A Painted Doom by Kate Ellis Page B

bookcase and, about three feet away, saw a slight
     indentation in the wood where the thing had once stood.
    ‘I thought this bookcase looked wrong. It’s too close to the door. It should be more to the centre of the wall.’
    ‘Perfectionist,’ Rachel murmured with the ghost of a grin.
    ‘I reckon it’s been moved. Can you give us a hand to move it back?’
    Fortunately the bookcase only housed one row of books, mostly lavish coffee-table editions. The other shelves were taken up
     with knick-knacks and souvenirs of foreign travel. It wasn’t too heavy to move.
    They stood back and looked. The bookcase had concealed more stains, washed-out rusty patches that hadn’t been removed as effectively
     as the others. And Wesley could see a small hole in the plaster at around head height. He moved closer to examine it.
    ‘It’s a bullet hole. And it looks like the bullet’s still embedded in the wall.’
    Rachel stayed silent for a few moments. Then she spoke quietly. ‘This is where it happened, isn’t it? The break-in.
    The bullet. The carpet fibres. This is where Jonny Shellmer was shot. But who moved him?’
    ‘His murderer presumably.’ Wesley took his mobile phone from his pocket. ‘I’ll ring the boss and get forensics round. Will
     you let the estate agents know we’ll be sealing the place off? We don’t want any eager house buyers coming to view and trampling
     all over the evidence, do we?’
    Rachel tried the number of Heygarth and Proudfoot but there was no reply. ‘Looks like they’ve gone home,’ she said, putting
     her phone back in her jacket pocket. ‘We’ll have to inform them first thing in the morning. What about the owners?’
    ‘Abroad, apparently. Went to live in the south of France back in January.’
    ‘Well, that lets them out, then.’
    ‘Do you know what my first guvnor at the Met told me when I was an innocent DC?’
    ‘No,’ said Rachel. ‘What did he tell you?’
    ‘Never jump to conclusions.’ He paused, watching Rachel’s face. ‘And by the way, the guvnor was a she.’
    For the first time in six months Wesley heard Rachel Tracey laugh.
    Lewis Hoxworthy did his best not to make a sound as he climbed the farmhouse stairs. It was all arranged. The man would make
     his way upstream to meet him. All Lewis had to do was show him the rest of what he had to offer.
    He reached his bedroom and listened. He could hear his mother downstairs, clattering pans in the kitchen. Dinner would soon
     be ready, but Lewis had more important things to do than eat, even though hunger was starting to gnaw at his stomach. If everything
     went well he could go out to eat anywhere he liked. McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King. The whole world of fast
     food would be his oyster. He could take Yossa and his mates – that would impress them.
    He checked his e-mails. Nothing, not even from Yossa. He pressed a few keys on his computer and switched the machine off before
     rummaging in his wardrobe, searching for the packet concealed at the back where his mother wouldn’t dream of looking. Apart
     from brief visits to deposit clean clothes and complain about the mess, she rarely ventured in here these days. The room was
     Lewis’s domain, his kingdom. He just hoped that nobody had interfered with the merchandise – or with the other thing.
    As his fingers touched the packet, he smiled. He had been reasonably sure that it was safe there but he hadn’t been certain.
     He remembered hearing how the mum of one of his classmates had found a mucky magazine hidden under his mattress: mothers had
     a nasty habit of stumbling across the best-kept secrets.
    He stuffed the packet into the inside pocket of his coat. It would be safe and dry there: his customer had made it quite plain
     that he didn’t want damaged goods. He shut the bedroom door behind him and made for the stairs.
    ‘Lewis, is that you?’
    Lewis froze. She had heard him. Another thing to remember about mothers was that they