Page 20 of Pressure Head
For a moment, I thought George Clooney must have decided to turn his back on the acting profession in favour of flogging houses to the middle classes. And, while he was at it, turned the clock back fifteen or twenty years.
“Good afternoon,” he greeted us in ringing, mellow tones.
“Hi,” I said, giving a daft little wave like I was a geeky teenager with a crush. I think I even blushed. Phil stared at me for a moment, which helped to bring me back to earth.
“What can I help you with?” Cloney Clooney asked, rising from his seat and extending a hand. “I’m Robin East, delighted to meet you.” He glanced shrewdly between me and Phil. “First house together, is it?”
If Phil had looked any stonier, Cock Robin would probably have taken his details and sold him to a family of four as a desirable property in need of some modernisation. “Mr. East, I was hoping I could ask you a few questions,” he ground out while I stifled a laugh.
Gorgeous brown eyes narrowed, looking no less sexy for all that. George Clooney playing some kind of legal eagle; he could cross-examine me anytime he wanted. “Press?”
“No. Private investigator.” Phil handed him a card. “I’m looking into Melanie Porter’s death.”
Robin slumped back in his chair, looking genuinely troubled. “God, what a nightmare. Such a sweet girl—I can’t believe anyone could do such a thing.” Now he was back in the ER role, and a patient had just died despite all his efforts . . . I had to stop doing this, I told myself firmly. The bloke might be sex on legs, but he was probably straight and definitely a suspect.
“You saw her the night she died, didn’t you?” The expressionless way Phil asked it sent shivers down my spine.
Robin’s eyes widened. “No! No, as I told the police, that wasn’t me. The phone call, that is. I was working late, yes, but I didn’t call Melanie.”
“So you were here alone?”
Was it my imagination, or did Robin’s cheeks start doing a faint impression of his namesake’s breast? “Yes, I’m afraid so. Quite alone.”
“Make any phone calls at all?”
“Ah, no. Catching up on paperwork, I’m afraid.” Robin fiddled distractingly with a pen on his desk. It was a Montblanc, which didn’t surprise me; I’d seen the prices in the window on the way in.
Phil nodded; I wasn’t sure what he was agreeing with. Maybe he just liked to nod at people he was interviewing, so they’d think he was on their side. “Did Melanie mention she was going out that night?”
“Not to me.” He put the pen down very deliberately—sensible; you don’t want to risk breaking a posh pen like that—but then his fingers started drumming on his stack of papers. I read the top one:Exceptional living space and stunning views make this superb barn conversion . . .I stopped reading before I could get to the price and have a heart attack.
“So who might she have talked to?”
Robin didn’t look like he wanted to tell us, which seemed weird as he’d presumably gone through exactly the same thing with the police already. “Well . . . there’s my secretary, of course.”
“Then maybe we should talk to her?”
His lips thinned. “Of course. Pip?”
I started as a colourless shape I’d been vaguely aware of at the corner of my field of view unfolded itself from a desk in the corner and walked towards us.
“This is Pip Cox, my secretary. Pip, this is Mr. Morrison, a private investigator, and . . .” He looked at me expectantly.
“Tom Paretski. Plumber.” I thought,What the hell, and handed her a card. “Call me any time. No job too small,” I added, mainly for Phil’s benefit. I smiled, but she didn’t return it—just ducked her head, hiding beneath a fringe of hair. Pip Cox? Anyone less like an apple it was hard to imagine. She was tall to the point of awkwardness—she had a good eight inches on me, and she wasn’t wearing heels—and bone-thin, with worried brown eyes and shoulder-length, unflatteringly cut mouse-brown hair. She wore a flared skirt, blouse, and cardigan that looked like they belonged to her gran and did nothing for her face or her figure.
“Miss Cox?” Phil said politely. “Is there anything you can tell us about that day?”
Her thin fingers played with a spot on the edge of her cardie she’d half worried into a hole already. “Not really,” she said in a voice I had to strain to hear, her eyes fixed on the carpet. “Melanie just said she’d be having a night in. With Graham.”
“She specifically mentioned that to you?”
Pip nodded.
“Did she sound like she was looking forward to it?”
Another nod.
“Graham mentioned she’d been working late a lot recently,” Phil said, obviously trying to coax her out of her shell a bit.
