Page 86 of Blow Down (The Plumber's Mate)
I typed quickly. “SORRY.”
“Christ. Can’t you just learn sign language or something? It’s like you’ve turned into Stephen Hawking.”
I typed, WHEELCHAIR SEX. KINKY, which sounded all kinds of wrong in that cold robotic voice.
“No wheelchair sex. And no beards either.” Phil squeezed my thigh. “I like you just the way you are.”
“UNABLE TO SPEAK,” I typed to cover for a stray bit of emotion that’d got in my eye.
Phil smirked. “Got it in one.”
When he opened the front door of his farmhouse to us, Alex Majors looked to me like he’d aged a decade or two in the last day and a half. And he hadn’t been in great shape to begin with. At this rate, we’d be going to his funeral by the end of the week. His long-limbed figure looked brittle and shaky, like a dead tree facing its final stiff breeze.
“Mr. Majors?” Phil said in his polite ex-copper voice. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
I’d expected Alex to bluster and counter with a sharp request to know what we thought we were doing and why we weren’t leaving it to the police. But he let us in without a word. Literally. It was a bit creepy, to be honest.
Maybe he was feeling guilty I’d been attacked on his property?
Phil coughed. “Perhaps we could sit down somewhere? Tom’s not long out of hospital.”
Well, if Alex hadn’t been feeling guilty before, I was betting he was now. He nodded curtly and led us into the kitchen, maybe because that’s where we’d sat the last time we’d seen him. Who knows? He waved us to sit.
Well, if we were going to make ourselves comfortable . . . I unwound my scarf and laid it on the back of the chair, then took off my sunglasses. Catching a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye, I looked up to see Alex staring at me in horror. Had he actually flinched when he’d seen me in my full glory?
There was an uncomfortable silence, which Phil broke by clearing his throat. “Mr. Majors, thanks for having us here. I’d just like to ask a few questions about the day Tom was attacked.”
Alex blinked several times, as if he was processing it, then nodded sharply. All this silence from his end was starting to seriously creep me out.
“Is your daughter in?” It wasn’t the opener I’d expected from Phil, but I guessed it was relevant. Alex might speak more freely without her in the house.
If, you know, he was planning on speaking at all.
After a pause that was just a little bit too long, Alex shook his head and finally spoke, his voice sounding almost as rusty as mine. “No. No, she’s . . . out.”
Out where? I wondered, but Phil didn’t press him on it.
“I understand you had to call a plumber in quite recently. Can I ask you what that was regarding?”
He looked surprised to be asked about that. Hadn’t the police asked him about it already? Or had they got the plumber’s name from Vi and asked him direct?
Huh. I wondered if Phil had thought of that. And if it was going to be our next stop.
“A leak.”
“Can I ask where, precisely?” Phil bored on.
In the metaphorical drilling sense, obviously. Nobody round that table was in any danger of falling asleep.
“It was . . . It was . . .” Alex stared at the kitchen wall like it might hold some clue to staving off his imminent nervous breakdown. He made a jerky movement, his arms pressing convulsively to his sides. Then he let out a long breath. “It was me,” he said in a voice that was almost calm.
“What was you?” Phil asked, barely controlled excitement in the way he leaned forward, like a greyhound that’s just realised it could be rabbit time.
“I . . .” Alex cleared his throat. “I killed Amelia. And attacked Tom.”
“Bugger me,” I croaked.
Well, after that, it all got a bit official. Police had to be called—Alex, of all people, insisted—and statements taken.
