come. And next Friday is that opening in Liverpool that we wanted to go to, so I’ll tell them to come in a fortnight and we’ll bring everyone up to date. We should have lots more information by then.
“Fancy a pizza, since I’m on the phone, anyway?”
• • •
The next week went by uneventfully. Work continued on the spa, lost time was made up, and Eiryls and Penny sat side by side in the salon, polishing and painting. She rang Davies from time to time, but there was no real news. Because Andrew Peyton had died suddenly, an autopsy was conducted, but it revealed no cause of death. Perhaps when the toxicology reports come back, Davies had suggested. The bones found in the ductwork remained unidentified, although acting on Penny’s hunch, Davies had asked Merseyside to try to locate dental records for a Cynthia Browning. But dentists retire or sell their practices and X-ray records are lost or destroyed. The human bones were thought to be at least thirty years old, and the smaller skeleton found with them was determined to be that of a small dog. Both skeletons were female but bore no marks of obvious trauma.
Seventeen
“I’ve really been looking forward to this,” Penny said to Victoria on the train to Liverpool the next Friday. “It feels good to get away. It’s been a long week.” She leaned back in her seat, glanced at Victoria, who was sitting in the seat opposite her with a magazine in her lap, and then looked out the window. She watched a few scattered buildings go by, and then shifted her attention to Victoria. Scanning a fashion magazine, her ghostly reflection in the window, she was occasionally turning a page with a small sigh, whether of envy, boredom, or exasperation, Penny could not tell. When she turned the last page, she dropped the magazine onto the empty seat beside her, put her glasses on top of her head, and leaned back and closed her eyes, her hands resting lightly in her lap.
Penny continued to gaze at her but was not seeing her. She was seeing the body of Andrew Peyton in his sitting room, dead in his chair. And what was now striking to Penny was the sterility of the scene. There were no reading glasses on his head as if he’d just dozed off, no book or magazine in his lap, no television or radio playing. Nothing. Is that the way people are when they’re alone, she asked herself. No! They do something, especially with their hands. They’re on the computer, or knitting, or holding a book. They’re watching TV and the remote control is in their hand. That’s what they do when they’re alone. So what had Andrew Peyton been doing before he died? He had probably been with someone. Talking, perhaps.
Victoria’s eyelids fluttered and she opened her eyes. When she saw Penny, she gave a little start.
“It’s all right,” Penny reassured her. “We’re on the train to Liverpool. How do you feel?”
“Have you ever fallen asleep on a train?” Victoria asked.
Penny nodded.
“Well, that’s what I feel like. Like I need a cup of coffee.”
“That’s a good idea. We should be arriving at the station soon, and we can get a coffee before we go to the gallery.”
“While you were dozing, I think I figured out what was wrong with the scene when we found Peyton,” said Penny when they were seated with their coffee in the Lime Street station.
Victoria shuddered. “Hmm, there’s something not quite right here,” she said, with an exaggerated hint of sarcasm. “Oh, now I get it, there was a dead body in that chair.”
Penny gave her a sharp glance.
“I know you’re still a little sensitive on that subject,” she said smoothly, “so I’ll overlook that.” She then went on to explain her theory that Peyton had been talking to someone when he died.
“And that would explain why the door was open; someone had just left. The police didn’t seem too interested in that. Gareth said they are not treating Peyton’s death as suspicious, but I think it is.”
She looked at Victoria over the rim of her cup.
“And there’s something else that bothers me. They couldn’t find a cause of death. The paramedics thought he’d had a heart attack, but it turns out from the autopsy there was nothing wrong with his heart. Oh, a bit of clogged arteries, as you’d expect to find in someone his age, but not enough to cause a heart attack.”
She looked