Blood Money Read Free Page B

fairly recent. Why the West Midlands service hadn’t
adopted the more common initials, CSI, Bev hadn’t a clue. Hopefully they did by now – they were upstairs videoing, dusting, lifting, fine-tooth combing, bagging and tagging anything
with potential.
    “I lay there for hours.” Mrs Winters picked loose skin at the side of her thumb. “I was... it was...” She swallowed. “Then June found me... called you
people.” The cleaner. Bev had spoken briefly. June Mason had been adamant the back door was locked. There’d been no sign of forced entry anywhere. Begged the question did the intruder
have a key? The alarm hadn’t needed deactivating. It hadn’t been switched on.
    The sequence of events was easy to picture, Bev had witnessed some of the aftermath: the shredded wedding photograph, the shattered glass, four thin cords still dangling from bed posts.
Imagining what the woman had gone through was more difficult. Mrs Winters had her voice under tight control, but the twitching and fiddling told a different story. The upper lip was starched but
Bev reckoned Faith Winters was a quivering wreck inside. Took one to know one. As for the woman’s attitude – there was a slight shift, something Bev couldn’t quite pin down. It
was more the way she spoke, rather than what was said.
    The narrative – though not word-for-word – was close enough to the original for Bev to know the woman wasn’t making it up as she went along, adding spice, aggrandising her ego,
or even just pleasing the cops. Amazing how many punters did, fantasists getting off on their own fiction. People lied all the time. Lied. Bugger Mac. Bev balled a fist. Her mobile was missing. Only doubt was whether she’d lost it for good or it would turn up where she least expected it. Sodding nuisance either way.
    “Any questions, sarge?” Mac’s snide tone suggested he thought she’d tuned out.
    Finger still on the button though. “How many keys are there to this place, Mrs Winters?”
    It looked as if she was totting them up in her head. “Six.” The cleaner, a neighbour and the gardener had copies, which left Mrs Winters’s plus two spares.
    “And they’re still around?” Nonchalant query from Bev.
    “Of course.”
    “Check recently?”
    “Well, no...” It didn’t take long. She was back in a couple of minutes. “I keep them in the kitchen drawer normally.” Normally. “Maybe I moved
them?”
    “P’raps you could have a search round later, Mrs Winters?” Mac urged gently.
    The missing keys added to Bev’s growing doubts that the burglary was random. “You say the intruder knew your name, Mrs Winters. Any chance you’d come across him
before?”
    She drifted back to the sofa, shaking her head. “I’ve thought about it but can’t see how or where. I don’t know many young men.”
    The woman and the burglar didn’t have to be bosom buddies. Their paths could have crossed casually in any number of places: supermarket, garage, restaurant, coffee shop. Mrs Winters
wasn’t an agoraphobic hermit. On the other hand, the letter rack in the hall contained household bills, correspondence – all addressed to Mrs Faith Winters. Bev had spotted it, likely
Coco the frigging clown had as well. Best keep an open mind for the mo.
    “What makes you say young man, Mrs Winters?” Mac asked.
    “His clothes.” The description boiled down to man-in-black. “The swagger. What he said, how he said it.” She traced an eyebrow with an aubergine fingernail.
    “Tell us about the voice,” Bev prompted. “Did he have an accent?”
    “He may have...” Hesitating, she circled the finger where her wedding ring had been. Bev spotted the slight indentation in the flesh. “I had the feeling he was disguising the
way he speaks. He sounded just a little different every time he opened his mouth.” She shuddered, closed her eyes. The word must have revived an image of the gross red lips. Bev was freaked
and she’d only heard about