Dead Woman's Shoes: 1 (Lexy Lomax Mysteries) Read Online Free Page A

to need stitching,” she groaned, as a mixture of blood and water streamed down the plughole. “When are you going to learn, dunderhead?”
    The chihuahua gave her a reproachful look, but Lexy wasn’t in the mood to be reproached. Last time Kinky had to get an ear stitched, the day he went for an Afghan hound in St James’s Park, it had cost her a hundred and fifty quid and a shed-load of grief from the owner.
    She eyed the dog speculatively. Perhaps if she made a healing poultice of tormentil? It wasn’t called blood-root for nothing – it had mild coagulating properties.
    But this was more than a surface wound. Trudging to the bedroom, Lexy shrugged off her now bloodstained t-shirt and pulled on yesterday’s again.

 
    3
    Minutes later Lexy closed the front door behind her, an unrepentant Kinky tucked under one arm. She considered taking the car, then rejected the idea in case the parking was a nightmare in Clopwolde-on-Sea. Anyway, Kinky wasn’t about to bleed to death. In fact, he was looking rather pleased with himself. So instead Lexy strode down the steep gravel lane, through open heath, towards the pastel-coloured seaside village spread out below her on a sparkling bay.
    As she drew closer, her stride faltered. She had been expecting something rather more down to earth: one of those ubiquitous British scruffy-but-cheerful seaside resorts, perhaps with an amusement arcade or two, and a bunch of cafés on the seafront selling pie and mash. Somewhere she wouldn’t look out of place wearing ripped jeans and sporting a tattoo.
    Clopwolde, however, appeared to have been designed specifically with chocolate box lids in mind. Each rose-entwined cottage vied playfully with the next for preposterous prettiness. The names said it all. Buttercup Cottage, Coot Cottage, Mudpuppy Cottage, Pumpkin Cottage…
    The meandering high street confirmed her apprehension. It had a rash of cutesy gift boutiques, bijou art galleries, an olde worlde inn bedecked with hanging baskets, a 1930s memorabilia shop called Gentler Times, a generous sprinkling of tea rooms and, somewhat incongruously, an Internet café.
    Above it all a large white windmill smirked on a grassy knoll.
    Lexy groaned. Passers-by were throwing her sideways looks. Glancing down, she noticed blood leaking through the dishcloth serving as a bandage for Kinky’s ear. She stopped outside a dinky stone edifice called Periwinkle Cottage. A woman in crisp green linen was just turning out of the gate, accompanied by a beribboned Yorkshire terrier, which Kinky eyeballed beadily.
    “Scuse me,” said Lexy. “Is there a vet in Clopwolde?”
    The woman’s stony eyes swept over Kinky, and met Lexy’s with an almost audible clack.
    “That dog should be in a basket,” she stated.
    For a moment Lexy thought she meant a shopping basket. Sod that. She was about to tell the woman that in that case, gay little Fido there ought to be in a handbag.
    “It might run off and do further damage to itself,” continued the woman. “You people have no idea.”
    “You people?” Lexy spluttered.
    “Go straight along the high street and the surgery is about halfway down on the left, in a little alley,” continued the woman, in her loud brittle voice. “That is your dog, I suppose?”
    Several passing holidaymakers slowed down, faces agog.
    “Yes, thank you,” snorted Lexy, hurrying off before she got herself lynched. The supercilious bat had obviously decided that Lexy was some sort of low-life who had just nicked an old dear’s pet chihuahua. Anyone would think she’d asked her where the nearest fur glove-maker was.
    Lexy rapidly negotiated the drifts of tourists that were starting to fill the high street. She had to dodge out into the road at one point to get past a clot of grey-tops clucking over a billboard in the shape of a palm tree.
    It proclaimed, in foot-high letters, a forthcoming production of South Pacific , by the Clopwolde-on-Sea Players. Lexy shook her head