Free The Dead Dog Day by Jackie Kabler Page B

and then giggled.
    Benjamin, who was standing by the window of his South Bank apartment, gazing down at the river through his shiny new telescope, suddenly felt irritated. He’d done it again, hadn’t he? Last night when he and the boys had moved on to a club. This one wasn’t a model – he’d at least managed to stick to that part of his pre-Christmas resolution. She was a – receptionist? In a gym? Something like that. And she was stunning, there was no doubt about that. But she was still stupid. And he was bored. Bored rigid in fact. Fed up of these beautiful but vacuous females, most of whom only wanted to hang out with him because he was on TV. But what could he do about it? In the world in which he moved, these were the only women he met most of the time.
    Ignoring the girl, he went to his bedroom and shut the door. He slumped onto the red velvet chaise longue by the window and put his head in his hands. He’d just have to stop dating altogether, it was the only solution. He would not go out with another woman until he found a real one – an equal, somebody he could actually talk to, for heaven’s sake. Surely that wasn’t too much to ask? He thought again about Cora, and the way she’d rejected him so amusingly in the A-Bar, and wondered how he could wangle another meeting. Somebody like her, that was what he needed.
    Benjamin stood up and crossed the room to his enormous walk-in wardrobe. Pushing past the rows and rows of designer suits and shirts, he reached in to the back of one of the shelves and hauled out a small cardboard box. Digging under old cards and personal documents, he found what he was looking for. It was a picture, yellowing around the edges and slightly torn. He returned to the chaise and stared at the photo, gently running his finger across the faded faces. A woman, in her early thirties, with dark, curly hair. A man, maybe a little older, with smiling eyes and a shiny grey suit. And between them, a little boy, six or seven years old, with the same dark curls as the woman. He had an arm looped around each of their necks, and a shy grin, big eyes looking straight into the camera.
    â€˜That’s what I want,’ Benjamin thought. ‘I want what they had. I’m thirty-five years old. It’s time.’
    His contemplation was interrupted as the bedroom door opened, and he jumped and stuffed the photo under the cushion of the chaise. The Japanese girl popped her head in.
    â€˜Hey, baby, what you doing in here on your own? I’m lonely.’
    â€˜I was just coming to talk to you, actually, er, Chloe. You see, the thing is, I really …’
    He paused as Chloe stepped into the room, totally naked. Benjamin felt his willpower drain away as he watched her perfect little body with its smooth honey skin sauntering across to the big bed. She hopped up and draped herself seductively on the white duvet, one knee cocked, eyelashes fluttering coyly.
    Benjamin got up slowly. OK, one more night. One more night and that would be it. Tomorrow, he’d dump her, and find a real girlfriend. Buoyed by the thought, he whooped, ripped his clothes off, and went to join her.
    It might have been Saturday, and almost Christmas, but it certainly wasn’t a day off for DCI Adam Bradberry and his team. Slugging down a mouthful of tepid coffee, Adam stood up and stared again at the incident board covered in notes and scene of crime photos at the far end of the room. Reinvigorated by their pub visit and early night yesterday, the murder investigation team had attacked today with new vigour, but Adam couldn’t help feeling there was something he was missing here, something they were all missing.
    â€˜OK – let’s go through this again,’ he pronounced. Fifteen heads, some still on telephones, turned to look at him. Everyone else was out of the office, trying desperately to get some sort of angle on what had happened before the Christmas