Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)

falling out over something?’
    Nick sighed.
    ‘You could say that. She’s a bit of a firecracker, isn’t she?’
    ‘So – what happened between you?’
    He turned to face her with sudden decisiveness.
    ‘Have you ever made a thoughtless comment that appeared to trivialise an issue that someone else felt serious about?’
    Geraldine nodded, suspecting Nick had made some sexist remark that had not gone down well with Sam. She waited and after a few seconds he continued.

     
    ‘We were investigating a rape case, not getting anywhere, following random leads that led nowhere. Anyway, you know how it is, we were all getting irritable and I made some stupid comment about how it probably wasn’t rape at all, the girl probably asked for it, that sort of thing. It was just a careless comment, I didn’t mean anything by it. Anyway, Sam reacted as though I’d accused the girl of fabricating the whole thing. She was bang out of order, speaking like that to an inspector. I probably should have reported her after the way she spoke to me, but she’s a good officer so I decided to overlook it. I put it down to a moment’s aberration on her part, a momentary unpleasantness. There was no point in blowing it up out of all proportion. She’s young.’
    Geraldine knew Sam could overreact, but couldn’t help thinking the incident raised a serious query over Nick’s judgement.

CHAPTER 6
     
    P atrick wasn’t in bed beside her when Amy woke up next morning. Working such late hours he rarely woke up before ten. He would get up late for a leisurely breakfast before setting off back to the restaurant in time for lunch. Relieved to find herself alone, she lay spreadeagled in the cool sheets and thought about Guy’s firm toned torso and muscular limbs, his youthful impatience that made her feel like a teenager again, in the flush of a first love affair. But the young man’s appeal was more than mere physical attraction; his youth and passion were infatuating. In contrast to her husband’s indifference Guy’s love making was addictive, what he lacked in technique more than made up for by his eager gratitude. In twenty years of cold marriage she had forgotten how stimulating the company of a man could be.

     
    After a while she got up slowly and washed, in no hurry to go downstairs. Her elegantly furnished bedroom, the en suite tiled in natural travertine with a sunken Jacuzzi bath, formed a stark contrast to Guy’s shabby room and cramped shower cubicle, but she felt wretched in the lonely luxury of her home, aching for him to be with her. She went down one side of the wide curved staircase. The house was silent. The ornate dining room with its carved walnut furniture and plush velvet curtains was empty, as was the wide sunlit conservatory, and there was no sign her husband had been in the kitchen, no familiar smell of coffee and toast in there. She let out a sigh of relief.

     
    While the kettle boiled she went in the garden and followed an elegant path that wound through landscaped terraces past a miniature lake where a large carp revolved with a lazy flick of its tail. It was a mild morning and she walked past high banks of rhododendron bushes, acers and hibiscus, admiring the fuchsias and late flowering roses. There was no denying Patrick kept the garden looking lovely. Even in late September it was packed with glorious and startling colours, every bush in place and barely a weed in sight.

     
    Patrick expressed regret that Amy didn’t share his passion for gardening but she had no intention of becoming involved. Far better to keep away from any activity controlled by her bullying husband. Nevertheless she admired his approach to gardening, the way he kept the trees neatly shaped and level, the edges of the lawns trimmed with mathematical precision and the flowers organised in patches of colour, pink with pink, white with white, and so on, with no mingling of colours in the different beds. He was obsessed with cutting and pruning, dead heading the rose blooms as soon as they started to wilt.
    ‘Cut them off when they’re dead and you get more flowers,’ he’d explained, snipping at the bushes. ‘Otherwise all the plant’s energy goes into the hips, and we don’t want seeds, we want a display.’
    It seemed rather sad to Amy, the survival instinct of all those rose bushes thwarted by a man’s desire to adorn his property.

     
    She tried to put her husband out of her mind as she brewed some coffee and thought