“Mmmmmm. I wish there was time for that, but I’ve got to get downstairs and set up for the workshop.”
“You’re taking this management role way too seriously,” Morrie pouted. “If you recall, you made me a promise last night.”
“I don’t think I actuallypromisedjack or shit,” I pressed my lips to his. “Luckily, I find you pretty bloody irresistible. I’m all yours tonight, I promise.”
“Fine.” The coffee machine beeped. Morrie retreated to the kitchen. “I’ll make yours extra strong.”
“You are my hero. Has Danny arrived yet?” I asked, buttoning my blouse. Downstairs, the hot water cylinder banged again.
“Nope. I hope he’s not late. I’ve got his favorite brand of coffee, but I’m so nervous I’m probably going to drink it all before he gets here.” Morrie emerged from the kitchen, clutched two mugs in his hands. I noticed that his knuckles were whiter than usual. He flashed me his brilliant smile as he handed me my coffee, but I noticed it wavered a little at the edges.
Was James Moriarty excited about meeting awriter? Or was this about something else?
I heard another thump from downstairs, louder this time, and a sound like someone coughing.Shite, that’s not the cylinder, I bet that’s Danny!I plucked the cup out of his hands. “No more coffee for you. I’m going to need both of these. Come on, let’s go downstairs. I gave Danny a key so he could let himself in, and I bet that’s him now.”
As I descended the stairs, a cold breeze raced up from the ground floor, raising the hairs on my arms. The door banged on its hinges. “See, told you Danny must have snuck in. All those years as a hardened criminal paid off, because he sure was quiet.”
“I didn’t even hear him,” Morrie mused. “As one criminal to another, he’sgood. But then, of course he is. I can tell from his books. InThe Middlesex Murders, the killer plays a recording of a conversation he taped a few days earlier behind his locked office door in order to give himself an alibi. So clever. I’m noting that for future use.”
“Hey, Danny, are you—”
My words died in my throat as the light from the open door illuminated a lumpy shape lying across the rug. A figure on the ground was surrounded by fallen piles of books. Danny’s face was turned toward us, his hands frozen at his throat. His eyes bugged out and his features were twisted in a weird sort of smirk.
“Hey, Danny, that’s not funny, mate.” Morrie nudged him with his boot. “Get up.”
But Danny didn’t move. Morrie bent down and tipped Danny’s head to the side, revealing a dark, ugly mark around his neck, the skin broken in places and blood dribbling from the wounds.
“Well, that’s interesting,” he said, rising slowly to his feet. His hand reached for mine, and I noticed his fingers trembled. “He’s stone dead.”
Chapter Eight
“Cause of death is relatively straightforward,” Jo announced, leaning over Danny’s body and using a small magnifying glass to study his neck. “He most likely died from asphyxiation, caused by the collapsing of his windpipe. These marks and the violent compression of the neck suggest a ligature was used – from the lack of cuts in the skin and this bruising pattern here I’d say it was some kind of fabric – a scarf or rope, rather than a wire. There’s no murder weapon on the scene, though. The killer must have taken it with him, which makes things trickier. I’ll have to confirm all this in the lab – sometimes these marks can be simulated after death.”
I felt sick. Danny’s glassy, bugged-out eyes stared up from the floor, condemning me.
Another dead body. Another murder in the bookshop.My mind flashed back to the other times I’d seen the police and forensic teams in here – when my ex-best friend Ashley was the one lying dead with a knife in her back, when the indomitable Gladys Scarlett was brought down at her book club meeting by arsenic poisoning.
This time there was little blood, no knife, no poison, but there was Danny’s face, so white and bulbous, so unlike his roguish smile and sparkling eyes.
Who did this to him?
“There is also some bruising here,” Jo turned Danny’s head and pointed. “As well as hemorrhaging around the strap muscles. This suggests he struggled against his attacker. It might also explain the books strewn everywhere. I believed your victim kicked at the shelves, knocking down the books.”
“Time of death?” Hayes asked, jotting notes on his pad.
“This guy is relatively fresh. He’s probably been dead about an hour.”
An hour.My heart thudded in my chest. That meant that Danny was being murdered while Morrie and I were upstairs discussing coffee and everyone else was sleeping. The murderer had been inside the shop. I thought back to the thumps I’d heard.I should have run downstairs immediately. We should have called the police. We could have saved him if we—
DS Wilson ended her phone call. “Guv, I’ve spoken with the front desk at Danny’s hotel. They said he left around five a.m. They’re available to let us into his room.”
“Good. I’ll head over there now.” Hayes snapped his notebook shut. “Get the constables to canvass the neighborhood, see if anyone heard or saw Danny or another person around the bookshop this morning at the time of the murder. Start with Mrs. Ellis across the road; she’s always first to the post with neighborhood gossip. I’d also like you to interview Ms. Wilde and Mr. Moriarty and anyone else in the house at the time.”
Wilson rolled her eyes at me. “Are you sure we shouldn’t just have them conduct their own interviews, since they seem determined to play detective?”
“It’s not our fault people keep being murdered,” I cried. A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the gale-force wind blowing outside.
“What Mina means to say is that we’d be happy to take over your duties,” Morrie added, holding me against his chest as Heathcliff and Quoth came down the stairs escorted by one of the uniformed officers. “Since you seem intellectually inferior—”
