by J F Straker
“Where’s your father?” I asked.
“He went out, just after you did.”
“Where to?”
“He didn’t say. He was a bit cross. How were the non-alcoholic cocktails?”
“Awful. If you’re not watching that I think you ought to go to bed.”
We both took glasses of water and went up to bed. I experienced a sort of sinking feeling. Even when Keith and I had really bad rows we always went to bed together and slept with our backs touching. We’d had a row this evening and now he wasn’t here. I lay awake for a while, listening for his car. I pushed back the covers, enjoying the slight cool breeze on the skin of my thigh, where my nightdress stopped. Oddly, despite Keith’s absence — perhaps even because of it — I felt the slight stirrings of sexual desire. I pushed his pillow to the far side of the bed and waited for the feeling to go away. Some time later, I drifted off to sleep.
Over night the air turned humid and by the time I arrived back at the Clocktower Hotel the following morning, I was already perspiring. The hotel reception area was deserted except for the red-haired receptionist, who was fanning her self with a copy of the Daily Express.
“Would you believe it? The air-conditioning’s broken down,” she said, as I passed. “Mr De Broux is doing his nut!”
I slipped into the Conference Hall at the back. This was going to be easy. Just make a few notes of the salient points of the speeches, then pad out the story with observations on the packed and attentive audience, bursts of appreciative applause, etc. Mr Heslop said I was a good “bread-and-butter” reporter; I was always careful to spell people’s names correctly and I got verbs in my sentences — well, most of them. What he was really saying was that I’d never uncover Watergate, but I’d do for the Tipping Herald. Looking around the softly-lit Conference Hall, alive with gently flapping agenda papers, and remembering last evening’s debacle, I thought perhaps I’d better be satisfied with that.
“And now,” announced a new speaker, “we’re pleased to be able to show you a film from America. It shows how a community in a very poor area of Chicago —”
A pall of cigar smoke had descended on the back row of seats. I got up. There was to be a discussion of the film after the coffee break so I’d soon pick up what it had been about, and now I was too hot and uncomfortable to concentrate. On my way out I passed the message board, and noticed that the turquoise note had disappeared — had it meant anything to “M”? I wanted fresh air, but the main doorway was blocked by men in overalls unloading dusty boxes and pieces of piping.
“You can’t leave them there!” called the redhead, frantically, looking around as though she feared the wrath of Mr De Broux.
“We’re not leaving ‘em, love!” called one of the men reassuringly, and promptly left, accompanied by his mates.
The redhead looked despairingly heavenwards. I gave her a sympathetic smile and considered hitching up my skirt and climbing over the obstruction. I decided against it. At the rear of Reception were double doors marked “Fire Exit”, which ought to lead out into the open. I had to put quite a bit of muscle into opening them. They gave with a crash on to the yard at the back of the hotel. A strong odour of decaying vegetable matter filled the air, emanating from an enormous overfilled dustbin, and I suddenly remembered that I’d forgotten to empty the bin in my kitchen. Oh damn, I thought, why can’t anyone ever do anything around the house except me? And that’s when I saw him, hanging around on the fire escape. Literally, I mean. By his neck. His feet dangled almost directly above my head, one floor up. He was wearing new black stick-on soles on brown soled shoes, and that’s what stopped me screaming. You don’t scream when you look at a pair of stick-on soles. He was swaying a bit in an air current, his dead fingers stiff and white at his sides.
“Oh God,” I said aloud, but very quietly. “Oh God!” I’d have to go up and have a look. I wasn’t a housewife now, but a reporter, and I’d have to go up there. The metal of the fire escape was warm and flaky, in need of a coat of paint. My legs carried me leadenly upwards, each wooden crump of my sandals carrying me closer. He was hanging from the landing beneath the Clocktower and I stopped opposite him, my hand to my mouth. It was the attractive young man in whom both Sylvester Munroe and the dark-haired girl had been interested. He looked very different now. Blue eyes wide-open, fixed, expressionless — mouth crookedly open too, a trickle of dried froth, like a slug’s trail, running down the chin. His face was an odd greyish-yellow suffused with purple from the neck up, where the rope held him. Instinctively I waved a fly away from his cheek. Beginning to feel decidedly queasy, I forced myself to read his name badge — Michael Stoddart, Teacher. A voice inside my head declared in sombre tones, like those of a railway announcer: “You are looking at the work of a murderer”.
If you enjoyed Death on a Sunday Morning check out J F Straker’s other books here: Endeavour Press - the UK’s leading independent publisher of digital books.
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Also in the Inspector Pitt Detective series:
Postman’s Knock
A Will To Murder
The Detective Johnny Inch series:
Tight Circle
Dead Letter Day
Death Mask
Also by J F Straker:
Death on a Sunday Morning
Motives for Murder
Death of a Good Woman
Pick up the Pieces
Dead Man Walking
The Shape of Murder
A Man Who Cannot Kill
Miscarriage for Murder
Murder for Miss Emily
Final Witness
Hell is Empty
A Choice of Victims
Arthur’s Night
A Gun to Play With
Ricochet
Swallow Them Up
Countersnatch
Another Man’s Poison
A Coil of Rope
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