Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)

him for nearly twenty years.’
    ‘Almost as long as you’ve been alive,’ Geraldine pointed out.

     
    Scowling, Guy mumbled something about that being none of her business. Geraldine sat forward, suddenly brisk.
    ‘What is my business is that Patrick Henshaw’s business partner is now dead.’
    Guy didn’t enquire what had happened to him. He was interested only in the disposal of the restaurant.
    ‘I mean, it’s worth a few bob, isn’t it?’
    ‘I believe so.’
    ‘And with Mr Henshaw’s business partner out of the way, I suppose it’ll be Amy’s now? The restaurant, that’s what I’m talking about. It’s all hers now, right?’
    He was alert now, his eyes alight with excitement.

     
    ‘The restaurant is left to George Corless’s two children, in equal measures,’ Geraldine told him.
    ‘You mean she gets nothing? After all that time. Bloody hell. Well, I’m glad she’s shot of him at any rate.’
    He failed to suppress a satisfied grin and rubbed his hands together then suddenly looked abashed, as though he had just remembered where he was.
    ‘I’m sorry he’s dead, this George bloke, but I didn’t know him. I never met him. I just want to get the hell out of here and get back to Amy.’

     
    ‘You might find she’s not so keen to see you.’
    Guy frowned at her.
    ‘What’s that supposed to mean? We’re together, me and Amy. In everything.’
    Geraldine shook her head and heaved an exaggerated sigh.
    ‘I’m not sure Amy sees things in quite the same way,’ she said gently, doing her best to sound sympathetic. She felt a twinge of guilt for deliberately provoking the young man, but pressed ahead, reminding herself he could be a vicious psychopath.

     
    Guy half rose to his feet, his face dark with anger, fists clenched. At his side the solicitor muttered urgently and he sat down again.
    ‘You don’t know what she’s thinking,’ he said, glaring at Geraldine. ‘I was with her before she had all that money to her name, and I’m with her now. She’s not going to dump me now. She’s going to need me more than ever. She always wanted –’
    ‘I’m afraid she may already have done it,’ Geraldine interrupted him.
    ‘What are you talking about?’
    ‘Amy Henshaw made a statement yesterday accusing you of murdering her husband.’
    Geraldine nodded at Sam who flicked through her notebook and read aloud.
    ‘He did it because he thought he could get hold of my money by marrying me… Do you think he was planning to do away with me too?… Go on then, arrest him. What are you waiting for?… Poor Patrick. Guy did that to him.’

     
    Guy stared. The flush slowly disappeared from his face as his anger faded into bewilderment.
    ‘I – I don’t believe a word of it,’ he stammered at last.
    He turned to the solicitor.
    ‘They’re lying. All of them. Playing games, trying to mess with my head. Amy never said that. She couldn’t have done. She’d never betray me like that.’
    He turned back to Sam.
    ‘It’s vile, what you’re doing, trying to trip me up with your filthy lies, but it won’t work, I’m telling you, it won’t work!’
    He was shouting now, out of control, with spittle beading at the corners of his lips, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes.

     
    ‘Do you often lose your temper?’ Geraldine asked softly.
    Guy shut his mouth and folded his arms across his chest, glowering. Geraldine waited.
    ‘Is it true?’ he asked at last. ‘What she read out?’
    He jerked his head in Sam’s direction.
    ‘Is that really what Amy said?’
    ‘We could play you the tape.’
    Guy thumped his fist so suddenly on the table that Geraldine jumped, startled. Even the solicitor looked taken aback. Only Sam’s composure didn’t falter.

     
    ‘It was her,’ he said, speaking very slowly as though working out a puzzle as he went along. ‘Don’t you get it? She did it, she killed him, to get her hands on the money. She had me set up all along. Why else would she lead me on and then drop me in it like that? She can’t –’ his broad shoulders shook as he heaved an enormous sigh, ‘she can’t have given a toss about me all along, or she’d never have done it, accuse me of killing her husband like that. And if she didn’t love me, she must have been leading me on so I’d carry the can for her when she got rid of him.’
    ‘And George Corless?’
    ‘If she killed her husband for his money, I suppose she killed him for the same