Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)

can you be so sure?’ Geraldine pressed her.
    ‘Well, for a start, I heard her promise to leave her husband, only she said it was difficult, and she asked for more time. Then she said how much she loved him and wanted to be with him, and how she hated having to keep the affair a secret, and I can’t remember what else besides, but more on the same lines. I don’t know who she was talking to, but it wasn’t her husband.’

     
    Geraldine looked up from her note pad.
    ‘Are you sure you can’t tell me anything about him? Did you ever hear his voice?’
    ‘Yes. I answered the phone to him several times. Just tell her it’s me, he said. It wasn’t Mr Henshaw’s voice.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Sure as I’m sitting here.’
    ‘What did he sound like?’
    Christina shrugged.
    ‘Like a man, you know. He had a man’s voice. He sounded young and –’
    She paused, thinking.
    ‘Eager. Like he was impatient to speak to her, like he was always in a hurry.’

     
    ‘So have you found out anything from Amy Henshaw?’ Sam asked Geraldine when she returned to the station.
    ‘I think so. Not about Henshaw himself, but – well, you met his wife.’
    ‘Yes, and – ?’
    ‘It seems she was having an affair with a young man.’
    ‘I said it was a crime of passion!’
    Geraldine couldn’t help laughing at the triumph in Sam’s voice.
    ‘What did she say exactly?’

     
    Geraldine shook her head.
    ‘I didn’t see Amy Henshaw, but I spoke to her cleaner who’s been going to the house twice a week for the last six years. She was very forthcoming, and I can’t see any reason to doubt what she told me. So we need to find Amy and find out who this other man is. You met Amy. What do you think? Could she have killed him herself?’
    Sam considered, her expression serious.
    ‘It was certainly a vicious attack, with marked sexual aggression, which means the killer was probably a man.’
    ‘Probably,’ Geraldine sounded a note of caution. ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions. Remember –’
    ‘I know, I know. I’m only saying. Alright, so we think the killer was probably a man. They usually are. I did think when we saw the body that the injuries might have been inflicted by a jealous husband, if Henshaw had been messing around. But maybe it was Amy’s lover who was jealous. This young man she was having an affair with, whoever he is.’

     
    Geraldine nodded.
    ‘Yes, this opens up new possibilities.’
    ‘What you mean is, you have to concede I was right all along,’ Sam grinned.
    ‘Right? About what, exactly?’
    ‘That this was a crime of passion, carried out by a man in a fit of jealousy.’
    ‘It’s one possibility. But you’re forgetting the DNA found on Henshaw’s body. It was female.’
    ‘Does that mean Amy was there when he was killed? The young lover came in and found them at it and in a jealous rage pounced on his hated rival! Or perhaps,’ Sam went on in a more serious tone, ‘Amy and her lover were in it together.’
    Despite her confusion, Geraldine couldn’t help laughing at the gusto with which Sam outlined her theories. There was something infectious about the sergeant’s enthusiasm which made her company invigorating.

CHAPTER 18
     
    I n a dark suit and clean shirt, George fumbled with the knot in his tie.
    ‘Here, let me,’ Desiree said as she climbed out of bed.
    He grinned sheepishly as she fiddled at his throat, not wanting to be distracted by her naked body, as though focusing on the approaching meeting could make a difference to the will. There was no reason for him to feel nervous. He and Patrick had drawn up an agreement that if one of them died, Mireille would become the sole property of the remaining partner. There was no way the agreement could be altered without their joint signatures. It was a good arrangement for whichever partner outlived the other. He and Patrick used to joke about doing away with each other, agreeing that poison would be the most appropriate method, with a restaurant at stake.

     
    Now Patrick was dead, George could do anything he wanted with the restaurant. He was free to sell it if someone offered the right price. He couldn’t help grinning. Mireille was a substantial windfall and it had come in the nick of time, because George’s lucky streak had stopped abruptly about a year ago, and since then his debts had been spiralling out of control. Pipped at the post with every decent sized bet he placed on the horses, winning and losing in