky smell that reminded him of museums.
    It was a house to die for, and a room to die for, and he was certain of just one thing at this moment. A lot of people had.
    Seated in the room was an attractive but hard-looking woman in her mid-forties, with short blonde hair and a made-to-measure nose. She was dressed in a pink tracksuit and bling trainers, holding a pack of Marlboro Lights in one hand and a lighter in the other. As they entered she shook a cigarette out, pushed it between her lips, then clicked the lighter, as if challenging them to stop her.
    ‘Yes?’ she said, drawing on the cigarette and exhaling the smoke towards the ceiling.
    Lanigan held up his shield. ‘Detective Investigator Lanigan and Detective Investigator Bootle. Are you Mrs Fernanda Revere?’
    She shook her head, as if she was tossing imaginary long tresses of hair from her face. ‘Why do you need to know?’
    ‘Is your husband here?’ Lanigan asked patiently.
    ‘He’s playing golf.’
    The two police officers stared around the room. Both were looking for photographs. There were plenty, over the fireplace, on tables, on shelves. But all of them, so far as Pat Lanigan could ascertain in a quick sweep, were of Lou and Fernanda Revere and their children. Disappointingly, there were no pictures of any of their friends – or associates .
    ‘Will your husband be home soon?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Two hours, maybe three.’
    The officers exchanged a glance. Then Lanigan said, ‘OK, I’m sorry to have to break this to you, Mrs Revere. You have a son, Tony, is that right?’
    She was about to take another drag on her cigarette, but stopped, anxiety lining her face.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘We’ve been informed by the police in Brighton, Sussex, in England, that your son died this morning, following a road traffic accident.’
    Both men sat down, uninvited, in chairs opposite her.
    She stared at them in silence. ‘What?’
    Pat Lanigan repeated what he had said.
    She sat, staring at them like an unexploded bomb. ‘You’re shitting, right?’
    ‘I’m afraid not,’ Pat said. ‘I’m very sorry. Do you have someone who could come round until your husband gets home? A neighbour? Friend?’
    ‘You’re shitting. Yeah? Tell me you’re shitting.’
    The cigarette was burning down. She tapped some ash off into a large crystal ashtray.
    ‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Revere. I wish I was.’
    Her pupils were dilating. ‘You’re shitting, aren’t you?’ she said after a long silence.
    Pat saw her hands trembling. Saw her stab the cigarette into the ashtray as if she was knifing someone. Then she grabbed the ashtray and hurled it at the wall. It struck just below a painting, exploding into shards of glass.
    ‘No!’ she said, her breathing suddenly getting faster and faster. ‘Nooooooooooooooo.’
    She picked up the table the ashtray had been on and smashed it down on the floor, breaking the legs.
    ‘Noooooooo!’ she screamed. ‘Noooooooo! It’s not true. Tell me it’s not true. Tell me!’
    The two officers sat there in silence, watching as she jumped up and grabbed a painting off the wall. She then jerked it down hard over her knees, ripping through the face and body of a Madonna and