A Corpse in the Country (An Izzy Palmer Mystery Book 2) by Benedict Brown

Author:Benedict Brown [Brown, Benedict]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Hawthorn Books
Published: 2020-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Everything comes back to Bob.

Robert H. Thomas with his racist, misogynistic – not even vaguely funny – sense of humour. Bob Thomas with that scent of stale tobacco trailing after him around the office. Bob: murdered by my boyfriend and captured on hidden camera by Aldrich Porter.

Once Beatrix had gone, I navigated through folders in search of the right date – that Wednesday night which already felt like a lifetime ago. It wasn’t hard to find. The surveillance system automatically stored the files on Mr Porter’s servers, cut up into neat hourly chunks and arranged by room, date and then time. It was easy enough to fast forward through the video until I saw David enter.

Do we really want to see this?

No. But we have to.

He already looked distraught when he sat down in Bob’s huge leather chair. The camera was well located to capture the whole room. It must have been hidden in a ceiling tile or behind a picture or something as I’d never noticed anything in the position it was recording from.

I should probably have skipped the video on but it made me feel oddly calm to have David there with me. I could hear his breathing through the speakers and his feet tapping an impatient rhythm on the carpet.

When Bob finally swaggered in, champagne bottle and glass in hand, it was as if I’d sunk through the floor. The sound of his voice as he berated David and accused him of spying, perving and interfering made my nails feel like they were coming loose. The very sight of him after so long set my whole body shaking. He was the corpse that wouldn’t stay dead.

David stayed firm. He made Bob sit down and listen, but the odious man prattled on about his rights and necessities.

“You can’t do this.” I could hear the total disbelief in my boyfriend’s voice and I remembered why I loved him. “You can’t put your own selfish desires before everyone and everything else.”

‘What you gonna do, Davey-boy? Tell my wife? Tell the police?” He let out a snorting laugh. “I’d wait a while longer if I were you. The worst is yet to come.’

It all happened exactly as David told me. Reaching across the table as if to serve himself a drink, he grabbed the bottle and sent it crashing into the side of Bob’s head. I watched that look of unexpected amusement on Bob’s hideous face as he slumped into his seat. Then David grabbed the knife to finish the job.

It was a curiously inoffensive video. Far less gruesome than a thousand movies I’ve watched and yet it hit me harder than the gory horror films Ramesh makes me sit through. When it was over, I sat staring at the blank screen. I couldn’t bear to watch any of the other clips – of Will’s humiliation or David’s departure. I sat at that computer – just as Mr Porter must have after he’d discovered Bob had been murdered and wanted to find out who was responsible.

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