Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)

woman. Amy was clever enough to do that, and he had been stupid enough to fall for it. At twenty-three, he should have known better.

     
    The phone stopped and he breathed a sigh, stretching out in bed, enjoying the comfort. After a moment the phone rang again. And again. Finally he caved in and answered it.
    ‘Guy? Guy? Oh thank God.’
    Amy sounded hysterical. The neediness that Guy had once found endearing now infuriated him.
    ‘Where are you? Are you alright?’
    ‘No thanks to you.’
    His voice sounded slurred with sleep or alcohol, or both.
    ‘I need to be with you,’ she gasped, her voice choked with sobs. ‘Come over, please. I’m all on my own.’
    She broke down.
    ‘Leave me alone,’ he yelled into the phone.
    He was startled by the force of his own fury. He hadn’t realised quite how angry and disappointed he had been with her.

     
    ‘No, no, you don’t understand. I’m all on my own here. My poor Mitzi…’
    For a second he was confused, listening to her babbling incoherently. She was crying so hard that he could barely make any sense of anything she said; something about her dog. He couldn’t have cared less about her stupid dog, or her.
    ‘She’s gone, she’s gone,’ she kept repeating.
    Clearly she was more upset about losing her bloody dog than about the death of her husband. He wondered how she would react if anything happened to him, once she tired of his attentions.
    ‘Get off my case, you bitch. Don’t call me again. Don’t ever call me again.’

     
    He hung up and chucked the phone on the bed. Generally useless at remembering what anyone told him, he couldn’t forget what the inspector had said. Silently he mouthed the words to himself.
    ‘Mrs Henshaw doesn’t see things as you do … Amy Henshaw made a statement accusing you of murdering her husband.’
    A moment later the phone started its shrill summons again. Guy rolled out of bed clutching it.
    ‘It’s over between us. Get the message and stay the fuck out of my life. I don’t know what the hell I was doing with you in the first place. Leave me alone you sad old cow!’
    Switching the phone off and throwing it across the room, he rolled over and went back to sleep.

CHAPTER 43
     
    L ike Sam, the sergeant Geraldine had worked with in Kent had been repulsed by corpses, but Ian had made a far better job of covering up his discomfort. Even so, he had frequently paled when confronted with a cadaver and had even on occasion rushed from the room when the victim’s appearance was particularly gruesome. Geraldine smiled as she thought about her ex-colleague.
    ‘I don’t know what’s so funny,’ Sam grumbled.
    Accustomed to her colleague’s irritable mood when they were about to view a body, Geraldine no longer made any attempt to distract her young colleague by talking in the car on the way to the morgue.

     
    Geraldine had never understood how she retained her own composure so easily, but she had always viewed dead bodies as no more than pieces of evidence in the jigsaw of a case. As her first detective inspector had impressed upon her, in a murder enquiry the dead were vital. Several officers had exchanged smiles at his inept turn of phrase.
    ‘Is something amusing you, Geraldine?’ he had demanded, turning on her like a predator.
    ‘No, sir.’
    An arrogant man, patronising towards his team, he had taken every opportunity to undermine the female officers in particular.
    ‘I hope you’re not going to pass out on us,’ he had said sharply, the first time he and Geraldine visited the morgue together. ‘We’ve got no room for weakness here.’
    Concealing her indignation, she had entered the examination room determined not to react to the body. To display even a flicker of an eyelid might be interpreted as a sign of feminine weakness. But she had felt only curiosity on seeing the corpse.

     
    They drove to the morgue in silence and entered the cold corridor where Miles was waiting for them. With lanky frame and large grinning teeth, his gloves and apron stained with blood, he looked like a character out of a horror movie as he turned and led them to where the victim lay spread-eagled on the table.
    ‘Here he is,’ he said cheerfully.
    He caught sight of Sam’s expression, and his smile faded.
    ‘Are you alright?’
    Sam nodded.
    ‘She’s fine,’ Geraldine reassured him, glancing at Sam whose face had gone white.
    ‘I’m fine,’ Sam echoed weakly.
    ‘Good, then let’s crack