Behind Closed Doors by Michael Donovan Read Free Book Online

drifted over the trees behind me and killed the last of the light. In response, the glass around the Slaters’ front door lit up. Someone was home. But the rest of the house stayed dark. I waited another fifteen minutes and decided to call it a day. I’d evaporated two and a half hours of Gina Redding’s money without even dipping my toe. Looked like we’d been lumbered with the quietest family in the city.
    Just as I reached for the choke another car came up the lane and passed in a silent rush. A light metallic Lexus, its driver invisible. Fifty yards on the Lexus turned into the Slaters’ driveway and swung round in front of the garage. When the driver got out the light and distance worked against detail but I got an impression of a tall, casually-dressed man. No business suit. No briefcase.
    The man was expected. The house door opened before he reached it and a woman’s figure held it while he entered.
    No embrace. No welcome home. The man strode past without any sign he’d seen her. The door closed and the show was over. Maybe affection was not the Slater family strong point. Assuming these were the Slaters.
    On a hunch I flipped the radio to a music station and waited another thirty minutes.
    Bad hunch. The guy didn’t reappear. The house looked like it was settled in for the night. The family were probably sat around EastEnders , or maybe Father was helping Rebecca with her studies while Mother worked at her embroidery. Blissfully unaware that they had London’s hottest detective sitting on their doorstep.
    Life is spooky.
    At seven thirty I gunned the engine and left them to it.
    I reviewed what I’d achieved. Distilled it down to having avoided the rush hour. Not something to trivialise. I headed towards Cricklewood, killed the radio and slotted in a Gil Evans tape. Added my own rendition to the opening of ‘Little Wing’. Drops of rain hit the windscreen. Drizzle turned into a downpour. I pulled in for petrol on the Edgware Road. The rain sparkled like crystal beyond the fluorescents as I pumped unleaded and watched the traffic, listened to the breath of the city hissing on wet tarmac. I was back in Battersea by eight twenty and Lady Luck combined with the Frogeye’s dimensions to get me a parking space outside my apartment. When I climbed the stairs I detected more luck. An aroma of fried chicken and paprika was emanating from my doorway. I wasn’t expecting visitors. Maybe my fairy godmother had dropped in. I hoped she’d cooled the beer.
    Instead I found Arabel in the kitchen. I’d known it wasn’t my fairy godmother. That old crone had left home when I was six and hadn’t shown her sorry backside since. Luckily, Arabel’s backside made a spectacular substitute. I walked up behind her and got reacquainted with it to the extent possible when the owner is holding a frying pan that’s erupting like Vesuvius.
    â€˜Nice surprise,’ I stated. Arabel turned her head too quickly and caught my eyes on the pan instead of her. Pushed her rear against me in what was meant as a fend-off but had the opposite effect.
    â€˜Hey, babe,’ she yelled, ‘you’re gonna be wearing this chicken.’
    I wasn’t sure what she was offering but I backed off. She returned the pan to the gas and turned to fend me off some more. When we got our lips unglued she gave me a big ‘Wow’. And that smile.
    Wow!
    â€˜Thought you were working,’ I said.
    â€˜Someone asked a favour. Swapped for an early next week.’ Her skin was golden in the kitchen spots. The gold comes from mixing Anglo-Saxon and West Indian. I don’t know what mix had produced her brown-speckled eyes. They were pure Caribbean warmth – the thing I loved most as long as I kept a weather-eye for the tropical storms. Arabel got my arms untangled from her body, changed her mind and tangled them back. Her eyes were closed. Mine stayed on the frying pan.