The Detective's Daughter Read Online Free Page A

and had trialled a new cleaner in the office after Stella had left for Sussex. The woman had not passed, but Jackie wanted to know if she should hire her anyway. Stella tutted at this, the noise distinct in the silence; rapidly her fingers busied on the keypad as she instructed Jackie not to take on someone who had failed the cleaning test. As Stella dreaded, her business could not carry on without her being there.
    Paul had texted, wanting to see her. She had not told him about Terry, nor did she want to. He would be hoping that over a bottle of wine he could persuade her to let him move in.
    Jesus, pale and chipped upon the Cross, gazed down at her with blank eyes as she typed: Let’s call it a day. We know it’s not working. Stella.
    She hesitated before adding an ‘x’, but then, just before she pressed ‘send’, she deleted the kiss. She did not love Paul – whatever love was – and it was better to be honest. She watched the envelope icon tumble into infinity to become a dot, and insisted to herself she was doing Paul a favour; he could find someone who loved him.
    Having mustered up the wherewithal to release herself from a relationship about which she had been ambivalent for too long, Stella tackled the NHS bag. Each item was in a sealed packet, which did not stop a sour reek of sweat escaping, sickly and clinging. Her stomach coiled. She extracted the leather wallet with delicate fingers – the crackle of plastic was loud in the chapel; she had given it to Terry for his fiftieth birthday over fifteen years ago. She had asked the shop to have his initials embossed in silver: ‘TD’, forgetting about ‘Christopher’. The letters had rubbed away to the merest indentation. Terry had folded up the birthday wrapping paper, smoothing it flat on his coffee table, and let slip how his colleagues nicknamed him ‘Top Cat’. Stella had been infuriated, although she could not have said why. The policeman in her office had momentarily stepped out of role to exclaim that Terry was a ‘top man’ but if this was meant to console her, it had landed wide.
    The clothes he was wearing had been folded and placed together. His dark grey suit was from Marks & Spencer’s Autograph range: the jacket had a tear under the shoulder; a blue cotton shirt striped with brown was also torn with loose threads trailing where the paramedics had ripped away the buttons. Applying the method of fixing the age of a tree, salt rings under the arms indicated to Stella that Terry had worn it for two days. Little though she saw him, she knew Terry ironed his shirts and kept his hair washed. On the few occasions that she kissed him – in greeting, or on departure – his chin was smooth and scented with Gillette Series Aftershave Splash Cool Wave, his hair smelling of Boots anti-dandruff men’s shampoo. He would not wear anything more than once. She looked up and caught Jesus looking at her balefully. She considered that the detective, whom her mother insisted was happier with tagged corpses and evidence bags than with his family, was now a collection of belongings sealed in plastic and backed up by a sheaf of paperwork. Terry would have hated such an end.
    Stella passed over underpants, shoes, a T-shirt and balled-up socks and stuffed them all back in the bag, inhaling deep the chapel’s flower fairy scent.
    The nurse who had taken her to see Terry’s body must have been on some training course about dealing with bereaved relatives. She was keen that Stella should banish timidity in the presence of her dead father.
    Stella had noted his greasy hair was brushed the wrong way and the stubble on his chin was white. A stained tooth was visible between stiffened lips. She had not seen Terry lying down since she was a child. He was naked under the sheet, draped loosely over the gurney.
    ‘It’s OK to touch him,’ the nurse had whispered encouragingly.
    Stella pretended not to hear. Keeping her hands in her pockets, she nodded in confirmation