Say You're Sorry by Michael Robotham Read Free Book Online

shoes. A line of mud has dried on the leather uppers above the sole.
    “Didn’t something about the scene strike you as odd?” I ask.
    “What do you mean?”
    “The Heymans weren’t drinkers. The only alcohol they had in the house was that bottle of Scotch. It was sitting on the mantelpiece, freshly opened.”
    “So?”
    “You don’t open a twenty-year-old single malt for a man you’ve just sacked.”
    “It was cold. The power was out. Maybe the Heymans wanted a tipple.”
    “There were three mugs. Only one of them smelled of Scotch.”
    “What’s your point?”
    “There was a blanket on the floor in front of the fire. Somebody was sitting near the hearth, getting warm. Drying her shoes. Ballet flats. Size six. Mother and daughter are both size eight.”
    Drury is listening now. We’re walking down the corridor towards the lifts.
    “A dress in the laundry tub was two sizes too small for Mrs. Heyman.”
    “Maybe her daughter—”
    “Is a size 12. I looked in her wardrobe.”
    “I still don’t understand what you’re suggesting.”
    “Somebody ran a bath upstairs. There was an extra towel. The bathroom window was broken.”
    “You’re ignoring the obvious and fixating on an extra towel and a dress size.”
    “What about the missing dog?”
    “It ran away from the fire. Died in the blizzard.”
    There is a long pause: an uncomfortable silence. Drury presses the lift button impatiently. A small vein on his forehead is beating out a tattoo.
    “You don’t like me very much, do you?” I ask.
    He smiles wryly. “That’s a benefit of reaching my rank. I don’t have to
like
people.”
    “I’m sorry if I’ve said something to upset you.”
    “Upset me, no. I think you like disagreeing with people, Professor, because it makes you feel superior or smarter than everybody else. But contrary to what you might think, I’m not some dim-witted plod who doesn’t read books and thinks Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife.”
    It’s a good line. It reminds me of something a friend of mine might have said: Vincent Ruiz, a former detective inspector with a flair for the telling phrase.
    “Do you know how many murders I’ve investigated?” he asks.
    “No.”
    “How many bodies I’ve seen?”
    “No.”
    “Stabbed, shot, strangled, drowned, poisoned, electrocuted; tossed off cliffs, shoved in barrels, cut up in bathtubs, wrapped in carpets, burned in cars and fed to pigs. You think you understand people, Professor, but I’ve seen what they can do. I understand more about human behavior than you ever will.”
    The lift has arrived. The doors open.
    “What is your wife’s name?” I ask.
    The DCI pauses. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
    “I was just thinking that you should change that shirt before you go home. You’ve been wearing it since yesterday, which means you didn’t go home last night. You were with another woman, at her place. Lipstick—left side of the collar, below your ear. You didn’t have a spare shirt so you wore this one again and sprayed it with her deodorant.
    “I also noticed the box of chocolates in your office—expensive, Belgian—for your wife. You must like this mistress a lot, but you don’t want the affair to wreck your marriage. Good luck with that…”
    Drury hasn’t moved a muscle.
    “Dead bodies don’t interest me, DCI. I deal with the living.”

 
    T here is a difference between
    a runaway girl and a missing one. Runaways are like spare change lost down a crack in the sofa. You might find it eventually, but it’s not like winning the lottery.
    We slipped through the cracks, disappeared from the headlines. Out of sight, out of mind. George said that nobody cared except him. He was our guardian now. He would look after us.
    I wanted to believe him. There were times when I looked forward to hearing him moving boxes and uncovering the trapdoor. Tash always hated him. She knew him better than I did. She knew more about men… what they wanted, what they