Page 84 of Blow Down (The Plumber's Mate)
I scribbled down Not his fault and held it up.
Gary made an exaggeratedly doubtful face. “Killing Amelia, I can understand. She did have her moments of letting the inner bitch shine through. But why would anyone want to murder you?” He dug in to his ice cream as if he thought the answer might be at the bottom of the bowl.
Phil huffed. “All this misinformation the papers have been spreading about his talent. Maybe someone’s worried he’s been talking to the victim about who did her in.”
Yeah. Maybe they wanted to send me over to join her so we could have a proper chinwag.
“Mm.” Gary licked his spoon. I was fairly sure he wasn’t making it look suggestive on purpose. “But does anyone really believe in all that? I mean, enough to kill somebody over?”
I shrugged and wrote Safe > Sorry.
“Is murder ever a safe activity? Obviously, I bow to your superior knowledge.”
I rolled my eyes at him, but he had a point. If Vi had opened the door just a little bit earlier, she might have seen the whole thing.
Unless of course she was the one who’d done it, in which case she’d seen it all anyway . . . Nah. I just couldn’t believe it. Not her.
Phil’s spoon clinked against the side of his bowl. “Lance Frith is one of the faithful. Not so much Arlo Fenchurch, unless he’s protesting too much. Not sure about Alex Majors.”
Toby? I held up, more or less as a joke.
Phil gave me a look. “Plenty of atheists would say he already believes in stuff that doesn’t exist. How far a stretch is it from God to ghosts?”
Gary nodded. “I’ve often felt something of a tingling in my bell tower. And, of course, a guilty conscience can make a man believe all kinds of things.”
“You’d know,” I tried saying. After the ice cream, it actually wasn’t too bad.
“But are you certain, then, it was an inside job?” Gary went on.
I looked at Phil.
He hmphed. “The attack on Tom suggests so. Although it’s not totally impossible that Violet Majors is right, and he was followed to her house.”
I shook my head. “I was halfway home. Stopped for her phone call. Did a U-turn. I’d have noticed.” And yeah, it was way too early to give the vocal chords that much of a workout. I grabbed the tub of ice cream to fill my bowl up again before Phil and Gary scoffed the lot, the greedy gits.
Gary was giving me a pained look that confirmed my voice had sounded as bad as it’d felt. I glanced at Phil and wished I hadn’t—he had that tightness to his jaw that meant he wasn’t a happy bunny.
Shit. I grabbed my notebook. Find out who nicked your hobby horse? I wrote, and held it up in front of Gary’s nose.
Gary’s face lit up. “Ooh no, but it’s causing a terrible scandal. The side is taking sides. Have you reconsidered giving it a little fondle?”
I shook my head.
“Well, if you change your mind, we’ll be forever in your debt. The side is in turmoil. My poor sweetie pie says he hardly knows who to trust anymore.”
I supposed trust was actually probably fairly important when you were dancing around waving bloody great sticks all over the shop.
“Now,” Gary said brightly. “On to more cheerful things. A little birdie told me you two have finally set a date for the wedding.”
He beamed at me expectantly. I nodded. Cherry must’ve blabbed.
Phil cleared his throat. “Second Friday in July.”
“So much classier to marry on a weekday, I always feel. Although I must say,” Gary carried on with a pout, “I’m wounded not to have been the first person you told.”
I looked helplessly at Phil. “We haven’t told the parents yet,” he said, which was a better excuse than I could have come up with.
“And what about names? Your own, after the ceremony, I mean, unless there is some other news you’ve been keeping mum about? I do hope this isn’t a shotgun wedding.” Gary chortled. He and Darren were now cheerfully double-barrelled. Hyphenated for all eternity.
