“What are you doing?” asked Margaret.
“Face ID. Catherine, would you mind holding open his eyes?”
Clocking on, Catherine peeled open Giles’s eyes. Margaret’s face scrunched up in distaste.
Carol looked at the phone. “I’m in.”
They all watched in anticipation as Carol fiddled around with Giles’s phone.
“I can help you with that, if you like, Carol,” said Geoffrey. “I got my first cellular phone in the early nineties, so I’m pretty au fait with the way they work.”
Carol made a noise. “Huh.”
“What?” said Margaret.
“The last person he called was Shep. Yesterday morning.”
“Then we need to speak to Shep,” said Catherine.
Carol, Geoffrey, and Margaret headed for the door with purpose.
“Hang on!” said Catherine. “What do we do with the body?”
Catherine was so engaged, so full of life. Carol felt proud: Her mind was no longer on her ex-husband. All it had taken was for a murder to happen, and they hadn’t even had to do the killing. Death could be such a wonderful palate cleanser.
“Right,” said Carol. “I suppose we put him back in the sauna so someone else can find him?”
It was agreed that they should all do their bit. This was a joint operation. Carol and Catherine took the arms, Geoffrey and Margaret the legs. The four retirees shuffled along the corridor with their corpse like it was a sofa.
Geoffrey led the way with unhelpful but constant instructions. “Pivot! No, this way, that’s it, pivot, okay, now rotate fifteen degrees. Ow, ow, my bloody calf, ow!”
“Geoffrey, shhh!” said Carol.
“What?” said Catherine.
Carol whispered, “Did I just hear someone?”
The answer came immediately. Elisa came around the corridorand dropped her bags of shopping in shock. Something smashed. Carol tried to identify an old and familiar smell. Worcestershire sauce? They froze, caught red-handed with the dead body of Giles Temple. Elisa looked at them, they at her.
“Does this mean karaoke night is canceled this week?” said Margaret.
Forty
They’d been quietfor a while now, each thinking about the series of events that had led them from their luxury retirement home to a police cell. It was turning into some kind of community outreach scheme, with every resident getting their chance to spend a day in the slammer. Geoffrey lay on the floor for the good of his back. When he’d complained about the discomfort of the seating, Margaret had pointed out that higher taxes in exchange for more-pleasant cells had never been a vote winner.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Geoffrey, but wouldn’t they usually separate us?” asked Margaret. “So that we don’t collude, concoct our story or what have you?”
“They may be low on cells,” said Geoffrey.
Carol stewed. All this had done was stall her and her investigation. Perhaps she shouldn’t have involved the others, just done it herself, like the lone wolf she’d always been. But now that she’d found herself a pack, she didn’t want to lose it.
She could see the others were fixated on Shep. It made sense.He’d stood to gain from Desmond’s death, which meant he had a motive. And now there was reason to believe he’d had a long-standing association with Giles. She couldn’t confirm it while they were in this wretched cell, but it appeared likely that they’d gone to school together. Twenty-five years or so was more than enough time for him to build a grudge. Perhaps a business arrangement had gone wrong. Here were two men who dealt, exclusively it seemed, in failed business arrangements. What might this particular arrangement have been? The marijuana cakes in Desmond’s room—could that have been an enterprise the three of them—Giles, Shep, and Desmond—were running together? And now Shep was taking control? But were marijuana cakes really that profitable? Enough to kill for?
Carol had other ideas. Something Polly had said had been on her mind. There were avenues that needed pursuing, people who needed to be questioned, histories that needed to be explored. Margaret could help with that, if Carol could persuade her to take a little day trip. They’d be going nowhere as long as they were in the hands of the police…
Carol’s heart sank at a familiar sound: the opening of a cell door.
“All right, Golden Girls,” said DS Welsh. “Come with me.”
