Amendment of Life

by Catherine Aird

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Where was I?’

  ‘With two split laser beams,’ said Sloan.

  Paterson carried on, ‘Which, when suitably illuminated, shows a three-dimensional image which you can design yourself, of course.’

  ‘Well, I never,’ said Crosby. ‘Got a spoon, anyone?’

  ‘But’, admitted Paterson, ‘I would never have worked out why he did it. He never gave anyone a clue how he really felt about Margaret.’

  ‘Everyone was playing their cards very close to their chests,’ said Sloan.

  ‘Especially him,’ said Crosby. He drained his coffee. ‘We don’t know when he found out about his wife having had an affair, of course.’

  ‘Someone had got a dead man’s hand, all right,’ said Paterson. ‘Or don’t you play poker?’

  ‘Not as a game,’ said Sloan sedately. The poker the police played was of quite a different variety.

  Paterson jerked his head. ‘When do we get to get our van back?’

  Constable Crosby came into his own at last. ‘When we’ve checked the oil on the inside back floor with that in the motorbike Collins had hidden in it to get from Calleford to Aumerle Court and back. Those little machines may not be Harley-Davidsons but they aren’t at all bad.’

  ‘And the beauty of it,’ said Sloan, mindful of his friend from Traffic Division, ‘is that you can never see who’s on them when they’re wearing leathers and a crash helmet.’

  ‘You can get away with murder then,’ added Crosby, stirring his coffee.

  ‘Not quite,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan, closing his notebook with a snap. He permitted himself a wry smile. ‘Not now we’ve seen the light.’

  Also by Catherine Aird

  The Religious Body

  A Most Contagious Game

  Henrietta Who?

  The Complete Steel

  A Late Phoenix

  His Burial Too

  Slight Mourning

  Parting Breath

  Some Die Eloquent

  Passing Strange

  Last Respects

  Harm’s Way

  A Dead Liberty

  The Body Politic

  A Going Concern

  Injury Time (short stories)

  After Effects

  Stiff News

  Little Knell

  AMENDMENT OF LIFE. Copyright © 2002 by Catherine Aird. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  ISBN 0-312-29080-2

  First published in Great Britain by Macmillan An imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd.

  First St. Martin’s Minotaur Edition: January 2003

  eISBN 9781466870277

  First eBook edition: March 2014