“No, but I—”
“We’re currently very busy interviewing witnesses. DS Wilson has already taken your statement, so you’re free to go.”
“But—”
Hayes pointed outside. “If you have any further information for us, please speak with DS Wilson.”
I glared at him as I collected my things. “You’re making a big mistake!” I yelled as Morrie and I left the church. “And I’ll prove it!”
* * *
“Ican’t believe they’ve still got Beverly in prison!” I cried.
“You have to admit, that phone call does link Beverly and Jim Mathis,” Heathcliff said.
“I don’t think so. The person Jim was talking to was at the funeral, but wanted to discuss something in private, without anyone overhearing. But even if it was Beverly talking to Jim, why would she want to kill Brian? If she murdered Danny, then surely she got her revenge? And wouldn’t she hate Jim because he was also dating Abigail? He could have just as easily been her killer.”
“Brian published the book,” Heathcliff said. “Beverly was outside at the reading having a spat with him. She wrote him all those letters demanding he pull the book and he refused. She sees him as equally culpable.”
Damn. That’s a convincing case. No wonder the police still have Beverly in custody.“So Beverly hired Jim Mathis to kill Brian? Even if Jim was motivated by money, I just can’t see it…”
“You can’t see it because you want that woman to be innocent,” Heathcliff pointed out annoyingly.
“You’re no use. Where’s Morrie? I want to rant to him.”
Heathcliff stared at the page. “He’s upstairs, at his computer.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Oh really? You allowed him back in the shop?”
“He was scratching on the window. I couldn’t concentrate. He’s so fucking annoying.”
I grinned. “You let him back in the shop.”
“He’s on probation. One wrong move and he’s out on his arse.” Heathcliff slammed his book shut and regarded me with his stormy eyes. “Even if he is a fucking majestic kisser.”
I grinned from ear to ear as I climbed the staircase to the flat. I found Morrie not at his computer as I expected, but risking life and limb by sitting in Heathcliff’s chair, hunched over a scuffed laptop with what looked like tomato sauce smeared across the screen. “What’s that? It doesn’t look like yours.”
“It’s not.” Morrie didn’t even look up from the screen. “This, my dear, is Danny Sledge’s laptop.”
I slid in beside him. “How did you get that? Isn’t that in evidence lockup at the police station?”
“Don’t worry about the hows or whys. I’m going to get it back to the precinct tonight.” Morrie pounded away on the keys with gloved hands. “In the meantime, I thought we should have a poke around Danny’s files.”
“What have you found so far?”
“Nothing much. The guy has a search history so sordid it could rival mine, but I put that down to being a crime writer. There are lots of notes, and of course his manuscripts… the only thing I haven’t been able to find is the manuscript he was working on.”
“His memoir?”
Morrie nodded. “There’s a folder for it, but nothing inside the folder. At the reading, Danny said he’d already started working on it, so there should besomethinghere. I’m checking back through the logs to see… hmmm, this is interesting.”
“What is?” I leaned in close to look at the screen, but all I could see were lines of code.
Morrie pointed to some unintelligible twaddle. “According to this log, Danny had been working on a document in this folder. He also had several PDFs – possibly research material. However, he deleted everything.”
“When did Danny delete the files?”
Morrie frowned at the screen. “That doesn’t make any sense. According to the log, the deletion occurred on Wednesday, a full dayafterDanny was murdered.”
