Dead Woman's Shoes: 1 (Lexy Lomax Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF Page A

regarded the change dismally. At this rate she wouldn’t be treating Kinky to a can of Pedigree Chum; she’d be fighting the little git for it.
    “I assume you’re from the camp?”
    “Camp?” Lexy started, giving the woman a hard stare. “I’m not a …”
    “Pleasurelands holiday camp?” interrupted the receptionist. “In Marshlands-on-Sea?” From her tone of voice, Marshlands-on-Sea sounded like the sort of place that Lexy should have chosen from the start.
    “No – I’m not on holiday. I… live in Clopwolde.” Unfortunately.
    “Really?” Hope Ellenger’s eyes narrowed as she studied Lexy. “You’re not Pam Bridgend’s daughter are you? Back from India?”
    “No. I just moved here. From the city. Escaping the rat-race and all…”
    But the receptionist’s face had set, and Lexy’s voice tailed away.
    “You’ll be expecting to register with us then?” Her voice was tight.
    “Well, yes, please.”
    “Name?”
    “Lomax.” Lexy racked her brain, trying to work out why Hope Ellenger was eyeing her so rancidly.
    “Dog’s name?”
    “Kinky,” she muttered, wishing, not for the first time, that her mother-in-law had plumped for Prince. Or Lucky.
    Hope Ellenger’s lips pursed in distaste as she tapped at the keyboard in front of her. “Here you are then.” A registration form was passed over the desk. “Where is the animal?”
    “Here.” Lexy held Kinky up above a display of flea powder packets.
    At the sight of him, Hope Ellenger appeared to experience another kind of inner struggle. “A chihuahua,” she pronounced at last.
    “Yeah – is that OK?” said Lexy, irritability finally bursting through. Perhaps the receptionist would have preferred it if Lexy had turned up with a sodding great elephant.
    “The vet has four chihuahuas.”
    “What’s he want – a round of applause?” said Lexy, under her breath.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Er… is the loo through those doors? I need to get some paper to mop him up.” She indicated Kinky’s bloody ear.
    Hope Ellenger ripped some tissues from a box next to her and handed them wordlessly to Lexy.
    Lexy made a final grim attempt to smile at the woman. “Will I have to wait long to see Mr Ellenger?”
    “You’ll be next.” She glanced at an appointment book. “When my brother has finished with Floppy.”
    Brother and sister act then.
    Lexy plumped herself down heavily on a plastic chair to fill in her form. How the hell was she going to survive on two pounds until she saw Roderick Todd again? And what if she didn’t manage to get a single snap of Avril and lover boy anyway? And where, she added darkly, did Hope Ellenger get off on being so condescending? She wouldn’t be in the least surprised if the woman was related to the arrogant cow from Periwinkle Cottage. In fact, everyone in Clopwolde was probably inbred. She should never have fled to this one-pony village. She should have gone to a big, anonymous town and got a cash-in-hand job in a bar, or a factory.
    But wherever she went, Lexy thought with a sudden wave of misery, the truth was, she was going to be pretty much alone now.
    Except for a tiny mutt with a death wish.
    Her black musings were interrupted when a door opposite her opened. Through it emerged a pale, lofty man holding a lop-eared rabbit awkwardly out in front of him. Kinky’s lip immediately curled, showing a small fang.
    That’ll be Floppy and his owner, then, thought Lexy, gripping the chihuahua a little more tightly under her arm. Don’t need to be Miss Marple to work that one out.
    The man headed towards the receptionist’s desk, looking around the surgery as he went. His sombre grey eyes met Lexy’s. To her horror she saw them suddenly snap open with the involuntary surprise of recognition.
    She immediately turned away, aware of him still staring.
    “Don’t come over. Don’t come over,” she heard herself whispering frantically into Kinky’s neck.
    Lexy had never seen the man before in her life,