The Camelot Code Read Free Page B

escape.
    ‘C’mon lady, open the door, or I’ll do it for you.’
    The slab of cheap, blue-painted MDF closes and reopens without the chain. A small woman in a short nightdress steps back so he can come in. She’s five six, a little plump and looks disorientated. Without make-up, her nose is Rudolph red and her long dark hair a mass of rats’ tails.
    ‘Sophie Hudson?’
    ‘Yeah. What’s this about?’
    ‘Lieutenant Fitzgerald, Washington Homicide. You work at Goldman’s in Kensington, right?’
    ‘Right.’ She’s quick enough to add together Homicide and Goldman and realize it equals something bad. ‘Is Mr Goldman okay?’
    Irish goes Hawkeye. Now is the very second a killer or accomplice has to put on the best performance of their life.
    ‘No, he’s not. And he never will be. I’m sorry to say, he’s dead.’ He holds back the rest of the details.
    Sophie’s hand goes up to cover her open mouth. ‘Oh, my God.’ She stretches out a bunch of fingers to the arm of a sofa, steadies herself and then sits.
    It seems she’s forgotten she’s in a short nightie and Irish sees more of a young woman than he’s done for many a year.
    The cop averts his eyes and walks to the back of the apartment. He runs water in the tiny galley kitchen and takes a tumbler to her.
    ‘Thanks.’ She looks dazed.
    Seconds pass before she takes a drink and puts the glass on a side table. She pulls a tissue from a pink box with flowers on it and blows.
    Irish can tell the cold is genuine. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t involved in the crime. Even killers and accomplices come down with flu. He glances at his notebook. ‘The answerphone in the store shows that you called Saturday around seven a.m. and said you were sick and couldn’t make it in.’
    She holds up a tissue. ‘Been dying most of the weekend.’ She is instantly horrified by her unintentional pun. ‘I’m sorry. What happened to Mr Goldman?’
    ‘He was murdered in his store.’
    He watches her face for twitches and her hands for tension. ‘So you were sick on Saturday but went in Friday. What time did you finish?’
    ‘A little after four. He sent me home early because of the cold.’ She bites a nail.
    ‘That was kind of him.’ Irish’s tone hints that he still needs to be convinced she’s telling the truth. ‘Did anything happen during the day that was different, or anything strike you as unusual in any way?’
    She hesitates and chews the last of a hangnail.
    ‘He said he had some business happening. I guess he was referring to the cross that he bought.’
    ‘What kind of cross? A Nazi cross? Wartime stuff?’
    ‘No. Mr Goldman was Jewish. He wouldn’t touch anything like that. This was Christian.’
    ‘Catholic Christian or just Christian Christian?’
    She gets to her feet. ‘I made a drawing of it.’ She goes to the back of her room and brings him a sheet of A3 notepaper from her bag.
    Irish regards it with scepticism. ‘Why did you sketch this?’
    She looks embarrassed. ‘Mr Goldman kept the cross from me and that made it intriguing. But he’s forgetful. He sent me to the safe to get an item for a customer and I saw it. Only a glance, but it was interesting, so I made the drawing. It looks kinda weird, don’t you think?’
    Irish isn’t thinking about the cross.
    He’d missed the safe.
    Hadn’t seen one anywhere. Searched behind the counter, wall panels, back rooms, everywhere.
    ‘You said “safe” – did you mean as in a lock-up box or a wall safe?’
    She smiles for the first time since she heard the knock on the door. ‘You couldn’t find it?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Mr Goldman would have been pleased. It’s not a regular safe. It’s fitted into a wall and hidden behind a panel in the grandfather clock.’

6
     
SAN MATEO, SAN FRANCISCO
     
    Ruth Everett waters a long, wide bed of flowers at the front of her twenty-acre ranch. Through the spray rainbow, she sees the battered station wagon of her older sister raising dust at the