Page 44 of The Dead Come to Stay
“With...?” Green asked. “Do we know what the murder weapon is?”
MacAdams did not relish explaining the coconut problem. “Something heavy,” he said, “in a downward blow.”
Chapter 15
Jo made it back home by five thirty in the afternoon. She needed fresh clothes for the trip to York, which meant she needed to do laundry, and halfway throughthatit occurred to her that dinner would need to happen. She spend a good ten minutes staring at dairy whip and cheese slices before deciding a trip into town might be necessary. She could probably count on Gwilym to bring her some takeaway, but that seemed an unfair side quest since she’d already sent him after research. He may very well be back in Wales, since that was Augustus John’s place of origin... one couldn’t findeverythingin Roberta’s archive. So, onward to Sainsbury’s.
It wasn’t busy on a Monday evening—almost empty, in fact. Jo had a passing worry that they may not be open but the door was unlocked and the lights still on.Just the basics, she told herself. Milk, eggs, bread, veg. Except the prospect of cooking something no longer appealed. She wandered to the cheater section of pre-prepared meals and was just choosing between crispy potatoes and chicken pasta when a familiar voice asked about razors.
The man wasn’t, it turned out, speaking to Jo. MacAdamsstood at the end of the aisle, shopping basket over one arm and a minibottle of mouthwash in his free hand.
“Aisle four,” said shelf stock. Except it wasn’t. Jo waited for the clerk to wander away, then set about course correction.
“End of aisle six, actually,” she said. MacAdams looked up with what, for him, counted as a startle response. “Used to be in four, but they rearranged things in March.”
“Oh. That’s—I don’t even know why I’m surprised you know.”
“I hate it when they rearrange things,” Jo admitted. She shopped only one store for a reason: the comfort of knowing frozen peas were where you last left them. “I had to rememorize the place in April. It’s annoying, because I have to overwrite the original orientation—and some things didn’t change—so it’s sorting out which memory map is the right one.” She pointed at her head, as though this better explained it. “Sorry. You didn’t ask.”
“Well, I would have.” MacAdams dropped the mouthwash into the basket. “And I do need the razors. And dinner.”
“Same,” Jo said. “I was just in Newcastle.” For some reason, this caused a sort of face cramp in MacAdams’s wooden features.
“Yes. I know. I saw you there. You had... dogs.”
Now it was Jo’s turn to be surprised. “Why wereyouin Newcastle?” she asked. “The dogs are Arthur’s.”
“Arthur...?”
“My uncle’s widow—It’s a long story.”
“Do you like shepherd’s pie?” MacAdams asked. Jo was good for a non sequitur but this was unexpected even for her.
“Yes?”
“We can get two, then. And you can tell it.”
MacAdams kindly paid for both pies—and Jo returned the favor by reminding him to buy the razors he’d come for. They’d arrived at a tacit agreement that baking them at his house made more sense than trekking back to Netherleigh, so Jo trekked herown groceries into his kitchen and camped them in MacAdams’s mostly empty refrigerator. A SMEG model. There was a nice, weird word—just slightly perverse. Jo pocketed it for later use.
“It’ll be a minute,” MacAdams said, firing up the oven. Jo perched on a bar stool at the kitchen island. She’d sat there before, just over a year ago. The view had changed.
“New curtains,” she said.
“Yes, they are.” They were yellow and MacAdams gave them an appraising glance before sitting down on the opposite stool. “Arthur and his dogs, you say.”
“Right. He and my uncle were—I don’t know what you call it here. Common-law married? Unofficial, but long term.”
“I thought your uncle Aiden lived in York?”
“He did! Sort of. Mainly hisaddresslived in York. He mostly stayed in Newcastle. I didn’t know anything about it until yesterday; he emailed me. There were letters, um, left to me.” Jo had not actually had time to process the various feels regarding all that and didn’t want to get too near the subject. “Anyway, I stayed in the guest room and then walked the dogs to meet Chen Benton-Li; she’s the one who repaired Evelyn’s painting.”
“That’s a lot of new information.”
“You have no idea,” Jo groaned slightly. “Where did you happen to see me?”
“Near Hammersmith and Company. It’s the firm Ronan Foley worked for; I believe Green tried to get your attention,” MacAdams said—and Jo made the connection.
“Never, ever, ever, honk at me,” she said.
