Page 8 of Pressure Head

I made a face. “Old school bully.”

“And he’s knocking you up in the early hours of the morningbecause?”

I sighed and lowered my voice. “I found a body yesterday.”

Gary’s eyes widened to the size of the dinner plates the waitress chose that moment to put in front of us. “The girl from the estate agent’s—that was you?”

“Thanks, love,” I said, smiling mechanically at the waitress. She just gave me a funny look, probably because she’d heard what Gary had said.Thanks, Gary.“Well, I found her, yeah.” I stared at my battered cod, suddenly not feeling half as hungry as I had when I’d ordered it. “I didn’t put her there.”

“Well, go on.” Gary leaned forward over his lasagne. “Tell Uncle Gary all about it. Was she”—he lowered his voice—“naked?”

Gary’s a good bloke, really he is. It’s just—nobody ever really gets it. You tell anyone you’ve found a body, and it’s just not real to them. They think it’s like being an extra onMidsomer Murders. “No. I probably shouldn’t be talking about it, and to be honest, I really don’t want to. It wasn’t exactly the highlight of my week.”

“Sorry, sweetie. Poor you.” Gary laid a hand briefly on my arm, then chomped thoughtfully on his side salad for a minute. “To coin a phrase, if I had a gift like yours, I’d return it.”

I shrugged and picked at my chips. “At least she’s been found now. That’s got to be better for her family than not knowing.” I reached for the ketchup bottle, then thought better of it, visions of poor Melanie dancing in my head and threatening to take away my appetite. “Trouble is, the old-school bully is a private investigator now, and he doesn’t believe in my so-called gift. Thinks I must know something about her death I’m not telling.”

“But the police don’t think that, do they?” Gary patted my right knee, and Julian showed his concern by slobbering on the other.

Knowing from experience just how unpleasant it would be when the drool soaked through the denim, I pushed his ton-weight head off gently—the dog’s that is, not Gary’s. “No—but I ended up agreeing to talk to the girl’s parents this evening. What the hell am I going to say?”

“The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” Gary declaimed, one hand on his heart and the other thrust skywards. Heads turned, as they often do when Gary’s around.

“It’s not going to be what they want to hear. Don’t s’pose you fancy meeting up for a drink afterwards, drown my sorrows and all that?”

“Can’t, sweetie—Wednesday is practice night, remember?”

I remembered. I hunched up one shoulder and did a passable imitation of Quasimodo lisping, “The bells! The bells!” Gary just smiled and gave me a V sign.