Read Online Kill My Darling by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles - Free Book Online

however, tidy, and the bathroom, as they passed it, looked clean, though shabby.
    Slider had heard the dog barking ever since Raymond opened the door, and when he reached the kitchen door, it came bustling importantly towards him, stood its ground a foot away and barked officiously, woofing so hard it lifted its small body slightly off the ground at each explosion. It was a stout, short-legged Jack Russell type, mostly white, but with a few black patches, including one over one eye that gave it an unreliably jolly look.
    The kitchen had cheap units painted yellow, a melamine table with two plastic chairs, lino on the floor, and a half-glazed door on to the garden. There were two empty mugs on the table, and McGuire was sitting in front of one of them, his elbow on the table and his head propped in his hand in an attitude almost of despair. The smell of booze was stronger still in here, easily beating feet and dog into second and third places: it was coming from McGuire, reeking from his pores so you could almost see it. He had evidently tied one on last night.
    â€˜Mr McGuire?’ Slider said politely, when he was sure the dog was not going to do more than mouth off. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Slider and this is Detective Sergeant Atherton.’
    The man finally looked up, tilting red and doleful eyes that wouldn’t have been out of place on a basset hound in his direction. His nose and cheeks were rife with the broken veins of the boozer, and he looked haggard with emotion at the moment, but otherwise it was not an unhealthy face. He was brown with the settled tan of someone who works out of doors; his hair was thick and light brown, going grey; his body was sturdy and his hands looked strong, though seamed with manual work. The most surprising thing about him was the beard. There were not so many men these days who wore beards; and this was not one of those little dabs here and there such as young men sometimes affected, but the full Captain Haddock, thick and bushy and a darker shade of brown than his hair. While trying not to be pognophobic, Slider instinctively distrusted beards, on the basis that a man could change his appearance so completely by growing one or shaving it off, he might become unrecognizable. In his business, you needed to know who you were dealing with.
    â€˜I’d just like to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right,’ he went on, when it seemed that McGuire was not going to volunteer anything. ‘About what happened this morning.’
    At once, large tears formed in the basset brown eyes and rolled over, but McGuire roused himself enough to wipe at them almost angrily with the back of his hand, and to say sharply, ‘Toby, shut up !’
    An astonishing silence fell. The little dog looked at him, and then almost with a shrug turned and pottered away, hopping through the dog door into the garden with a familiar flip-flap sound.
    McGuire got out a large handkerchief, blew his nose and wiped his eyes. There was something about the weariness of the action that suggested he had been blowing and wiping for some time. ‘Would you like another cup of tea?’ Slider suggested in sympathy.
    â€˜Yeah – thanks,’ he said. He made no move to get up, though, and Slider looked at Raymond and jerked his head towards the kettle.
    â€˜I’ll make it,’ she said obediently. ‘What about you, sir?’
    â€˜Yes, thanks, No sugar.’
    Atherton declined. Slider took the other seat at the table, so Atherton lounged gracefully in the doorway, trying not to look threatening – there simply wasn’t any other place he could be. As it was, Raymond had to ooze past him to get to the kettle. The dog came flip-flapping back in, stared at them all a moment in case there was any more barking that needed doing, then went to his basket in the corner, turned round three times and flopped down, chin on paws.
    When Raymond put the mugs on the table,