Death Set To Music by Hebden Mark

Author:Hebden, Mark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Death Set to Music
ISBN: 9780755125203
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2013-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

Odile did.

As they talked, the telephone went and Pel snatched it up. ‘Pel,’ he said.

‘Leguyader!’ The telephone sounded angry. ‘I’ve got that report on those clothes you sent up – Gervase Darcq’s.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, first of all, whose bright idea was it to send him in at the end of the day and then tell me to do a check when I couldn’t send him home? I was here all night, with him fast asleep in a blanket in the sergeants’ room. Whose idea was that?’

‘Mine,’ Pel said.

‘Oh!’ Obviously Leguyader hadn’t expected that reply. He’d clearly suspected it might have been Nosjean’s and had been hoping to be able to tear a strip off him. ‘Do you know I went without my dinner?’

‘So did I,’ Pel said. It wasn’t true, but he enjoyed goading Leguyader.

‘Oh!’ Leguyader said again. He seemed to resent Pel being able to match all his complaints. ‘Why?’

‘My housekeeper was watching television.’

‘Well, mine wasn’t,’ Leguyader retorted. ‘It wasn’t due to that at all. It was because I was working. And I couldn’t leave because we couldn’t turn that big lump, Darcq, out on the streets in his birthday suit. He hadn’t any other clothes.’

‘I know,’ Pel said calmly. ‘What did you find?’

‘Nothing.’ Leguyader seemed delighted that this time it was his turn to score a point.

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing at all. Just a lot of food stains. Who is this chap? Does he eat his food by throwing it at his mouth from arm’s length?’

‘He gets drunk a lot,’ Pel said patiently. ‘Perhaps that accounts for it.’

‘Well, there’s nothing.’

‘No blood?’

‘Not a drop. Just old beer and wine stains. A few unidentified women’s hairs, blonde, brunette and red.’

‘Doesn’t mean a thing. He isn’t the type to brush his clothes much. Any of them his sister’s?’

‘Not one. And you might be interested to hear, too, that we completed the check on the cars. There was no blood there either.’

‘On none of ’em?’

‘None.’ Leguyader sounded delighted at the disappointment in Pel’s voice.

Pel replaced the telephone quietly and stood for a while, staring at the instrument, deep in thought. He started to life abruptly.

‘Fetch Odile back.’

She returned unwillingly, with her usual mixture of caution and aggressiveness, and Pel decided that, because of her parents, she knew only how to be hostile or wary and was totally at a loss in any situation that demanded anything else.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘There was a ruby ring. A big one, worth a lot of money. And a treble row of pearls. She also had a sapphire necklace and an amethyst set – earrings, necklace, brooch, ring. There was a sapphire-and-diamond ring. An emerald brooch. A zircon.’

‘That the lot?’

‘No. There were others.’

‘Could you list them from memory?’

‘Yes, if necessary.’

‘You seem to know them well.’

She frowned and the old agony appeared in her eyes again. ‘Of course I do. I was always looking at them, wishing I had some like them. She always said my skin wasn’t right for jewels, though. She said you had to have a flawless skin.’

‘Did she?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you sure you liked your mother?’

‘I loved her.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.