“Worked like a dream!” he murmured, as he slumped in his armchair, then giggled as he wondered if Rita had had any last dreams that night. Her breathing changed after a few minutes from noisy snoring to a rasping hiss, and quickened in rate. Then it began to diminish, both in volume and speed, and after another five or six minutes appeared to cease altogether. By the light of his little flame, he could see that her face and lips had become faintly violet and he suspected that she was already dead. To be on the safe side, he left the gas running and went outside for half an hour, to avoid any possible effects upon himself. When he came back, he knew she had gone, but checked the absence of a pulse in her neck just to make sure.
Turning off the gas, he opened the window to dissipate any remaining vapour. Then he dismantled his apparatus and returned the cylinder to the cellar, where he reconnected it to the barrel of lager, ready for business when they opened. He straightened out the hangers and hung them back in the wardrobe, then filled the plastic bags with old papers and other rubbish and dumped them out in the yard, ready for the bin-men. His work done, he made one last check to make sure that Rita had not managed some kind of resurrection, then he went to bed himself and slept soundly with no twinge of guilt or conscience until it was time to “discover” her body.
Now with a sigh of satisfaction, Lewis sleepily finished his beer and putting aside his birdy magazine, slid further down in his chair for a doze and to think about a trip he had planned to Mid-Wales next month to look for red kites.
“Now we’ll never bloody know what happened to his missus!” grumbled Mordecai Evans, as they left the coroner’s court a week later.
“It certainly wasn’t carbon monoxide poisoning, that’s for sure!” said Willy Williams. “Did you see the colour of his skin in the mortuary? Now I know what they mean by ‘being in the pink’!”
The Detective-Inspector ignored his sergeant’s feeble attempt at witticism. “The SOCOs say the flue-pipe of that stove must have been blocked since last Spring. Bloody ironic, really!”
Willy nodded sagely. “Lewis Lloyd would have appreciated that, if he’d known. A jackdaw’s nest, of all things!”
“Serve the bugger right,” grunted Mordecai.
MIKE ASHLEY
MIKE ASHLEY is an author and editor of over eighty books, including many Mammoth titles. He worked for over thirty years in local government but is now a full-time writer and researcher specializing in ancient history, historical fiction and fantasy, crime and science fiction. He lives in Kent with his wife and over 20,000 books.
