had to die all over again. The ultimate fantasy, constantly changing, shaped to fit my every mood and whim. At last, Adam was performing everything he could ever have fantasized about.
It was a shame he couldn't share in my pleasure.
It wasn't perfect, but at least I was having more fun than the police. From what I read, it was clear they were getting nowhere.
Adam's death barely merited a mention in the national media, and even the Bradfield Evening Sentinel Times gave up after five days. Adam's body was identified tafter four days, when anxious colleagues reported him missing after failing to get any reply from his phone or his doorbell. I was interested in their tributes (popular, hard-working, well liked, etc. ) and I felt a moment's regret that his stupidity had deprived me of their friendship. The Sentinel Times'5 crime reporter had even managed to track down Adam'sex-wife, a mistake he'd made at twenty-one which he'd extricated himself from by his twenty-fifth birthday. Her comments made me laugh out loud.
Adam Scott'sex-wife Lisa Arnold, 27, fought back the tears as she said,
"I can't believe this could have happened to Adam.
"He was a friendly man, really sociable. But he wasn't a big drinker.
I can't imagine how this weirdo managed to get hold of him. "
Lisa, a primary-school teacher who has since remarried, went on,
"I've no idea what he was doing in Crompton Gardens. He never showed any gay tendencies when we were married. Our sex life was quite normal.
If anything, it was a bit boring.
"We married too young. Adam's mother had brought him up to expect a wife who waited on him hand and foot, and that just wasn't me.
"Then I met someone else and I told Adam I wanted a divorce. He was really upset, but I think it was more that his pride was hurt.
"I haven't seen him since the divorce, but I heard he was living on his own. I know he's had a few affairs over the last three years, but nothing serious as far as I know.
"I just can't get used to the idea that he's dead. I know we hurt each other, but I'm still devastated that he's been murdered like this."
J didn't rate the chances of Lisa's second marriage lasting the course if she still had as little insight into the workings of the male mind. Boring? Lisa was the only reason sex with Adam could be boring.
And as for calling me a weirdo! She was the one who had turned her back on a charming, handsome man who loved her so much that he was still talking about her to complete strangers three years after she'd rejected him. I knew all about it; I'd listened to him. If anyone was a weirdo, it was Lisa.
No un practised artist could have conceived so bold an idea as that of a noon-day murder in the heart of a great city. It was no obscure baker, gentlemen, or anonymous chimney-sweeper, be assured, that executed this work. I know who it was.
Stevie McConnell ran both hands through his hair in a gesture of desperation.
"Look, how many times do I have to tell you? I was telling porkies. I was trying to make myself sound the big man. I wanted to cop off, I was trying to make myself interesting. I never knew Paul Gibbs or Damien Connolly. I never saw either of them in my life."
"We can prove you knew Gareth Finnegan," Carol said coldly.
"OK, I admit I knew Gareth. He was a member down the gym, I can't pretend I'd never met him before. But Christ, woman, the man was a lawyer. He must have known thousands of people in the city,"
McConnell said, thumping the table with a solid fist.
Carol didn't even flinch.
"And Adam Scott," she went on relentlessly.
"Yeah, yeah," he said Wearily.
"Adam Scott had a trial one-month membership down the gym about two years ago. He never joined up. I bumped into him a couple of times in my local pub, we had a jar together, that's all there was to it. I have a drink with a lot of people, you know. I'm not a bloody hermit. Christ, if I killed everybody I've ever stood at a bar with, you se bastards would be busy from now till the next century."
"We will prove you knew Paul Gibbs and Damien Connolly. You know that, don't you?" Merrick chimed in.
McConnell sighed. His hands clenched, forcing the muscles in his powerful forearms into sharp relief.