Winding Up the Serpent Read Online Free PDF

spreadeagled across the bed, a plump figure bursting out of a tight, black, boned corset. She wore suspenders, black stockings with a wide ladder running the whole length, from the swell of her plump bulging thigh to her stocky calf, which ended in high-heeled, courtesan’s shoes. She wore thick, greasy makeup – plenty of it – and her red, lipsticked mouth dropped open. Her eyes were not quite closed and peered glassily from beneath violet-smeared lids, rimmed with heavy black lines.
    Joanna moved towards the bed and took in other details – the pads of white flesh that bulged between the tops of the stockings and the lace-covered crotch, sprouting dark pubic hair – and her feelings wavered between revulsion and swamping pity for the dead woman. But all the time she was noting the details she would eventually relate to the coroner. Tuck away any dangerous and blushing comparisons, Inspector, she thought. This is a victim on the bed; not you.
    There is no confusing death. No one looking over a dead person could wonder whether they still lived. Because there is a colour of death – a blotched paleness, lividity of the lower limbs where the blood has drained. The eyes are those of a dead fish and the skin sags. There is a draining too of personality and then there is a chill. Because a dead person gives out no warmth. Joanna drew in a deep breath to push away nausea. She had never quite got used to the presence of the Grim Reaper, especially when presented in such an obscene pose.
    She stared with a mounting, sick feeling at what could only be described as Marilyn’s seduction garments, black lace, suspenders, legs dropped apart displaying to the full a scarlet and black G-string, breasts forced prominent by firm boning of a black basque, arms stretched upwards in an abandoned pose revealing recently shaved underarms. Joanna peered closer and noted specks of blood from the shaving, mingled with beads of cold sweat. The curtains blew open suddenly and Marilyn Smith lay exposed in harsh daylight on top of an unrumpled bed. The next moment the curtains dropped and the scene was illuminated as it must have been the night before with the pink, intimate glow. The thought struck her that it must have looked like this when this woman died. She shuddered, stepped back and touched a half-empty bottle of champagne tipped over on the carpet. She stared at the familiar black label with its gold lettering and knew she would never drink Duval-Lercy again, that it would always bear the taint of this sordid and ugly scene, the seamy, unbeautiful side of sex. She crossed to the window, open narrowly but on the catch. She stared out, careful to touch nothing. It was a long drop. Too far for someone to jump or to have climbed and there was no convenient flat roof, ivy or drainpipe.
    â€˜Mike!’ she shouted. ‘Mike, I’ve found her. She’s here.’
    All the time she had stood in the bedroom the professional in her was noting down details: the single glass that lay on the bedside table, the copies of Vogue carefully placed around the room, the bunches and bunches of dusty silk flowers, cheap prints, the CD player still awaiting further instruction. All By Myself ... Greatest Love Songs , the scent of cheap, commercial air freshener and strong, assailing perfume, sweat. And the woman in her was revolted by the tackiness of the scene. There was no mistaking the function of this room. She shivered and watched the curtains move. Suddenly she felt faint.
    â€˜God.’ Mike was standing behind her and she almost fell against the burly shoulders. ‘What have we here? It’s like a...’ He paused, stuck for words, and it was this inability to articulate that allowed her rank to surface, her faintness to evaporate and for her to begin studying the scene without the fog of emotion.
    Yes – what did they have here?
    A dead body – certainly.
    A murder? Possibly.
    A suicide? Again