Blood money, Carlyle thought. It’s like we’re reverting back to the Middle Ages.
Shifting in his seat, he turned his back on the screen and looked through the window at the azure blue sky. Once he had dropped Alice off at school, he would head to the gym; afterwards, he might meet Helen for lunch if she wasn’t too busy. Off the clock, he didn’t want to be thinking about Hannah Gillespie — or Duncan Brown or Horatio Mosman or Rosanna Snowdon either. It would take time, however, for all the details to seep away from his brain, and for the small triumphs and the larger failures to be forgotten.
Alice glanced up from her book and gave him a concerned look. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Um. . nothing.’
‘You were scowling. Your face was all scrunched up. What were you thinking about?’
‘Nothing important. Doesn’t matter,’ Carlyle smiled, gesturing to the crumbs around her mouth.
Picking up a paper napkin, Alice roughly wiped away the remains of her pastry. ‘I’ve got a joke for you.’
His smile grew wider. ‘Okay.’
‘Where does Dracula keep his money?’
Carlyle made a show of thinking about the possible answer for a few moments, before saying, ‘Dunno.’
‘In a blood bank,’ she cackled. ‘Geddit? A blood bank.’
‘That’s terrible,’ Carlyle groaned.
She shot him a look that said Let’s see if you can come up with anything better. ‘Your turn.’
The inspector thought about it for a moment. Jokes were not his strong point. Whenever he heard one he liked, he would try and store it away in his brain for future use, but they never seemed to stick. Right now, there was only one he could recall. ‘What do you call an exploding monkey?’
‘I told you that one myself,’ Alice objected. ‘It’s rubbish.’
‘I thought you liked it,’ Carlyle protested.
Laughing, she shook her head. ‘Rubbish.’
‘C’mon,’ Carlyle teased, waving his hands in the air, ‘it’s the best joke ever. What do you call an exploding monkey?’
‘Dunno,’ she said, humouring her father.
‘A baboom!’
‘Da-ad!’
‘Ba-boom!’