Free The Electrician's Code by Clarissa Draper Page A

better cases. You’re getting better cases, aren’t you?”
    “Don’t worry about me, Mum.” He sat down on a chair at the kitchen table and poured himself half a glass of wine, gulping it down in one swallow. The post sat in a pile and he flipped through the various letters.
    Agneta placed three plates and three sets of cutlery down in front of her husband. Theo spread the plates around the table.
    “What, are only the three of us eating?” he asked.
    “The rest have prior engagements,” his mother replied, placing bread in one corner of the table.
    “Father?”
    “Father’s watching the match at the pub, says he’ll be home in a half hour but you know he’ll be back late. Dalia, Frank, and Milos have gone to the circus.” She retrieved the pot of soup off the stove and placed it on a pot warmer.
    “The circus? Really? Who goes to the circus anymore?”
    “Well, Milos has taken to tigers and lions as of late, and when he saw the advert on the telly, wouldn’t let it go until his mother took him. Tigers and lions, oh, I don’t like them. Noisy, smelly creatures. I don’t know what he imagines them to be like. It’s not like he can touch them or ride them or hug them, they’re not the animals he sees on the cartoons. One roar and that’ll put an end to it.”
    “Oh, mother, what harm will it do the boy to see the animals? He’s seen the tigers at the zoo. Let’s eat now.”
    Agneta removed her yellow apron with embroidered lemons and laid it across her lap. It was an apron he bought her as a gift when she baked him a lemon cream pie. She probably didn’t remember the occasion, but he was glad she wore it again.
    “I hope it tastes all right,” Agneta said.
    “I’m sure it tastes as good as it smells.” Theo dished out soup for the three of them. His wife watched him take a few spoonfuls of soup.
    “How is it?” Agneta asked, wide eyed.
    “It’s not sweet, not at all. I think it’s delicious.” He quickly polished off the bowl to prove it. “Just as good as Mum cooks it. Maybe even better.”
    “Oh, I don’t know about that,” said his mother. “So, tell us about your new case.”
    “An older man was found stabbed in his front garden.”
    “How old? Was he older than your father? I tell him—your father—that it’s not safe. Just the other day the Charlie’s store was vandalized. Mr. Charlie is eighty-two and hasn’t done anything but help the community. What is this world coming to? So who did it?”
    “I don’t know yet, Mother.”
    “You’ll catch the killer, my son. You’re so smart.”
    “Well, I hope so. Sometimes I feel like I’m running backwards.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Not quite sure, but when I find out, I hope I’ll be able to run forwards.”

Chapter Fifteen
    L iam Foxton dropped his keys and the take-away on the worktop and threw the Carlsberg into the fridge. He went over to his phone but there were no messages. There were never any calls. Even though he didn’t expect Sophia to ring him up, he hoped she would. At least to discuss the car situation. Why did he bother paying for home phone service?
    “Make yourself at home,” he told the girl who had just laid her handbag on his sofa. “I’ll dish up supper.”
    A pang of guilt hit him as he watched her slowly make her way around the living room, examining his belongings. Every time he brought a girl to his flat, he felt this way. God, he missed Kendra. She was the only woman he felt truly at ease with. When he was married to her, he enjoyed coming home. They would prepare a home-cooked meal together, it didn’t matter what kind of day they had. She understood him and didn’t ask stupid questions. Now he lived in a shell of a flat he hardly recognized. The flat contained things he had brought home from the shops but he wasn’t sure it was really him that bought them.
    “This is a really nice place you have here. Have you lived here long?”
    “Almost three years.” He had moved to the