Page 124 of Not That Ridiculous

Kevin fidgeted, almost jogging on the spot. He looked right at me for the first time since we’d been flirting up in my room. Our eyes held for all of one second before he glanced away.

I frowned.

“Charlie?” Katie Jones said. “Let’s get your overnight bag sorted and then you can get out of here, okay?”

“Sounds…good. Sounds good. And Phil. Um. Phil needs his stuff.”

“We can pack a bag for Phil. We’ll start with you.” She nodded at me encouragingly, her face sympathetic.

Katie had been coming to The Chipped Cup since she was a little girl. She liked strawberry frappes, white chocolate and cranberry cookies, and had been a little demon for running around and knocking empty trays off tables.

Somehow, she was now a confident professional in her twenties, about to go rifling through my underwear drawer because I wasn’t allowed into my room to pack before I was ejected because it was a crime scene.

Because of the dead cowboy in my wall.

Possibly four dead cowboys. Or…?

Were they all even cowboys? I grimaced.

Probably not.

When this had happened to Ray, the first one was dressed up in a seventies costume even though the body was supposedly dead long before the seventies rolled around. There was a second body, also in a costume although I never did hear the details on that one. The third was definitely a clown. I heard a lot about that. Adam saw it and fainted.

I rubbed my hands over my face, suddenly staggeringly tired, and started to give Katie a list. “Don’t you need to write it down?” I asked when she stood there, nodding.

She tapped the side of her head. “Got a memory palace up here,” she said.

I blinked.

“Go on,” she prompted me with a gentle smile. “Then I’ll go and get that lot, and you can get Phil’s things together.”

“Right.” I reeled off a list which I was fairly sure hit the important notes—clean boxers, toothbrush, work shirt and trousers for tomorrow—and headed over to Phil’s cupboard.

Expecting to get pounced on by Phil demanding a treat, I glanced around when I managed to get the door open without him trying to wedge himself inside. No Phil.

No Liam or Kevin, either.

I was alone in the kitchen apart from another constable. Presumably he was a Starbucks fan, because I didn’t recognise him from the coffee shop, and I recognised all my customers.

“Where’s Phil?” I said. “Where’s Kevin?”

The constable pointed over his shoulder. “Detective Chief Inspector Nash walked him out.”

Phil? No. Wait. “Kevin left?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“When you were talking to Jones.”

“But not like…? He didn’tleave-leave. Did he?”

The officer shrugged. “He went that way,” he said, and pointed towards the hall. “That’s all I know.”

I strode past him and headed out to the front of the house, grimacing at what I assumed was the forensics crew’s equipment stacked up by the stairs, the glare of powerful lights leaking out onto the landing, and the constant low hum of voices. I stood aside to let DS Patel past, and she sent me a distracted nod before jogging silently up the stairs.

Outside, Liam was crouched down on the doorstep, gently scrunching Phil’s ears.

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