Free The Dead Hour by Denise Mina Page B

overcoat. Paddy could spot someone who hated their body across a room. The overcoat was straight cut with rolled-back cuffs and thin lapels, diagonal pockets. Under the coat his pale gray trousers were pleated and baggy coming into a narrow ankle with a thin turn-up.
    The joker rifled through the man’s pockets, pulling melted clumps of paper hankies out of one pocket. He found the wallet in the inside pocket and flipped it open.
    “Money not missing. Twenty quid in here. Lived in Mount Florida. Thirty-two years old.” He pulled cards and sodden paper out of the wallet, flipping them dismissively onto the ground after he read them. “Visa card. Member of the Law Society. Chairman of the local Amnesty International chapter, and the Child Poverty Action Group. Our Mother Theresa’s name is: Mark Thillingly.”
    “Maybe someone killed him for having a dick’s name,” said the not-funny one but everyone laughed anyway, just for relief.
    The boatman didn’t laugh. Still sitting in his boat at the bottom of the cliff, he used a single oar to negotiate the water, remaining steady among powerful eddies. Paddy caught his eye over the heads of the policemen. She could see that he hadn’t lost his compassion for the people he dredged out of the water. He’d been doing the job for ten-odd years and she knew his father had done it before him. If anyone needed a laugh for relief at the sad fate of the late and lost it was him.
    “Thillingly,” repeated Not-funny, chuckling again and enjoying his triumph. “And he was a lawyer.”
    “I’ll go then.” The boatman raised a hand and the wooden rowing boat slid back into the bank of fog.
    The policemen stared down at the body lying limp on the frozen ground, waiting until the boatman was out of earshot, and hesitating because they were unsure when that would be. The joker spoke for everyone but Paddy. “That guy’s a creep.”

III
    Kate had been watching through the dark wood for over an hour, listening to the noises of smashing glass and breaking furniture coming from the cottage. A lot of the furniture had been made for the house in the late eighteen-hundreds, when it was built as a holiday home for her great-greats. The dresser in the kitchen, that was irreplaceable. She wouldn’t get half as much for the place if they ripped it apart.
    It was bad of him to do that when he didn’t need to. She would hardly have stashed the pillow in the cottage and left on her own. It was bad of him not to know that.
    Her eyes were getting tired, focusing through the bald trees to the cottage so far away. She’d seen them going back to the cars a couple of times to get things and assumed that was what the man in the sheepskin was doing when the yellow light from the hallway was interrupted by his big frame. He passed the car, not turning to the passenger door or the boot, but walking straight past, pausing at the side of the road to look up and down. He stood, turning his head slowly, scanning the wood for movement of any kind. Kate held her breath.
    He spotted the boathouse and stopped scanning. He stuck his head out on his neck and looked again. Crossing the road, walking lightly for such a big man, he held big arms out to steady himself as he tiptoed over the muddy ground, hesitating when he snapped sticks before taking the next step, always coming straight for her. She recoiled from the rotting wooden boards, feeling for the orange box lid and her snuffbox. She needed to hide. She looked up at the boat hanging from the ceiling. She was slight but didn’t think the ropes and ceiling would hold her. She tried the orange box lid, knowing it was kept locked, had always been kept locked and the key was in the cottage pantry, hanging up behind the cups.
    She looked up at the oars on the wall but they were too unwieldy. By the time she got a good swing he could have grabbed her arm. She picked up her one shoe, hugging it together with her snuffbox, flattening her body against the wall