Half Past Dead - Jane Clifton

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putting it back on - which didn't mean that she hadn't done either.

      Ronnie looked in the plughole of the shower, the bathroom drawers, behind the cosmetics and hairbrushes. With rising panic she returned to the bedroom, checked the floor, the wardrobe, then to the laundry where she stopped the washing machine mid-cycle and plunged her hands into the soapy water. It was near to boiling and she yelped in pain. Re-armed with rubber gloves she fished out the clothes, then unscrewed and removed the agitator. She scrabbled around in the bottom of the machine, stretching yellow latex almost to the elbow of one arm, but found nothing.

      The only possible conclusion was that the necklace had somehow broken and slipped from her neck, and was now lying somewhere in the bedroom of a house which was about to become the centre of a murder investigation. 'CURIOUS EGYPTIAN NECKLACE PROVIDES CLUE IN HUNT FOR KILLER.' She could see the headline now, accompanied by an incriminating photo, see Boyd reading the newspaper across the breakfast table from her, see him look up at her, puzzled, then as his legal expertise pointed him towards the truth, see a look of unbearable sadness cover his face as he turned away. Before the inevitable barrage of questions...

      She could not let this happen.

      There was nothing else for it, she was going to have to go back. Right now. Before she rang the police. Before she went to work. Before anything else.

      The thought of seeing Lawrence's body in the hallway again was not a pretty one. In this heat it would be deteriorating fast. The flies would have come to the party by now and she imagined the smell would be bad. Not that the smell of death was something she was familiar with. It was constantly referred to in the crime novels she liked to read, but she knew as much about its character as she did about conducting an autopsy. And, like the latter, it was something she had no desire to experience first-hand.

      Maybe she should take a handkerchief? In newsreel footage of major disasters the emergency workers always covered their faces with handkerchiefs, didn't they? Was that just for the smell or was it also because of the risk of disease? Could you catch your death from death? She was taking no chances.

      She opened Boyd's drawer and seeing all his neat bundles of underwear and socks brought on a fresh wave of remorse. The domestic superwoman who had washed, ironed and folded everything in that drawer, in the spare time left to her after holding down a full-time job and bringing up a nine-year-old son, was the same woman who was now borrowing one of her husband's handkerchiefs to protect her nose from the smell of the corpse of the man she had thrown herself at the night before. It was too much. She felt faint. She was starting to sweat and shake. Got to eat something, drink something.

      'Pull yourself together!' she hissed at her reflection, still wearing one yellow rubber glove.

      Steadying herself at the kitchen sink, she fizzed a Berocca and washed down a couple of paracodeine for good measure, hoping she wouldn't throw up the lot in the next few minutes.

      'So... ' she thought aloud as she made her way to the door, gathering up keys, sunglasses and handbag, 'you can't drive straight to the house... the nearest corner maybe? No. There's got to be a milk bar... buy a paper or something, find the lane again and get in the back way to his house. Christ! What if the gate's shut? Did I leave it open? Yes, yes, I'm sure I did. Unless someone else has been there. Jesus! What if someone's there! Shit! Can't think about it. Gotta do it. Gotta go, you stupid, stupid, stupid... '

      The phone rang, making her jump. She stared at the receiver, unable to pick it up. After four rings the answering machine clicked on. Matt's voice was saying, in mock grown-up style, 'Sorry, we're a bit busy at the moment... ' Long pause, with her own voice cueing him in the background. 'Please leave a message after the beep.' Giggles. 'Was that all right, Mummy?'

      Then Boyd's voice. 'So where are you... ? Out on the town, eh? Got lucky while the old man's away? You bad girl. I rang work, they said you weren't in yet, so... well, I guess you're on your way. Just letting you know that we're having a good time, sort of. In a minute, Matty! Okay? Just wait a sec! And, um, I dunno, has anyone called? Oh, okay!'

      Then Matt's voice. 'Mum! We had pizza for dinner last night and today we're going to McDonald's after me and Dad go fishing and - Dad! Let me - ' Beep. The signal dropped out.

      The two people she was closest to in the world and neither of them could help her. No-one could help her. She took a deep breath, pressed the erase button, then walked out into the heat.

      The gate was no problem. It was, as she had left it, open. She entered and checked the back door. Still locked. Good. She moved across the yard to the window from which she had made her exit. It too was still open. She stuck her head inside the room and listened. There was no sound. 'As silent as the tomb,' she quipped to herself. Getting in through the window in a pants-suit was much easier than getting out in combination full-length linen skirt and hangover had been, although her crotch was still sore and she was, once again, desperate to go to the toilet. This house is a diuretic, she thought. She took out the handkerchief and headed towards the hallway trying not to breathe too deeply. The lounge room was as she had left it except for something that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Ronnie didn't have time to worry about that though - she needed to find the necklace and get out of there fast.

      Now that she was inside the house she could hear a faint hum. The flies, she thought, as her gorge rose. Her skin felt chill in spite of the heat. She pressed the handkerchief to her mouth and took a couple more steps across the lounge room preparing herself for what she knew lay ahead. A turn to the left and she was in the hallway.

      It was empty.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      A clean, wide strip of black-and-white checked lino stretched to the front door like an elongated chequerboard, challenging her to make the first move.

      Where was the body? I mean, where is Lawrence? she corrected her thoughts. There was nothing in the hallway now but shafts of sunlight peppered with dancing dust motes. Had she dreamed the whole thing? Was she dreaming now?

      Trance-like, she walked to the spot where she had last seen him. Nothing. No body, no blood, no flies.

      She stood staring down at the gap between the lino and the skirting board for any sign that, just over an hour ago, a body had been lying there. Don't be ridiculous! she thought. What are you looking for? A fingertip? The end of his shirt? Time to start looking round for the bottle marked 'Drink Me'!

      Perhaps he was in the bedroom, she decided, with a complete absence of logic. If he was, he was very quiet. Asleep maybe? Dead to the world? Ha Ha. She almost went to knock on the door, then opened it slowly.

      The room was unoccupied and, like the hallway, totally clean. It was as if, during her short absence, Mary Poppins had flown through the window and thrown tidy-up sugar around. Not an object was out of place. Books and magazines were neatly stacked. Every drawer was closed and the bed looked like a display item in a bedding bazaar. There was not a takeaway container or beer can to spoil the effect. The field of shoes had been reduced to three pairs, lovingly reunited and dust-free, the rest probably tossed into the built-in wardrobe.

      No Lawrence, however. No body.

      Was it possible that he wasn't dead, after all? Was there, in fact, a God? And had He sent her a guardian angel?

      She sat on the edge of the bed of her undoing. She hadn't actually checked that he was dead, had she? She hadn't laid a finger on him. Specifically, not on his pulse or his heart, say. Hungover, guilt-stricken and filled with drunken remorse, she had taken one look at his body, jumped to the worst possible conclusion and fled the house in fright.

      Okay, so there was blood which she assumed emanated from a fatal head wound, but he was lying face-down. She hadn't seen his face or even a wound, for that matter. He could have fallen and hit his head hard enough to knock him unconscious. Maybe it was a neighbour's door that had slammed? The speeding car could have been coincidental. Dammit, he might have had a nose bleed and a bump on the head! For all she knew he was one of those people who fall asleep without warning, what are they called?

      He could have keeled over, then, after she ran away,

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