Blue Genes - By Val McDermid Page 0,36

doors, a world we were completely cut off from as we drifted down the half-empty roads, sealed in our separate boxes.

Luckily we didn't have far to go, since I was acutely aware that there wasn't enough traffic around to cover me adequately. Shortly after we hit Kingsway, she hung a left at some lights and headed deep into the heart of suburban Burnage. Again, luck was on my side, a phenomenon I hadn't been experiencing much of lately. Her destination was on one of the long, wide avenues running parallel to Kingsway, rather than up one of the narrow streets or cul-de-sacs built in an era when nobody expected there would come a day when every household had at least one car. In those choked chicanes, she couldn't have avoided spotting me. When she did slow down, obviously checking out house numbers, I overtook her and parked a few hundred yards ahead, figuring she must be close to her target. I was right. She actually stopped less than twenty yards in front of me and walked straight up the path of a three-bedroom semi with a set of flower beds so neat it was hard to imagine a dan¬delion with enough bottle to sprout there.

I watched her ring the bell. The door opened, but I couldn't see the person behind it. Three sentences and she was in. I flicked through my copy of that evening's Chronicle till I got to the death announcements and read down the column. There it was. "Sheridan. Angela Mary, of Burnage, suddenly on Sunday at Manchester Royal Infir¬mary after a short illness. Beloved wife of Tony, mother of Becky and Richard. Service to be held at Our Lady of the Sorrows, Monday, 2 P.M., followed by committal at Stock-port Crematorium at 3 P.M." With that information and the phone book, it wouldn't be hard to identify the right address. And you could usually tell from the names roughly what age group you were looking at. I'd have guessed that Tony and Angela were probably in their middle to late forties, their kids late teens to early twenties. Perfect targets for the con merchants. Bereft husband young enough to notice an attractive woman, whether consciously or not. Probably enough money in the pot to be able to afford a decent headstone. The thought of it made me sick.

What was worse was the knowledge that even as I was working all this out, Will Alien's accomplice was giving the shattered widower a sales pitch designed to separate him from a large chunk of his cash. I couldn't just sit there and let it happen. On the other hand, I couldn't march up the path and unmask her unless I wanted her and her sleazy sidekick to cover their tracks and leave town fast. I couldn't call the cops; I knew Delia was out of town at a conference, and trying to convince some strange officer that I wasn't a nutter fast enough to get them out here in time to stop it was way beyond my capa¬bilities. I racked my brains. There had to be a way of blowing her out without blowing my cover.

There was only one thing I could come up with. And that depended on how well the Sheridans got along with their neighbors. If they'd had years of attrition over park¬ing, teenage stereos, and footballs over fences, I'd had it. Squaring my shoulders, I walked up the path of the other half of the Sheridans' semi. The woman who answered the door looked to be in her mid-thirties, thick dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, a face all nose, teeth, and chin. She wore a pair of faded jeans, supermarket trainers, and a Body Shop tee shirt demanding that some part of the planet should be saved. When she registered that it was a stranger on the doorstep, her cheery grin faded to a faint frown. Clearly, I was less interesting than whoever she'd been expecting. I handed her a business card. "I'm sorry to bother you," I started apologetically.

"Private investigator?" she interrupted. "You mean, like on the telly? I didn't know women did that."

Some days, you'd kill for an original response. The way my luck had been running, I was just grateful not to have the door slammed in my face. I smiled, nodded, and plowed on. "I need your help," I said. "How well do you know Mr. Sheridan next door?"

The woman gasped. "He's never murdered her, has he? I