Page 32 of Gone in the Night
She shook her head. ‘I’ll do it, least I can do.’
Taking another biscuit, she left them to go to the blue room, which looked as if a piñata had exploded everywhere. Picking up the wastepaper bin, she began scooping paper plates and crumbs into it. There were some curled-up cheese sandwiches on a paper plate that nobody had bothered to cover up, so she threw them in the bin as well. There were three cupcakes left and after making sure the only mess was on the floor, she sat down in one of the chairs and peeled back the wax wrapper on one of the cakes. Taking a huge bite, she sighed but her pleasure was short-lived when the door opened and Marc strode in.
‘Aha, just in time, I see, to snag a cake.’
Morgan pointed at the plate, swallowed and said, ‘There’s some stale sandwiches in the bin if you’re really hungry.’
Marc grimaced. ‘No, I’m good, a cake will do. What’s up then?’
She took another bite of her cake, asking herself if he really just asked her what’s up. Marc sat down opposite her, managed to tear the cake apart and stuff half of it into his mouth.
‘Wow, that was something.’
He grinned at her. ‘It was, I’m starving. Are we going to eat food at some point? It seems like hours since we had Amy’s tea party.’
‘I guess we could order pizza or something.’
‘Anything will do, as long as it’s hot. Any updates for me?’
Morgan realised he didn’t know about Jack because that was a huge update. Not sure if she should tell him or leave it to Ben. He leaned across the table on his elbows, shoved the rest of his cake in his mouth and sighed. When he’d finished chewing, he pointed at her.
‘Come on, where did you and Ben disappear to? Cain and Stan have not long come out of interview with the delightful Eddy Lightburn, who by all accounts is a reformed character, which I think is a load of old tosh, but I guess we have to give him the benefit of the doubt until we find something that ties him to the crime scene.’
‘You think he did it?’
‘I don’t think he one hundred per cent did it, but I’d give him a fifty per cent chance of being guilty.’
‘We went to Amy’s house because Jack turned up there.’
Marc’s eyes were wide as he looked at her. ‘Was he giving her grief?’
She shook her head. She’d done it now, she may as well tell him the rest of it, and besides it would give Ben a bit of a breather if she took the flak for it.
‘No, he went to confess something to her. He looked awful, really rough.’
‘What? Come on, Morgan, you’re worse than Cain when he’s trying to make all the boring gossip he’s retained sound interesting, just spit it out.’
‘I don’t really know if it’s my place to say anything.’
He laughed. ‘That’s quite the understatement; you normally have no problem speaking your mind.’
She couldn’t argue with him there; she’d given him what for at the briefing earlier. ‘Jack was dating Sharon Montgomery; he slept at her house the night before she went camping, and Ben has gone to speak to Madds about it.’
‘Oh Lord, for real? Jack, one of our officers, was dating the murder victim?’
‘Sorry.’
Marc leaned back in the chair. ‘Do you think he killed her?’
‘No, he said she picked him up from the pub, he went back to her house with her and slept there. He left her the next morning to get her stuff ready; I was going to pull up his duties, but Madds will know if he turned in for work anyway.’
‘He was giving a reason for his prints being in her vehicle and home.’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘Wow, this is just not what I was expecting at all. What did Ben say?’
‘His words were something along the lines of, “we need to figure out Jack’s moral compass”.’
