Read Online False Picture by Veronica Heley - Free Book Online

whose window overlooked a wall and not the street. The bed looked new, as did the carpet and curtains, but both bore the marks of someone who drank – and smoked – in bed. ‘Yuck!’ said Maggie. ‘What a fug!’
    There was no sign of a Victorian oil painting, or of a package which might have contained one. The room smelled of dirty washing, the curtains were drawn against the light, the bedclothes were all over the place and a pair of pyjama bottoms was on the floor. The doors of a large built-in wardrobe hung open, the clothes inside were mostly on the floor instead of hanging on the rail, though a couple of empty dry-cleaners’ plastic bags informed Bea that he – or someone else – had looked after his belongings better in the past.
    A digital clock flashed on the bedside table, beside an empty wine bottle, a dirtied tumbler, some used tissues, an empty pack of cigarettes and a burned out lighter.
    â€˜Typical,’ said Maggie, arms akimbo.
    Bea waded through the stir fry on the floor to the window. She drew back the curtains and opened the window so that they could see and breathe properly, almost falling over something on the carpet, which turned out to be a mobile phone. On the table by the window was a takeaway foil dish which Philip had been using for an ashtray, a freebie paper a couple of days old, and a stained and almost empty coffee mug.
    Bea picked the mobile phone up, dusted it down and tried to switch it on, but the battery was dead. Bea slipped it into one of the large envelopes she’d brought with her, tucking it into the largest pocket in her apron.
    Maggie objected. ‘You can’t do that. It’s stealing.’
    â€˜There may be some messages on it. If he’s disappeared, it may just help us – or the police – to find him.’
    Maggie’s mouth made an ‘o’ and she made no further objection. ‘I expect you’ll want to search his clothes. You won’t need me for that. See you in a bit.’
    Bea looked around. Still no sign of the missing picture. There was no laptop, either, but there was a spell-checker, and a couple of boys’ toys, music orientated, a scatter of DVDs on the floor, a small telly which looked second-hand and possibly didn’t work, a dead whisky bottle in the wastepaper basket and another under the bed.
    Might the picture be under the bed? Alas, no. There was enough dust to make Bea sneeze plus a broken pen and some screwed-up pieces of paper. She teased the scraps out. Receipts for wine and whisky from a local convenience store. Oh, and the charger for the phone, which he’d probably dropped and kicked under the bed by accident. She surmised that without the charger the phone was no use to him, so he’d abandoned it, as he seemed to have abandoned many of his other belongings. She fished the phone out of her pocket, plugged it in to charge and switched it on.
    A couple of drawers in the table by the window were filled with coupons torn from newspapers but never redeemed, out of date lottery tickets, some contraceptives and repeat prescriptions from a local doctor. Philip had been on antibiotics recently, but his ongoing repeat prescriptions were for antidepressants. Antidepressants, antibiotics and whisky didn’t go together, did they?
    There were two unframed photos propped up against a pile of
Men Only
type magazines on a scuffed chest of drawers. Girls in the almost altogether. Or had they been cut from magazines? No, they were real photos. Philip had obviously had the occasional girlfriend in the past, but not recently – according to Velma, who might or might not be biased. The dust was thick on the chest of drawers, except where a couple of framed photos seemed to have been standing until recently. Had Philip taken them away for some reason? Perhaps they had been of his father and mother? Or another girlfriend?
    The bedside table drawer yielded aspirins, empty packs of