Free Corpse in Waiting by Margaret Duffy

you’re really the only one I can tell that I had a heavy breathing kind of phone call from a man who told me that whatever Alex takes a fancy to, she gets. I was encouraged to remember that. Any thoughts on the matter?’
    â€˜When was this?’
    â€˜Yesterday afternoon, around three.’
    Patrick put down his knife. ‘You should have rung me immediately.’
    â€˜I think I got a bit bloody-minded at that moment and there was rather a lot of domestic things going on as well as Katie coming home from school not very well.’
    â€˜What’s wrong with her?’
    â€˜She’s only hatching a cold.’
    After a pause Patrick said, ‘We shall have to look into that call you had.’
    â€˜Well, Alexandra’s obviously taken a fancy to the house. I get the impression she’s set her heart on you as well.’
    â€˜Oh God,’ he muttered. There was another little silence and then he added, ‘Confession time. I got a bit sloshed last night.’
    â€˜But you’re not supposed to drink yet! Not after you were ill. She knows it too.’ So that was why he had not said goodnight to me.
    â€˜She had some Islay twenty-year-old single malt that’s reckoned to be one of the crown jewels of whisky. They only make around two dozen cases a year.’
    I said nothing.
    â€˜I did tell her, again, that I’d been banned from drinking for a few months but she said a little nip couldn’t possibly hurt,’ he went on, addressing the opposite wall. ‘Even talking about it makes me feel like some pathetic git on a reality TV show.’ He gave me a – yes, sheepish – glance. ‘I think the idea was to get me into bed.’
    â€˜And do I take from the wording of that that she failed?’
    â€˜Of course!’
    â€˜You said you’d slept with her before,’ I said stonily, really needing to know.
    â€˜Sorry, that wasn’t true.’
    â€˜I’m sorry too.’
    He looked surprised. ‘For what?’
    â€˜That we’re having this kind of conversation.’
    People speak of ‘death wish moments’ and this was how I felt now. I was the woman with good advice who was usually proved correct, ’er indoors, the mother of his children, the one who represented his responsibilities. Whatever the truth, the magic in our relationship suddenly wasn’t there any more.
    â€˜Look, I’m in a real quandary here,’ Patrick said, finding me a little later in the dining room again failing to concentrate on writing. ‘As I said earlier, I think I ought to work on the case from London. But now this has come up. I got clearance from Mike to get the call to your mobile traced and established that it came from another that had been reported stolen from a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl in Hounslow. The poor kid was mugged by a man in broad daylight close to her home as she walked to meet friends. This phone, according to the wizards at GCHQ, is now dead, presumed destroyed. The fact that Alex’s name was mentioned rather puts her in the frame. When you chatted with her just after we met at the spa did she say anything about anyone else in her life?’
    â€˜She said that as of the previous week she had been on her own,’ I recollected. ‘In her own words, “the rat went and found himself someone else.”’
    â€˜Umm.’
    â€˜Is there a description of this mugger?’
    â€˜A hoodie, that’s all. She didn’t really get a good look at him as he pushed her over before running off.’
    â€˜Did you give Alexandra my mobile number?’
    â€˜No, why on earth should I do that?’
    â€˜Well, she must have given it to someone else.’
    â€˜Not necessarily. It’s perfectly possible this originates from someone you know.’
    â€˜But I haven’t discussed any of this business with anyone else. Only your mother.’
    â€˜And James?’
    â€˜Yes,