Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)
had it coming. Whatever happened was no worse than he deserved.’
‘Mrs Corless –’
‘Like I said, I stopped crying over him a long time ago. I’ve got nothing more to say to you.’
She slammed the door.
CHAPTER 30
G eraldine had arranged to visit an old school friend, Hannah, that Sunday evening, as she was already half way to Kent. In her twenties Geraldine had allowed herself to become obsessed with work to the exclusion of everything else. With growing maturity – or perhaps just declining energy – she was trying to pace herself by making time in the week for some distraction from her job. She was conscious that her former detective chief inspector had suffered a coronary brought on by the stress of the job. So far the alteration in Geraldine’s work-life balance hadn’t proved detrimental to her work. On the contrary, what would once have felt like a dereliction of duty now seemed increasingly essential to her performance. Viewing another body had dampened her mood that morning, but her spirits rose as she left London and the pressures of the investigation behind her. It was a sunny afternoon and she sang along to an old Madonna CD as she drove, the window wound down so she could feel the breeze on her face. She felt invigorated, and excited about returning to Kent.
After the usual greetings: ‘I love what you’re doing to your hair these days,’ and ‘You’re looking tired, not overdoing it in the big city, are you?’ they sat round the table for dinner. To begin with Hannah’s husband was quiet but he became quite expansive after an excellent dinner, talking at length about cricket, a passion he shared with his cherubic round-faced ten-year-old son. As soon as she set eyes on the girl, Geraldine understood why Hannah had been so concerned about her thirteen-year-old daughter lately. It was nearly a year since Geraldine had last seen her, and Eleanor had grown up almost beyond recognition. Her features had sharpened and her blue eyes had a shrewd look that was slightly disturbing in a thirteen-year-old. The girl moved her body with precocious consciousness of her own sexuality. Tight clothes exaggerated her well-developed figure, displaying a cleavage that was bound to attract attention from teenage boys, if not older men. She could easily have been mistaken for eighteen, her knowing expression accentuated by dark eye shadow and thick mascara framing the sullen eyes of a disaffected teenager.
‘Look at you,’ Geraldine greeted her, ‘you look really grown up.’
Eleanor glared and Geraldine felt embarrassed at having addressed her in such patronising terms. Clearly it was no longer appropriate to address Eleanor like a child. She decided against asking about school, choosing instead to converse in more general terms.
‘So how’s things, Eleanor?’
The girl muttered incoherently.
‘You’re not supposed to call her that any more,’ her brother interjected. ‘She doesn’t want to be called Eleanor.’
‘What’s wrong with that? God, the fuss. I’ve changed my name. I’m entitled to change my name if I want to. I don’t know why you have to be so immature about it. Just because you’re a stupid –’
‘Now, now,’ their father interrupted. ‘We’ve got a visitor. Let’s have some manners.’
‘Well he doesn’t have to diss me. I’m allowed to change my name. There’s no law against it.’
Geraldine learned that Hannah’s daughter wanted to be addressed by her middle name, Jessica. Eleanor explained that she hated her first name, had always hated it, hated her parents for saddling her with such a pathetic name, and hated her brother for refusing to call her by her preferred name. Throughout lunch the adults all addressed her as Jessica. Her brother persisted in calling her Eleanor at every possible opportunity, and she deliberately ignored everything he said to her.
‘Pass the salt, Eleanor.’
‘Hurry up, Eleanor.’
‘Aren’t you going to eat that, Eleanor?’
Neither of their parents paid any attention to the sibling squabble which Geraldine found both irritating and amusing.
It was a relief when the two youngsters scurried off to their rooms after dinner. Jeremy offered to clear up.
‘Which means he’ll dump the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink and leave them for me to sort out later,’ Hannah laughed.
‘This isn’t London,’ Jeremy replied, smiling at Geraldine. ‘None of your metrosexual men here out in the
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