Perfect Sins by Jo Bannister Read Free Book Online

after changing the bookings in her diary, showed an almost indelicate interest in the discovery by the lake. After Ash had told her all he knew, she was still asking for more details. “And are you all right?” she kept asking.
    Ash, who hadn’t until then considered the possibility that he might not be, thought she was seeking an excuse to come and join in a real-life game of Cluedo. “Absolutely fine,” he said firmly.
    â€œIf you need to talk, call me.”
    â€œI will.”
    â€œAnytime.”
    â€œThank you. I will.”
    He was heading back down when a door opened behind him and a woman said icily—he could almost hear the crackle of frost—“We don’t let the dogs upstairs.”
    His first instinct was to apologize. For four years, almost the only intercourse Gabriel Ash had had with the world beyond his front door had been in the form of apologies. It had been his fallback position, as if by preemptively apologizing for anything and everything he’d ever done, including getting born, he could avoid engaging with other people.
    But in the last few months things had begun to change. At Laura Fry’s suggestion he’d acquired the dog. Owning a dog had made him go out, and he’d crossed the paths of a lot of people who bore him no ill will. The apologies had started to feel misplaced. Then he’d met Hazel Best, and life had immediately become more complicated but also more rewarding. He hadn’t always been a shambling excuse for a man, and his heart held to the faint, stubborn hope that he wouldn’t always be one. He bit back the apology unspoken and turned to face his accuser.
    â€œI’m Gabriel Ash, and this is Patience. We’re staying here.”
    â€œYes, I know.” She was a woman of about sixty, not tall but noticeably slim, with short, geometric ash-blond hair. The color may have come out of a bottle, but the cut was clearly, expensively, the real thing. Her arched, pencil-thin eyebrows and berry red lipstick were as flawless as a doll’s. She was wearing a pale linen jacket, a silk blouse, a tailored skirt, and pearl earrings. “We have no shortage of guest rooms. Nor, indeed, of sheds.”
    Ash supposed he was talking with Byrfield’s mother. But the countess hadn’t introduced herself, and he saw no reason to guess. “We’ll try to stay out of your way. But neither of us will be sleeping in the shed.”
    At the sound of voices, Pete Byrfield appeared at the foot of the stairs. He looked worried. More than that, he looked as if worried was his fallback position, at least when dealing with his mother. “There’s coffee and sandwiches in the kitchen, Ash, if you’re hungry. Mother, I need to talk to you. Something rather awful has happened.”
    â€œI know,” said the countess, still looking at Ash. “Dogs. In the bedrooms.”
    â€œOh, for heaven’s sake!” Byrfield was climbing the stairs two at a time. “Patience isn’t a dog , she’s a guest. If she wants a long hot soak in Lady Anne’s marble bath, followed by a mani—a pedicure and a tea tray in the orangery, that’s exactly what she’ll get while it is in my power to provide it. Now, can we go to your room while I tell you what’s going on?”
    Halfway down the curving staircase, Patience said smugly, I like that young man.
    *   *   *
    Edwin Norris began his career when the best chance of dating an illicit burial was if the murderer had wrapped the murder weapon in a copy of that morning’s newspaper and tossed it into the grave. It never failed to amaze him how accurate modern forensic science could be. The downside was how long you had to wait to be amazed. Medical examiners used to at least throw you a bone—“Hard to be sure, but death probably occurred between midnight and six on Friday morning”—to chew on until the autopsy was