Page 8 of The Dead Come to Stay
“Fine! Run it for fifty. It’s police business.”
“I’m gonna ask Auntie,” she said, but very happily ran his card on her mobile register. He watched her bounce away then partly closed the tent flap for a bit of privacy. Jo—well, Jo drank tea.
“That’s a lot of sugar,” she said.
“Helps the nerves—” MacAdams began, but she finished for him.
“L-Theanine, amino acid in black tea. It induces a sense of relaxed calm and lowers cortisol levels. The sugar just releases serotonin into the bloodstream,” she said, swallowing. “But you don’t need quite this much.”
“Thank you for that.”
“Your welco—Actually, thankyou. My hero and everything.”
“Don’t speak too soon,” MacAdams muttered, pulling out his notebook. Jo put the cup back on its saucer.
“Oh. The dead body,” she said. MacAdams scratched his chin with the end of his pencil.Roberta. No doubt the whole town would know all about it by day’s end.
“Yes, a body was found. And I have some additional bad news,” he said.
Jo nodded before delivering the matter-of-fact pronouncement: “It’s my lodger, isn’t it?”
***
Jo didn’t remember what she’d said on stage. Or, rather, she remembered the material, just not her performance of it. She’d never had a fear of public speaking—if anything, she excelled at it in school. Just not for the reasons people thought. Up there, she wasn’t making small talk or even conversing with another person. It was just Jo, her special interest and the irresistible desire to share it. While in the middle of it, a sort of synethesia took over; she could see the arc of her story lit up by animated pictures, each fact bursting with color and light. When it was over, she felt a bit punch-drunk and was, as a result, completely unprepared for a people onslaught after stepping off the stage.
When Jo had seen MacAdams making his way through the crowd, her immediate response had been one of wild relief. Second, and upon its heels, though—a feeling of presentiment. There was a body, Gwilym had said. A man’s body, in a red shirt, Roberta had added. Now that the post-speech haze had lifted, everything else she’d been thinking between events came pouring out.
“This morning! I just thought it was so early, he must stillbethere. But I should have checked!”
MacAdams had not moved since she started spilling details, and still seemed in suspended animation. When she stuttered to a halt, however, he put both hands in the air.
“You had no reason to think anything was wrong—”
“But I did. Because of the car,” Jo interrupted.
“What car?”
“There wasn’t one.”
MacAdams opened his mouth, shut it again, then fetchedhimselfa cup of sugar tea and slugged it like a shot. When he returned he picked up the pencil and notebook.
“Can we start over, please? You started in the middle of a conversation we weren’t having yet.” He paused with forced bemusement. “Again.Yetagain.”
Jo knew he was trying to put her at ease and failing alot.Jo took a breath and red-penciled the narrative in her head.
“He booked late in the afternoon, but didn’t turn up until just after ten. In the storm. He was soaked.”
“Did he seem agitated?” MacAdams asked.
Jo shut her eyes. She could see him so plainly, framed against her doorway and backed by sheets of rain. She’d thought of surprised pigeons and body snatchers. Those did not seem like good examples.
“Great Expectations—you’ve read it, right? Mr. Pocket keeps trying to lift himself up by his own hair. That’s how he looked.”
“Could we try a suitable adjective?” MacAdams asked. Jo’s nose twitched.
“Surprised? Harried? He thought it was a self-catering cottage. And he didn’t come to Abington for the gardens at all—just on business, he said. But when I told him about it, he said he’d be there, wearing a fancy red shirt.”
“And when was the last you saw of him?”
