Free The Order of Things by Graham Hurley

Just give us a ring.
    Lizzie returned to her laptop. A couple of keystrokes took her into the Devon and Cornwall Police Facebook page. There, on the home page, she found the same face but a different photo. She was wrong about the smile. Alois Bentner was pictured on a beach she recognised as Copacabana, sitting cross-legged on the white sand. His jeans were rolled up to his knees and he was wearing a red singlet and a back-to-front baseball cap. He was lightly tanned, and either the sunshine or the face behind the camera had brightened his mood. He looked relaxed, even radiant. By no means the monster Det-Supt Nandy was so keen to nail.
    Lizzie’s phone rang. It was Anton. He needed to sort out his evening. Were they still going to see Ralph Woodman?
    Woodman lived in a beautiful Georgian house at the end of a gravel drive near the airport. Anton had rung ahead, and Woodman must have been waiting inside because he stepped out of the front door the moment Lizzie pulled her Audi to a halt. He was a tall man with a slight stoop. Lizzie guessed his age at past seventy. He wore needlecord trousers over polished brogues and a green quilted gilet against the strengthening wind.
    The lounge was at the back of the house, a big handsome room, exquisitely furnished. An acre or so of garden filled the view from the big sash windows: freshly mown lawn, flower beds bursting with a palette of colours, a wooden gazebo occupying the far corner. One day, Lizzie thought, my garden might look like this.
    ‘May I?’
    Lizzie turned to find herself offered a glass of sherry. Fino. Dry. Nice. She was trying to work out whether anyone else lived in this glorious house. A view like that was made for sharing.
    ‘I’m sorry about your wife,’ she said. ‘I understand it was motor neurone disease.’
    ‘It was, my dear. I’ve been a Christian all my life. We both were. But we were sorely tested, believe you me.’
    The merest nod directed Lizzie’s attention to a row of framed photos on the marble mantelpiece.
    ‘Do you mind?’ Lizzie wanted to look at the photos.
    ‘Not at all. I understand that’s why you’re here.’
    In the car Anton had explained that Ralph Woodman had recently become a major supporter of an organisation called Dignity in Dying and believed that Lizzie was in a position to offer publicity and perhaps PR advice. In his view she needed to understand in some detail the blessings conferred by assisted dying. Hence the invitation to The Old Rectory.
    Lizzie was looking at the photos. One pictured Ralph’s wife as a child, sitting on her mother’s knee. Another was more recent. A lifetime later, even in a wheelchair, Julia Woodman had retained a beauty and a presence that Lizzie could only describe as luminous. She sat erect, if a little lopsidedly. Her face was turned to the camera, strong features, a full mouth, a melting smile. She must have been the sunshine in this man’s life, she thought. To lose a woman like that would close the curtains on years of warmth and laughter.
    ‘You know anything about MND?’ Ralph had joined her at the mantelpiece.
    Lizzie shook her head. Mercifully not, she said.
    ‘Then you’re lucky. It’s the stranger that comes ghosting into your life. For months you don’t realise it’s there. A little stiffness in the legs after a decent walk? Difficulty getting the odd word out? Looking back, you realise what these things meant, but at the time you dismiss it. In the army I’d have called it collateral damage. None of us is getting any younger.’
    Julia, he said, had been nearly sixty before the medics could put their finger on what was wrong.
    ‘That was how many years ago?’
    ‘Four. She’s always been the younger woman in my life, the one I nabbed when she was silly enough to say yes. I always worshipped her. Nothing ever changed in that respect. Even at the end.’
    ‘I understand she died recently.’
    ‘Nearly nine months ago. To tell you the truth it feels like