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

on.
    There was no flicker of understanding in Stevens’ face.
    “Whatever you have to discuss, I’m sure you can manage perfectly well without me,” she said, flustered. The woman began backing out of the door.
    “You left your flat early this morning, I take it?” Amos asked.
    Stevens nodded.
    “Perhaps you had better sit down. We have rather a shock for you.”
    Warren pushed forward his own chair with a slightly exaggerated gesture of gallantry that allowed him to take possession of the doorway, as if he were preparing to make a run for it. Stevens, however, remained standing, although she leaned against the wall for support.
    Swift took up the explanation: “It concerns your neighbour and, we take it, business associate Raymond Jones. I’m sorry to have to tell you that he is dead. His body was found this morning. He had been murdered.”
    Stevens gasped audibly. Amos was torn between which of the two possible suspects to pursue first. Although annoyed that the flow of his interview with Warren had been interrupted, he decided it might be best at this stage to make a preliminary interrogation of Stevens, especially as she might throw some light on Warren’s activities.
    So he said: “Perhaps there is a spare room where we could have a quiet chat. As you know, Mr Jones lived in the same block of flats as yourself and you may have important evidence that could help us.”
    Stevens had recovered her composure.
    “Do I take it, then,” she asked, “that you don’t yet know who killed him?”
    “I keep an open mind.”
    Warren, ever eager to oblige in deflecting attention to Stevens, butted in again: “You can use my interview room. It’s small but there’s a table and a few chairs. Can I send you some coffee?” he asked sweetly of the other occupants of his room.
    “This way,” said Steven curtly. “I know where it is. Let’s get this done quickly.”
    Then to Warren: “No coffee for me.”
    Amos and Swift also declined.
    Ensconced in the interview room, Amos asked Stevens when she had last seen the dead man.
    “On Friday. It must have been just before 5 pm. Maybe a bit later. I drove into Killiney Court – as you apparently already know, I live there – and Ray and Warren were making their way to the lift. Ray broke off when he saw me and came over for a few words as I parked.”
    “Did you get the impression that Jones and Warren were falling out over something?”
    “Not at all. Ray gets a bit flushed in the face when he is angry. He was perfectly calm.”
    “What did he say to you?”
    “It was just some work he wanted me to do,” Stevens said unhelpfully.
    “Not personal?” Amos persisted.
    “Are you trying to imply something?” Stevens asked coldly.
    “You call Mr Jones ‘Ray’ and Mr Warren ‘Warren’. I am bound to enquire, therefore, if your relationship with Mr Jones went beyond work.”
    “No it didn’t. I just knew Ray – Mr Jones – better. I’d known him longer. And he was altogether a pleasanter person than Warren.”
    Apparently the video wizard was not going to get a handle to his name.
    Amos felt inclined to push the personal angle: “Perhaps Mr Jones felt otherwise. Perhaps he pressed his attentions.”
    The colour was rising in Joanna Stevens’ face but she was visibly controlling her anger. She’s a cool customer, Amos thought.
    “Ray was a business contact. I did a lot of work for him. He was also a not particularly close friend. And I mean, not particularly close.”
    “But he was on his own, his wife had left him, he was fancy free.”
    Stevens laughed.
    “Ray didn’t fancy his chances with me. I suppose Warren has been telling you this to take attention away from himself.”
    “And did the work Jones wanted doing have any bearing on your visit today?” Amos ventured with the benefit of the messages on Jones’s answering machine.
    “This is just a routine check of the books for the quarterly VAT return.”
    “I think it’s rather more than