Free The Devil's Moon by Peter Guttridge Page B

said.
    â€˜Yes, capable,’ Gilchrist said. But a tosser.
    â€˜Sort out three constables and three support staff for yourself. Make your old office the incident room for the time being.’
    â€˜Yes, ma’am.’ She glanced back at Bellamy Heap. ‘I’ve already got the second member of my team.’
    Kate Simpson was feeling pretty spacey. She’d stopped being ill but she was definitely not with it. She kept zoning out, going into weird little daydreams. Simon blathered on regardless.
    She was nervous about what might have happened with Sarah Gilchrist the previous night. She knew what she’d always wanted to happen with her friend but now that it might have she was a bit freaked. Especially as she couldn’t remember a thing about it.
    So she’d decided to focus on something else. She realized that until she’d heard her fate over the volt gun thing she’d been unable to concentrate on anything. Now she was keen to get on with her research into the wacky churches of Brighton.
    Fi Caspar led Bob Watts down a long hallway from the front door to a conservatory at the back of Caspar’s house. Watts had been expecting rock star gaudiness but the dark blue walls of the corridor were hung with expensive prints of the Thames in Georgian and Victorian times.
    The conservatory was warm and comfortable, despite the rain rattling on its roof and pelting the windows. It was bright too, with one brick wall hung with big prints of Georgia O’Keeffe’s highly sexualized flower paintings.
    Caspar got up from a deep sofa and came over to give Watts a hug. He smelt of patchouli and alcohol.
    â€˜Great to see you, man.’
    Watts proffered the Crowley book. ‘Thought you might want a closer look.’
    â€˜We’ve got a nice Riesling on the go,’ Fi said.
    â€˜Bone dry,’ Caspar said, taking the book. ‘Bloody delicious. Pete Townshend turned me on to wine years ago. Not that he had much of a palate back then. Keith Moon, that madman, used to piss in his bottle when Pete wasn’t looking.’ Caspar guffawed. ‘Pete never noticed the bloody difference.’
    â€˜He must have had a tiny willy to piss down the neck of a wine bottle,’ Fi said, pouring Watts a glass.
    â€˜Now, now, darling,’ Caspar said, waving Bob to a big wicker chair piled with cushions. ‘Size isn’t everything.’
    Fi passed Watts his wine. ‘He’s only saying that because he’s got a huge todger,’ she said out of the corner of her mouth.
    â€˜Don’t be giving away all my secrets,’ Caspar said absently. He’d removed the dust jacket of the Crowley novel and was turning the pages with surprising delicacy. He sighted along the spine and opened it, flexing the binding carefully.
    Fi saw Watts looking at the O’Keeffe prints.
    â€˜Sexy, aren’t they? Freud said they were particularly sexual because they looked like both male and female genitalia.’
    â€˜Genitalia?’ Caspar said, not looking up from the Crowley book. ‘Isn’t that a town in Italy?’
    Fi croaked a laugh. Watts was remembering the tiny bits of gardening knowledge he’d got from his wife.
    â€˜Is a lily a hermaphrodite plant then?’
    â€˜I’m not sure they’re self-seeding,’ Fi said.
    Caspar handed Watts the book back. ‘Who was that fifties film director who made films about sexual repression? He had women’s bedrooms full of these sheaves of sexy flowers in the foreground of shots.’
    â€˜Douglas Sirk,’ Fi said. ‘Love those films. Red anthorium in Dorothy Malone’s bedroom in
Written on the Wind
. Gay director, Rock Hudson, heterosexual love story – hilarious.’
    She gestured at the prints.
    â€˜These are the calla lily. Exported from South Africa in the mid-eighteenth century. Californians really took to them. Diego Rivera used them a lot too, especially in his