Corpse in Waiting Read Online Free PDF Page A

downstairs bathroom.
    The former was larger than I had expected with a scullery leading off to the rear from which the damp, mouldy smell seemed to be emanating. One would have to knock the whole thing through into one and hope to be allowed to create another window. I went down the step into the scullery, opened the cupboard beneath the Belfast sink and there indeed were some very rotten floorboards and strange white fungus-looking growths with tendrils going up the wall. There did not seem to be any sign of it elsewhere. The tiny bathroom was hardly worthy of the name, with rusting and stained fittings: this room could also be incorporated into a new kitchen. It appeared the lavatory was an outside one.
    As I made my way over to the door to the garden my phone rang and it was the woman from the estate agency.
    I had myself a house.
    Imparting the news had two immediate effects. The first was Alexandra raging off yelling, ‘You weren’t brought along to bugger things up for me!’ and then, to Patrick, ‘Well, are you going to stand there and abandon me now she’s got what she wants?’ The second being that he didn’t. Coolly telling me that he’d see me later, Patrick followed her to her car.
    â€˜The harridan gave him no choice,’ I said aloud. ‘But he could have arranged to meet her after lunch and we could have walked back into the city.’
    Actually a little shocked by his reaction, I wandered, bemused, into the back of the house and stared around the kitchen. There were horrible, cheap DIY store cupboards and worktops here, all seemingly holding one another up, but the old scullery beyond had what looked like an original walk-in larder. I went over to it and turned the knob on the door but it appeared to be locked. One of the keys on the ring fitted and turned but it still would not open.
    â€˜Stuck,’ I muttered. ‘Oh, well.’
    Forcing myself to concentrate I rang the agents and made an appointment that afternoon to sort out the details of my purchase. Then I went back upstairs, still, frankly, in a bit of a daze. I could not understand why Patrick still felt obliged to help her. Surely it was obvious, even to someone other than this wildly biased observer, that she was ghastly.
    Perhaps they had had a worthwhile relationship all that time ago, perhaps he had loved her and was blinded by the kind of person, possibly a better one, she had been. Perhaps there had been some terrible tragedy in her past that he knew about and felt sorry for her.
    The cupboard in the upstairs passageway was locked, or stuck, as well.
    So whose fault was this mess? I inwardly raged.
    It might just be mine, was my miserable conclusion. Why did I feel so insecure about Alexandra? Why should I regard her as a threat to my relationship with Patrick? I could only put it down to what my father had called my ‘cat’s’ whiskers, the intuition that has helped solve quite a few of Patrick’s, and, come to think of it, James Carrick’s cases for them.
    I got annoyed about the door, wondering if the cupboard would be worth retaining, marched downstairs and raided the kitchen drawers. Amongst rubbish, old newspapers, string, rusting cutlery, and other sundry items I found some old fire tongs and what looked like half an iron poker. It was still quite long, around fourteen inches and I discovered when I hauled it out, everything shedding mouse droppings, that someone had flattened the end a bit like a screwdriver. (I found out at a later date that it was one of the tools for a Victorian kitchen range.)
    Absolutely perfect.
    The cupboard door was only stuck seemingly in a couple of places, at the top and towards the bottom on the side of the lock. But the wood was not in good condition and there were ominous crunching noises when, crouching down, I had inserted my weapon into the gap – the door did not fit very well – and applied a little leverage. I did not want to