Blood And Honey Read Online Free PDF Page B

very slowly, still straddling a flagging erection.
    Winter reached for the DVD control, pressed PAUSE .
    ‘What’s in the bag?’
    ‘Ice. Never fails.’
    ‘This is one of your punters?’ Winter was still looking at the screen.
    ‘I like to think of them as friends.’
    ‘And he gets off on looking at himself?’
    Suttle stirred beside Winter. He couldn’t take his eyes off the image frozen on the plasma screen, the girl on the edge of her climax, the fingers half buried, the emerald-green eyes half closed.
    ‘That’s the girl in the photos,’ he murmured. ‘Outside in the hall.’
    There were two bedrooms in the apartment. The first one, empty, was a mess. In the flickering light from a semicircle of candles on a cabinet beside the bed Winter tried to make sense of the tumble of sheets and bolsters. At the foot of the bed the heel of a black stiletto was wedged in an empty bottle of Krug. Beside it, an abandoned scarlet basque and a packet of Rizlas. Most of the ceiling was occupied by a huge oval mirror with a gilt surround, and shadows danced across the walls as the draught from the hall stirred the bedside candles. An hour or so earlier, thought Winter, Singer would have been spreadeagled on this enormous rumpled playground, stirred to his umpteenth orgasm by one of Richardson’s girlies.
    Through the open door to the en suite bathroom Winter could hear the splash of falling water. Hestepped into the steam, glimpsing a small naked body squatting on the loo, legs spread, inspecting a mark on her inside thigh. Winter hooked a towel from the nearby rail, threw it across.
    ‘Company, love,’ he said briefly. ‘Get yourself decent.’
    Back in the hall he headed for the bedroom with the music. This time there were no candles. A middle-aged man was lying on his back on a nest of pillows, his eyes closed, his body tented by the top sheet. The headboard behind him was a mosaic of tiny mirrors, and Winter watched as another body under the sheet obeyed his muttered instructions. He recognised the face from the plasma screen in the lounge at once, the grey indoor complexion, the heavy jowls, the mouth that so easily shaped itself into a snarl. The man on the bed had his right arm flung out, the fingers riding the volume control on the CD machine, and the music swelled and died in time with the nodding head beneath the sheet.
    Winter let the scene develop for a second or two, then switched on the overhead chandelier. The blaze of light emptied the room of intimacy but it was a while before the eyes on the pillow opened. The man grunted, got up on one elbow, exposing the sagging pale flesh of his chest.
    ‘Who the hell are you?’ It was the voice of someone used to command and respect, a boardroom voice, the kind of voice that spelled trouble. Late forties at least, thought Winter. Maybe older.
    ‘DC Winter. Portsmouth Crime Squad. I must ask you to get dressed, sir.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because I have reason to suspect you may be using Class A narcotics.’
    ‘Nonsense. This is private property. You have absolutely no right —’
    He broke off as the figure beneath the sheet emerged. She had an aerosol can in one hand and a small glass phial in the other. As she made herself comfortable in a pose both detectives recognised from the DVD, Winter became aware of her body splintered in the jigsaw of mirrors at the head of the bed. She had big breasts for such an angular frame, and her legs seemed even longer in real life. When Winter repeated his invitation to get dressed, she laughed softly, then ringed her nipples with cream from the aerosol before slipping her hands behind the head beneath her and offering him a taste. He lapped at her, first one breast then the other, before wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and settling back on the pillow.
    ‘Low-fat Chantilly.’ He looked up at Winter, then yawned. ‘You can get it from Waitrose.’
    ‘Did you hear what I said, sir?’
    ‘Of course I did. Now fuck off.