Die of Shame by Mark Billingham Read Free Book Online Page A

the end of the day.’
    Tanner understood and, more than anything, she wanted to make the person she loved content, so she kept certain things – lots of things – to herself. It was tricky sometimes, especially on a day like the one she had just had. She had changed into a clean shirt and the spare skirt and jacket she kept at the office before leaving work, dropped the clothes she’d worn to the post-mortem off at the dry cleaner’s near the tube station. There was simply no disguising that smell and everything it meant.
    She pulled her purse out as she walked, opened it to make sure she had not lost the dry-cleaning ticket.
    It was odd, admittedly, having conversations that sometimes made her feel as though she might just as well be working at an accountancy firm or a call centre. But things were good at home and it wasn’t as though she herself had any desire to dwell on the more unpleasant aspects of the job. She wasn’t one of those coppers, the ones who wallowed.
    It worked, that was the main thing. You couldn’t argue with almost fifteen happy years together.
    ‘We must be doing something right,’ Susan would say.
    Coming through the front door, Tanner could hear the sound of the television in the front room. She dropped her bag and hung up her coat, then put her head around the door.
    It was one of those programmes on the Lifestyle channel. Houses and holidays.
    Susan had dozed off, the cat on her lap and an empty wine glass at her feet. Just as Tanner was backing out of the room, Susan opened her eyes and blinked at her.
    ‘Sorry, love… just conked out.’ She sat up. ‘Good day?’
    ‘It was all right, actually.’
    ‘That’s good.’ She gently pushed the cat from her lap. ‘Want me to make you something?’
    ‘I’ll do myself a bit of cheese on toast.’
    ‘Sure?’
    ‘Yeah, I fancy some,’ Tanner said. ‘You stay where you are.’ She watched Susan relax back into the sofa, then lean forward suddenly to pick up the empty wine glass.
    ‘Can you do me a top-up while you’re out there?’
    Tanner stepped across to take her girlfriend’s glass, then walked out and across to the kitchen. She took the wine bottle from the fridge, examined it and saw that it was new. She poured out half a glass. She stepped softly back out into the hall to check that Susan was still in the sitting room, then went back into the kitchen and swiftly removed the smallest knife from the block.
    She carefully scored a tiny mark on the bottle; an all but invisible scratch at the level of the remaining wine.
    Susan shouted through from the living room. ‘There’s some new cheese, but finish the old one first…’
    Tanner placed the bottle back in the fridge, then walked over and put the grill on.

… THEN
     
    Diana sits and puts her make-up on, taking special care around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth, where the lines are. She applies the
Touche Éclat
, dabs at it with the tip of her little finger, then sits back and stares at herself. She applies a little more, goes through the process several times before she is happy. Or at least as happy as she will ever be.
    Silk purse, she thinks. Sow’s ear.
    She stands and looks at herself in the full length mirror and wonders, as she does at this time every Monday, why the hell she goes to so much trouble to look her best. Who is she doing it for?
    It didn’t help her hold on to her husband, after all.
    She opens her jewellery box, and while she’s trying to decide which earrings to wear, she gives herself a good talking to. ‘Stupid,’ she says out loud. She’s dressing to please herself and, right or wrong, that’s what she’s always done.
    Even as the thought is taking hold and well before she can draw any strength from it, it begins to disintegrate and she can see nothing but her daughter’s face. The accusation in it, and the blame.
    She picks out the earrings, and as she’s putting them in, she reminds herself to check her phone, even though she