Free The Killing of Katie Steelstock by Michael Gilbert Page A

table beside it: a running-repair kit, a double folder of oiled silk with a sponge in one pocket and a box in the other labelled “Toasty Beige”; a cylinder labelled “Pearl Spin Eye Glaze”; a lipstick labelled “Mulberry”; a couple of tissues; and a folded pound note.
    “If she’d been knocked on the head by some toe-rag who happened to be passing, first he’d have been too scared to stop and search her bag. Second, if he had searched it, he’d have taken the money.”
    “Someone did search it,” said Shilling.
    There was a photograph of the bag lying where it had been found in the long grass a few feet from the body. The contents were scattered beside it and the silk lining had been ripped half out.
    “Right,” said Knott. “Someone opened it in a hurry and took something out of it. And I guess we know what he took, don’t we?”
    Shilling smiled and said, “No marks for guessing. He was looking for the note he’d sent her, asking her to meet him at the boathouse.”
    “That’s for sure.”
    “And if there was a note in the bag,” said Shilling, smiling in the shy way that made him look a lot younger and more defenceless than he really was, “it wasn’t the only thing the killer took. Where are her car keys?”
    Knott shot a sharp look at his assistant and then said, “Full marks for that one, Bob. I’d missed it. Do you think they could have fallen out somewhere?”
    “If they had, I guess the searchers would have found them. They didn’t miss much.”
    The search of the previous day had produced a mass of curious articles. The obvious rubbish and anything at all old or rusty had been put in a basket under the table. On the table were spread the more promising finds. They included a scout’s knife, a small compass of the type used by escaping prisoners of war, three twelve-bore shotgun cartridges, an old-fashioned collar stud, a new type tenpenny piece, an old type half crown and a torn shred of grey flannel.
    Knott said, “That came off the barbed wire in the field next to Cavey’s cottage. And from what he told us, I can make a good guess where it came from.”
    Shilling was still looking at the contents of the evening dress bag. He said, “I suppose all these things have been dusted.” When Knott nodded he picked up the cylinder labelled “Eye Glaze” and drew a line on the back of his hand. Then he repeated the process with the lipstick and regarded the result critically.
    He said, “Not such a terribly with-it girl, our Kate.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “They’re top-class stuff all right. But blue eye shadow rather went out last year. The fashionable shade this year is blue-brown. It’s called “Livid.” And I don’t think a blonde who was really giving her mind to it would have used mulberry lipstick. Much more suitable for a brunette.”
    “I can see you haven’t been wasting your evenings off,” said Knott. “Maybe it was all part of the pose. The simple village girl sporting with the yokels. We don’t really know much about her yet.”
    He paused for a long moment, standing hunched and still in front of the side table, looking down at the odd collection of exhibits but not seeing them. His mind was moving over the information he had collected; over the statements and the photographs and the impressions he had gathered while talking to people. Already he could see the killer. He was standing in the shadow of the boathouse waiting for the girl he had summoned. The girl who must have thought he was in love with her, or at least harmless, or she would not have come tripping so boldly down that dark path to meet him.
    He said, “There’s one mistake we mustn’t make. She didn’t spend all her time down here. She had two lives. One of them was lived up in London. We’ll have to divide this. Get back to London first thing on Monday and see her agent. I’ve got his name and address here somewhere.” He searched through a bulging wallet and extracted a card.