Hell Hath No Fury by Rosie Harris Page B

was imperative. From the many cases she’d studied she was confident that if the people involved had taken this simple precaution of disposing of all the clothes they’d been wearing, right down to their shoes, they would never have been detected.
    And the timing, of course. Studying the victim’s movements and catching them off guard! That was another prime essential.
    It was heady stuff. Like toying with destiny. She had never expected to find it so exciting or so deeply satisfying.
    That was probably because everything had gone as smoothly as a well-choreographed dance routine, she told herself.
    She let out a deep sigh. She couldn’t wait to start working on the next event! Her head was already buzzing with ideas and plans. Common sense warned her that it could be dangerous to be too hasty. There was still a great deal of in-depth research to be done if the second was to be as successful as the first.
    She might make a start tonight, after she’d had her bath and cooked herself something special to eat.
    She’d been far too keyed up to eat any lunch so now she was ravenous. There was a steak in the fridge. She’d cook that. And since everything had worked out so fantastically successfully, and she felt supremely confident now that nothing could impede her progress, she’d open a bottle of wine as well and really make it a celebration evening.

SIX
    D etective Inspector Ruth Morgan and Detective Sergeant Paddy Hardcastle were not the first on the scene.
    As soon as Marilyn Moorhouse’s 999 call had been put through to the Benbury police, two uniformed men had been sent along to Twenty-Seven Fieldway.
    The sight that met them on arrival had been sufficiently horrendous for Sergeant Miller to phone in and ask the duty officer to send the forensic medical officer as well as some additional backup.
    â€˜Sounds serious! What are the circumstances?
    â€˜John Moorhouse, who is in his mid-thirties, has been stabbed. His clothing is in a most unusual state of disarray. He was discovered by his wife when she brought their two small boys home from Cubs at around eight o’clock. The two boys are now in bed, unaware of what has happened. Mrs Moorhouse is in shock, but reasonably lucid and cooperative.’
    â€˜Right. I’ll see who is available,’ the duty officer promised. ‘Hold on there and make a note of anything she may say which might prove useful.’
    Sergeant Miller had closed the door of the sitting room, where John Moorhouse’s body lay sprawled in an ungainly manner, and left the constable to stand guard just in case a relative or neighbour should turn up and want to go in there.
    He persuaded Marilyn Moorhouse, who was looking very white and shaken, to accompany him into the kitchen and suggested that she should make them all a cup of tea.
    She nodded, but made no attempt to do anything about it, so he filled the kettle himself, and then switched it on.
    â€˜Perhaps you could tell me where you keep the sugar?’ he said, after he’d taken down three mugs from one of the shelves, and located a bottle of milk in the fridge.
    â€˜I don’t take sugar, thank you.’
    â€˜No, ma’am. Nor do I. But my constable does.’
    Silently, like an automaton, she stood up and crossed the room, opened a cupboard and reached out a container marked ‘Sugar’, and handed it to him.
    While he waited for the kettle to boil, Sergeant Miller tried to make conversation, hoping that she might say something that would indicate what had led to such a terrible tragedy, but although Marilyn Moorhouse appeared to listen to what he was saying she didn’t speak a word.
    She sat bolt upright on one of the kitchen chairs, staring straight ahead, her blue eyes glassy. She was casually dressed in blue jeans, white trainers and baggy white sweatshirt. It was the sort of outfit a mother of two small boys would be wearing if she’d been with them to Cubs. A