Pain of Death Read Free

the pile of papers that his accountant is screaming for: management figures for his property portfolio. A part of him wishes he had sold up when his City friend of old, Finbar Hare, had urged him to do so – but what would he do with the money?
    ‘Have you got a minute, sir?’ Josie Chancellor helps herself to the chair opposite Staffe and begins to read the preliminary forensic findings from the tunnel. As she reads, she winds strands of her shoulder-length, smooth brown hair around her fingers. ‘Only one blood type. Kerry Degg’s.’
    ‘And no signs of a placenta?’ says Staffe.
    ‘… Not a sausage. There’s no sign of a birth down there. The scene was cleaned up, spick and span. We’re checking all the hospitals. But what Sean said is true, sir. Kerry Degg is on our missing-persons list. From the tenth of January.’
    ‘That doesn’t make what he said true. I assume he was the one who reported her missing.’
    ‘He did.’ She pushes the papers across the desk and leans back, brushing her hair from her face. ‘Why’ve you got it in for Sean Degg?’
    ‘I’ve got it in for whoever put that woman down there. For whoever knocked her up and abandoned her. I’ve seen nothing to tell me he didn’t do those things. Unless you know who else might have.’
    ‘She’s the promiscuous one – by the sound of it. She’s the mother who let her kids go into care and got herself knocked up again.’
    ‘If there’s two sides to this story, let’s hope she gets to tell hers.’
    ‘She’s a victim. It doesn’t mean he can’t be, too.’
    Staffe smiles, stands up. ‘Where d’you get all that wisdom from, Chancellor? Let me buy you a drink.’
    ‘Have you forgotten?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘It’s Pulford’s party tonight. His new place.’ Josie shakes her head slowly, smiling. ‘You should know, you used to be his landlord. Surely you’re coming.’
    ‘Of course I’m coming,’ says Staffe, lying. ‘Doesn’t mean we can’t have a quick sharpener, though.’
    ‘Where are you suggesting we go?’
    ‘You’ll see,’ said Staffe, dialling reception. ‘Jom, have you got that search warrant for the Deggs’s place? Good.’
    ‘You said a drink.’
    ‘And I meant it.’
    ‘But Sean won’t be there. He’s gone back to the hospital.’
    On the way out, Staffe picks up the pile of paper for his properties, tugs out the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet with the toe of his Chelsea boot, dropping in all the accounts and leases and variations. It makes a metallic thud and he kicks the drawer shut, fast. As he leaves, he feels life flutter in his chest. The prospect of the ordeal ahead makes him glow, like a chance meeting with someone you secretly adore. This reaction is not something he admires in himself.
    *
    The Earl Marshall sits as proud as it can in the shadow of the mid-rise, late-Victorian Limekiln tenements. The Limekiln Tower looms above. The pub hasn’t been knocked about with any vigour in over a hundred years. The rooms are separated by etched-glass panels and the spring sun floods in through smeared, ceiling-high windows. The swagged, heavy drapes look like they haven’t been cleaned since they buried Queen Victoria, and the red-topped, veneered tables are sticky with glass rings and weeks of spilled beer. There is a smell of dog and the punters are sitting down, rather than standing at the bar. They sit on their own and look into their pints and chasers, or at their shoes, or into the racing pages.
    Sean Degg, however, is talking animatedly to a tall, sharp-dressed man ten years his junior, Ross Denness. Sean Degg doesn’t know that in a recent phone call, Ross fingered the Earl as Degg’s local. And to preserve this deceit, Denness takes his leave, edging away from Degg, towards the door. He will wait for Staffe in a car down on Jellicoe, the other way from Degg’s place on Flower and Dean.
    Josie says, ‘How did you know he’d be here?’
    Staffe nods towards the man leaving the pub