Through a Narrow Door (17 page)

Janine, tearing her eyes away from the flowers with something of an effort, ran to the greenhouse tucked neatly away in one corner, and came back, not with a pair of
secateurs
, but with an old, sharp, garden knife. Dragging the white plastic garden chair upright again, she got up and hacked desperately at the twine, trying to keep from looking at the once-beautiful woman’s face, now so near her own.

Hillary grunted as the full weight of Jenny Cleaver suddenly slumped over her shoulders, and Janine jumped off the chair and helped Hillary lay the woman down flat on the patio.

‘Call for an ambulance,’ Hillary yelled, and began
immediate
CPR.

But it was too late.

Jenny Cleaver was dead.

DI Mike Regis paused in the open doorway of the pub and looked around. It was nine o’clock, and the evening sun was coating everything a mellow yellow. At the bar, he spotted Hillary and her team, chatting with the barmaid.

The Boat was Hillary’s local, and just where he expected Hillary to be celebrating after closing her case. Scuttlebutt travelled fast, and as he walked over to congratulate her, he noticed how particularly fine she was looking tonight. She’d changed into a soft floating blue-and-white skirt, and matching powder blue jacket, that left a lot of skin showing under her throat. She was wearing a pair of flat white sandals, and a delicate pearl-drop pendant, that nestled in the valley between her breasts.

‘Look out everybody, its Vice,’ Janine Tyler said
sardonically
as Mike sidled up beside her and slipped on to the barstool. Regis nodded across at Mel, who nodded back.

Tommy Lynch sighed over his empty pint of beer as he spotted Mike Regis. He’d always suspected the Vice man
had his sights set on Hillary, and now that he was divorced and free, there was nothing to stop him making his move.

But he didn’t have to stay around to watch it.

‘Guv, I’ve got to be off,’ he said, and when Hillary nodded and turned to smile goodbye, he held up his hand in a general farewell.

In three days’ time, he’d be gone. He wondered when he’d see any of them again. Then he thought of Jean, waiting at home for him, probably with a meal cooked and ready, and hurried out into the night.

As he pulled away, he failed to notice DCI Paul Danvers climbing out of his car.

At the bar, Mel and Janine were making eyes at each other, and Hillary wasn’t surprised when they, too, slipped off early. Mel met Danvers in the doorway, and for a moment they indulged in a mutual bit of back-slapping. Janine lingered long enough to watch Paul Danvers approach the bar and smiled wickedly. Unless she was very much mistaken, the shit was about to hit the fan. She supposed Hillary Greene would be flattered to have two men fighting over her. She knew she would be.

Hillary, however, saw her boss approaching, and felt her heart sink. ‘Sir,’ she said, starting to stand and alerting Mike to Danvers’s arrival.

‘Please, don’t get up,’ Danvers said, with a smile. ‘And I’ve told you before, call me Paul.’

‘Paul,’ Hillary said flatly. ‘DI Mike Regis. Mike, DCI Paul Danvers. Mike works Vice, guv. You’ve met?’

Mike Regis held out his hand and the two men briefly shook. ‘I was just congratulating Hillary on closing her case,’ Mike said, catching the barmaid’s eye and ordering a half of shandy.

‘Yes, she’s got good instincts,’ Paul said, taking the bar stool next to her. ‘I’m still not sure how she knew it was the wife, not the husband, who’d killed the boy.’

‘Heard she killed herself,’ Regis said. ‘Never good when it ends that way.’

‘No. For a start, you never get all the answers,’ Paul agreed. ‘For instance, why didn’t she just keep paying the boy his money? We know from her bank records that she
had
been paying him regularly.’

‘I think I know the reason for that,’ Hillary said, and went on to explain about Jenny Cleaver’s ambitions for a
promotion
that would see her heading for New York. ‘Thing is, her boss was a very religious woman, a Jehovah’s Witness. I think she simply got scared that Billy would tell her, just out of spite. Either that, or perhaps he taunted her about being gay. She probably begged him for the photos and maybe she just snapped when he asked her for more money. I don’t think she went there that day to kill him, because she didn’t take a weapon with her. The shears were just to hand. She probably struck out wildly and there it was.’

Both men were silent as they pictured the scene. A distraught woman, and a dead boy.

‘You told his parents?’ Regis asked gently, and Hillary nodded. ‘I walked across the moment the ambulance arrived to take her away. Aston Lea’s a tiny place. They saw it coming and were watching from the door. I had to tell them why Jenny Cleaver did it, as well.’

Regis saw the tight look of pain cross her face and reached across to take her hand and give it a squeeze.

Danvers, watching, drew in a sharp breath. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized he had any real competition. Slowly, he sipped his own drink, a mineral water flavoured with kiwi, and turned on the stool. The movement bought his knee closer to Hillary’s.

‘I was wondering if you wanted to go out for a drink again sometime,’ Danvers said quietly. ‘I really enjoyed it, the other night. And now that the case is closed, and the pressure’s off, perhaps we could go out for a meal, even?’

Hillary felt Mike Regis tense beside her. She reached for her own drink, a vodka and tonic, and tossed it back in one gulp.

And as Mike Regis and Paul Danvers looked at one
another across the top of her chestnut head, Hillary waved her glass in the air. ‘Another one,’ she told the barmaid grimly. ‘Make it a double. And this time, forget the tonic.’

A NARROW ESCAPE

ON THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW

NARROW IS THE WAY

BY A NARROW MAJORITY