Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)

thinking I’m pleased.’
    ‘I said relieved,’ Geraldine pointed out.
    ‘Relieved, pleased, you name it. What’s the difference? Can you imagine what it was like, living with him, never knowing from one day to the next if he was going to come home off his face, ready to fly off the handle. Talk about walking on eggshells – I slept on eggshells for twenty years. You have no idea what it was like.’

     
    Geraldine kept her voice steady.
    ‘And yet you never lost your temper with him, never answered back or packed your bags to leave? You just stayed there and put up with this appalling treatment, day in day out, without once complaining?’
    ‘That’s about the measure of it.’
    Amy looked away, refusing to be drawn any further, although Geraldine did her best to needle her into confessing that she had finally been provoked into retaliating.
    ‘All I want to do now is get shot of that wretched house – God, when I think of the hours I put into it – and settle down somewhere else. Of course we won’t be able to afford to live in London-’

     
    ‘ We ?’ Geraldine asked. ‘That’s you and –?’
    ‘Me and Guy. There’s nothing to stop us moving in together now –’
    Geraldine pulled a face and shook her head.
    ‘What?’ Amy demanded, her eyes stretched wide in annoyance. ‘What are you looking at me like that for?’
    With a show of reluctance Geraldine explained that Guy had appeared very shocked to learn of Amy’s financial straits. Amy was immediately incensed.
    ‘What the hell did you go and tell him that for? You had no right to share my private affairs –’
    ‘Guy told us you had no secrets from each other, so naturally we assumed he knew all about the will. It’s hardly something you’re likely to forget to mention, is it?’

     
    Amy was pensive for a few seconds.
    ‘How did he take it? The news of my mortgage. Was he OK with it?’
    ‘OK?’ Geraldine hesitated. ‘No, I wouldn’t say that exactly, would you?’
    She turned to Sam for confirmation.
    ‘Well, he didn’t seem too pleased when he heard that, instead of securing a luxurious lifestyle with a wealthy older woman, he’d got himself involved with a woman who was not only old enough to be his mother, but penniless as well.’
    Sam made a show of searching through her notebook.
    ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I can’t find it. But he said something about having to start all over again.’

     
    Geraldine frowned, afraid that Sam had been too obvious, but Amy started forward, a horrified expression on her face.
    ‘He said that? You mean, he’s going to look for someone else?’
    ‘Words to that effect,’ Sam mumbled.
    She glanced nervously at Geraldine. They both knew it was a lie.
    ‘So he was only interested in my money all the time,’ Amy fumed, unconscious of the irony. ‘A gold-digger. Well, he can just whistle for it now, because he won’t get a penny from me.’
    ‘Oh I think he knows that,’ Geraldine said cheerfully.

     
    ‘He won’t get away with treating me like this. So he’s planning to dump me now, is he? That’s rich, coming from him of all people. If it wasn’t for him Patrick wouldn’t be dead and I wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.’
    Her face was working with the effort of keeping her tears in check.
    ‘What do you mean, “if it wasn’t for him Patrick wouldn’t be dead”?’ Geraldine prompted her.
    She leaned forward, barely able to control the tremor in her voice. Her eyes flicked sideways, checking that the tape was still running.

     
    ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’ Amy’s voice was shrill now; she was beside herself with rage and disappointment.
    ‘He did it because he thought he could get hold of my money by marrying me. Oh my God, do you think he was planning to do away with me too? Well, go on then, arrest him. What are you waiting for?’
    She began to cry, her shoulders heaving with sobs.
    ‘And poor Patrick. It’s all my fault. Guy did that to him, didn’t he? And it’s all because of me.’
    ‘Amy, look at me. Are you accusing Guy Barrett of murdering your husband?’
    Amy’s eyes were still streaming but she spoke loudly and clearly through her hiccups.
    ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

CHAPTER 34
     
    G eraldine and Sam were in agreement that Amy’s sudden accusation was unreliable. Furious on hearing of Guy’s desertion, she had retaliated in the heat of the moment. While it was perfectly reasonable to suppose Guy had