Dead Money (A Detective Inspector Paul Amos Lincolnshire Mystery) Read Free

wasn’t at work yesterday, either. Oh, and she keeps going on about the police not doing their job. Something about refusing to break the door down.”
    Amos wandered over to the bedside light, which was switched on. He touched the bulb and withdrew his hand sharply. It was very hot.
    Swift butted in: “The bedside light was on, Sir, when the two women came in. They say the main light was off and the curtains were closed. We opened them so we could see what we were doing.”
    Amos nodded to Swift and she closed the curtains. The inspector then switched off the ceiling light. It was quite dark. The bulb in the bedside light was only 40 watts.
    Nonetheless, the attacker would have been able to see Jones distinctly if dimly. Satisfied, Amos switched the main light on and Swift opened the curtains again.
    Amos was apparently losing interest in Sarah Miller. His eyes were wandering to the telephone point in what was clearly a second bedroom converted into a home office.
    “Where’s the answering machine?” he asked. “Surely Jones would have one.”
    It was a young constable who supplied the information: “The phone’s linked into the computer, Sir. It’s on screensaver at the moment.”
    Before Amos had a chance to tell the junior officer to speak English, the lad touched the mouse and the computer whirred into life.
    “This is top bananas!” he called out appreciatively.
    A coupled of clicks and the screen proclaimed two old messages and six new ones. The unreliable software had not crashed.
    “I’ll play the old messages first, the ones Jones had listened to,” suggested the constable.
    Amos grunted assent.
    They were a couple of calls from Jones’s office, made the previous week and merely confirming business meetings. The new messages were more interesting.
    The first was a man’s voice: “Look, Ray, can we have a quick word over the weekend. I’m sure we can sort out whatever’s bothering you. I’ll pop over to see you this afternoon. No need to involve Joanna.”
    Then a woman: “It’s Joanna. I’ve been thinking about what you said. You could be right. I’m in Scunthorpe on Monday but I’ll drop in unannounced first thing Tuesday. Don’t worry, I’ll have a good excuse.”
    Then followed four increasingly frantic messages from Sarah Miller, each meticulously stating who she was, the time of her call and her phone number.
    “Get them transcribed,” Amos ordered. “Computers have a habit of losing things.”
    He moved on through the apartment. Killiney Court was built in an octagonal with four flats on each floor. They were identical except they were grouped in pairs that were a mirror image of each other.
    There were two bedrooms, a lounge, a bathroom, a shower, a separate toilet and a kitchen. Outside the kitchen was an open laundry area.
    Amos looked out of the laundry. The outside was like a large window with no glass. Directly opposite was a similar arrangement for the other flat in the pair, 4A.
    That’s a third way in, he remarked to Sgt. Swift. “I reckon a fit young man or woman with sufficient nerve – or sufficiently desperate – could jump across that gap. I think we had better have a list of all the residents in this block. We shall have to interview them all.
    “And I shall start with whoever lives in that flat opposite.”
     

 
     
     
    Chapter 4
     
    The owner of flat 4A was not conveniently at home. One of the constables found and produced the caretaker, who supplied the information that Scott Warren ran the Ace Plus Video recording studio in Gainsborough Road.
    “Did you get the impression that the caretaker was trying to get rid of us?” Amos
    asked Swift as they drove towards the north west corner of the town. “He practically gabbled out where Warren worked.”
    Swift agreed: “He was certainly keen enough to make out that Warren and Jones had a stand-up row on Friday evening then they arrived back at Killiney Court.”
    Warren received them anxiously. His