Classic Calls the Shots by Amy Myers Page B

the garden and looked around, but there was no sound or sight of Roger.
    â€˜Not here either,’ Bill grunted.
    â€˜Maybe he’s dozed off,’ I said, putting my head round a trellis covered with sweet-smelling roses.
    And then I saw it. I saw the blood first and gagged. Plenty of it was dry but some had trickled into a tiny pond and coloured it red. I forced myself to look further. And there lay the body it had come from. It looked very dead.
    I must have let out some kind of noise, a retch maybe, for Bill hurried to my side. Just what I didn’t want, but I was too late.
    The body was turned away from us, but it was a woman’s and I knew immediately whose it was. It was Angie’s.

FOUR
    N either of us moved. I registered that there was some insect buzzing nearby and that incongruously a bird was singing and the sun burning on my arm. Then I found myself punching in 999 on my mobile even though my mind was still fighting to get back in gear and Bill was half walking, half staggering towards what was left of his wife. How could I say stop? There was no doubt it was Angie even though half her head had been blown away. The gun was lying at her side to prove it.
    My eyes stayed on Bill even while I was talking on the phone. That done, I made another one – to Dave Jennings – to tell him he had been right. There
was
something wrong somewhere. Nightmarishly wrong.
    Bill had squatted down by the body and his hand rested protectively on his wife’s yellow silk trousers. The matching jacket was blood-soaked.
    I forced myself to action, walked over to him and pulled him to his feet. ‘Out,’ I said gently.
    He looked at me like a hurt animal, but for once in his life Bill Wade acquiesced. We must have been silent because when we went into the building – through its rear door this time, not the office patio doors – everything seemed strangely normal. Only Louise, who was chatting to Jane at the front desk, read my face correctly, looked from me to Bill and became very still.
    â€˜Angie’s dead,’ I said briefly. ‘The police are on their way.’
    She gave a half gasp, steadied herself and took charge of Bill. It was high time. The phrase goes ‘beside himself with grief’ but Bill had gone
inside
himself. He seemed to have shrivelled into grey old age, his power ceded without a murmur. ‘I’ll take care of him,’she said. I must have looked fairly shaky myself, because she added, ‘Are you OK, Jack?’
    I nodded. So I was, on the surface at any rate. I could function. With Bill gone I dealt with the receptionist, thankfully not the gorgon of my first visit; Jane was a sensible girl in her mid twenties, even if understandably out of her depth at the moment.
    â€˜Police?’ she queried, looking scared as well as shocked.
    â€˜Afraid so.’ I decided not to specify why an ambulance would not suffice. ‘I need your help now. Who’s your closest reliable ally?’
    A moment’s thought. ‘Tom Hopkins and Julie. I job-share with her but she’s around. And Ken Merton – he’s at the security barrier.’
    Where I knew he would be needed. ‘Page Julie and Tom then, to help us guard this building. No one gets in before the police. Not even Roger Ford.’
    She took my point. ‘Where . . .?’
    â€˜In the garden.’
    She went a shade greener, if that were possible, but she had her wits about her. ‘What about the gate?’
    â€˜What gate?’
    â€˜There’s one into the garden on the far corner. It’s not always locked.’
    â€˜Stay here, I’ll check.’
    I dashed back and forced myself back through that garden, steeling myself to pass Angie’s body again. The gate took some finding since it was masked by two tall hedges with a narrow winding path between them. The gate was open and I wasn’t going to touch it. I cursed the fact that I hadn’t yet