Bodies Read Online Free PDF

can just imagine you and your mates having a finger-licking time. Anyway, why aren’t there any male strip shows? Why shouldn’t we watch men taking their clothes off?”
    There seemed to be an inconsistency in her argument, but I didn’t say so. Even in these post-feminist days it is more than one’s life is worth to mutter the phrase “women’s logic.” More than mine is worth, anyway. I contented myself with saying:
    â€œActually, there are male strip clubs, for women-only audiences. Would you like me to book you a seat?”
    â€œUgh. I can’t imagine anything more off-putting,” said Jan.
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    Talking to the relatives of murder victims is never easy. This time it was the more unpleasant in that there were so many of them, and because I had already latched on to the conviction that three out of the four had died quite unnecessarily. I had to judge whether conveyingthis conviction would make things better or worse for the survivors.
    Dale Herbert’s father was still bowled over by it when I talked to him. He was a large cockney—could have been a Covent Garden porter or some such thing in his time, but he was now retired. His large frame had put on flesh, but evenly, and he was far from out of condition. He was a sad sight, hunched up in his chair, his face in his hands.
    â€œHe was the youngest, see,” he said at last. “There’s others, four others, and grandchildren, but somehow . . . I’d the bringing up of him, after his mother died . . . That was when he was thirteen . . . Makes you feel you’ve failed, dunnit?”
    â€œAs far as I can see, there’s no possible blame can attach to you, or to your son. I rather think that what happened was that your son was just there . . . ”
    He thought for a bit.
    â€œSort of, with no more meaning than if he’d been run down by an articulated lorry? . . . I dunno, it’s difficult to think of it like that . . . I never thought for a moment of warning him against this photography lark. I knew he was going to Soho, but it’s not as though Soho’s Chicago these days, is it? It’s nothing but poncy pop stars and Chinese cooks, so I never thought . . . ”
    â€œHow did he come to take up with Bob Cordle?”
    â€œWell, he’d always been a keen little photographer, ever since he was a kid, and I always had to tell him there was a world of difference between taking a nice snap and doing it for a living. Which there is. So when he was sixteen, he’d like to have left school, and he did for a time, but there was no work to speak of, only labouring jobs and temporary things that wouldn’t lead nowhere, and he thought he could do better than that, and I thought he could and all, so he went back to school and got a few A-levels, and by then he’d heard about this photography course at the City of London Poly, and with me being retired we knew he’d get a full grant, so I pushed him along a bit, and he applied and got in. He was ever so happy about it.”
    â€œWas he still living at home?”
    â€œYes, he was. But you know how it is with kids—sometimes he’d kip down at one of his mates’, and he had the odd girlfriend . . . I hate myself for it now, but I didn’t think twice when he didn’t come home last night.”
    His expression was so guilt-stricken and appealing that I said hastily, to put him out of his misery:
    â€œOf course. I wasn’t criticizing. Do you happen to know how he met up with Bob Cordle?”
    â€œOh yes. I was coming to that. I never actually met the bloke but Dale told me all about him . . . We talked a lot, being on our own . . . Well, he was in this pub in Soho, three or four months ago it was, with a gang of pals from the Poly—hangers-on of some pop group or other: Whoosh,