Nigel tries, bless him, but his timing lets him down. We all stopped.
He turned to DC Maddison. ‘Maggie, how many menopausal women does it take to change a light bulb?’
‘I don’t know, Nigel. Please tell me.’
‘Three.’
‘How do you work that out?’
‘No, you’re supposed to say? “Why three?”’
‘Oh, sorry. Why three?’
‘BECAUSE I SAY SO!’ he yelled.
I smiled — it wasn’t bad, for him — but I was alone.
‘Very funny,’ Maggie stated. ‘Tell me, how many menopausal men would it take to change the same light bulb?’
‘I don’t know,’ he obligingly replied.
‘Ten.’
‘Why ten?’
‘It’s just a fact of life, Nigel. Just a fact of life.’
Sparky decided to join in. ‘I don’t understand all these silly jokes about light bulbs,’ he told us. ‘About a year ago I was in Sainsbury’s and I saw a man with one arm changing a light bulb with no trouble at all.’
‘You mean…single-handed?’ I said.
‘Exactly. No trouble at all.’
‘How did he manage that?’ Nigel wondered.
The merest twitch of a mouth corner betrayed Sparky’s triumph. He said, ‘He just showed them his receipt, same as anybody else would.’
CHAPTER NINE
One of the hill farmers chose that very morning to transport twenty tons of hay from the outskirts of Heckley to his barn up on the moors, so I was stuck in the half-mile procession that followed his tractor and trailer most of the way, bits of dry grass swirling in his wake like confetti. It’s a sign of a hard winter when they stock up with hay. I was ten minutes late when I parked outside Broadside and Lisa would be worried I wasn’t coming, if she remembered I was supposed to be. The big gate was half open, but I left the car outside. The gate swung shut on well-oiled hinges and the galvanised catch held it there, like a man-trap gripping an ankle.
A lilac Toyota MR2 stood outside one of the garages, with ‘Lisa Davis Agency’ and a phone number emblazoned on the side. It pays to advertise.
The front door of the bungalow was ajar. I knocked and pressed the bell, simultaneously. After about forty- five seconds I repeated the exercise.
‘Mrs Davis!’ I shouted through the gap.
No reply. I eased the door open a little and called again. ‘Lisa! Are you there?’
There was a movement in the shadows at the far end of the hallway. I pushed the door wide to admit more light, and saw the parrot on the floor, waddling towards me.
‘Lisa!’ I yelled.
The macaw was nearly on me. When I’d told Sparky about it he said they cost about two thousand quid, and this one looked bent on freedom.
‘Good boy,’ I said, followed by, ‘LISA!!!’
It kept coming, picking up each foot with the deliberation of a deep-sea diver, the long tail swishing from side to side on the carpet. I stepped inside and tried shooing it back, but it wasn’t having any.
I closed the door behind me, and a few seconds later the bird had me pinned against it. That’s when I did the bravest deed of my career. I pulled the sleeve of my jacket over my fist and offered my arm to it, like that hapless fool at the dog-handling centre who spends his working days rolling about under a slavering Alsatian. The macaw gently gripped the material in a beak that looked as if it came from Black and Decker’s R and D department and decorously placed one foot on my arm. Its claws went straight through to the skin as it juggled for balance, then it stepped aboard with the other foot and the pressure eased a fraction. I stood up, the bird wobbling alarmingly, but it may have been me. I had a sudden panic attack as I realised why so many pirates wore eye-patches.
Parrots like to climb, and that means upwards. Unfortunately that’s in lesson two, and I was still struggling with the first. I should have raised my arm, but I didn’t. The bird pulled its way up my sleeve like a rock climber — beak, claw, claw, beak, claw, claw — until it reached the back of my neck. I stood there, bent over like Quasimodo meets Long John Silver, and wailed, ‘Lisa! Help! Please!’
But no help came. You’re in this on your own, Priest, I thought, and slouched towards the door into the lounge, where the bird’s stand was. The door was open, the room much as I’d seen it before, except for some magazines strewn on the floor. Fashion and gossip. It was easy for me to read them because my eyes were pointing downwards. I sidled against the perch and made jerking movements to encourage the bird in that direction. It banged its beak against the bell once or twice and stepped off my neck, on to the perch. I straightened my back gratefully and said, ‘Phew! Good boy.’ I was speaking to myself.
The poor bird’s food tray was empty, so I gave it an apple from a bowl on a low table. The macaw held it down with a foot and its beak carved a great wedge out of it as easily as a spoon passes through a bowl of custard. I’d had a narrow squeak.
But where was Lisa?
I was in the hall, calling her name, when my foot kicked something. I looked down and saw a mobile phone lying there. The room opposite was the kitchen, where she’d entertained Annabelle. Next was a dining room, then two bedrooms straight out of a film set and a third done out as an office. This was where Justin kept his trophies and souvenirs. I’d have liked to have studied them but this wasn’t the time. The last door, I presumed, was the bathroom. I knocked, and pushed the door with the tip of my knuckle. It swung back, revealing a white and gold suite but not much else. I wasn’t in the mood for gathering ideas about interior decoration.
So where was she? I shouted her name again, for no sensible reason.
Surely there’s another bathroom, I thought, probably en suite with a bedroom. I went back to the biggest room and stepped on to the thick shaggy carpet. The curtains were closed, so I put the light on.
In an alcove was another door, slightly ajar. ‘Are you there, Lisa?’ I called, softly, but there was no answer. I placed the knuckle of my first finger against the door and slowly pushed it open.
This was Lisa’s bathroom. A large Victorian bath stood in the middle of the room, and she was in it.
Her throat had been cut.
Her head lolled sideways, face as white as the porcelain, and one knee was drawn up. She looked like a discarded Barbie doll, with another mouth where there shouldn’t have been one, trapped in a bowl of strawberry jelly.
I reached a finger down towards the surface of the water, smoother than a newly opened tin of paint, and saw its reflection coming up to meet it. A drip fell from the tap, plinking into the surface and sending a single ripple arcing outwards, so a wave of distortion passed through the image, a momentary glitch on the TV screen. The water was cold.
A warbling noise startled me. After a moment’s confusion I realised it was my mobile phone. I took it from my pocket and said ‘Priest,’ into it.
‘Hello, Hinspector Priest,’ Sparky greeted me in his music hall Yorkshireman voice. ‘This is ’Eckley po-leece station. Could you cum back quickly becoss we’ve got a murder for you to investigate.’
I stared down at her. No matter what I thought of her morals she’d been a good-looker. She’d run her own business and successfully managed Justin’s affairs. But she’d loved life just a little too much for her own good. Her hair was dry except for where it dangled into the water and capillary action had carried its dark stain upwards a little way.
‘I know, Dave,’ I mumbled into the mouthpiece. ‘I’m already there. Believe me, I’m already there.’
I was sitting on the wall when Les Isles arrived, fifteen minutes later. There were no hay-wagons to slow his
