Read Necrocrip for Free Online Page B

houses from those divided into flats or bedsits by the condition of the paintwork and the quality of the curtains at the windows. Dead giveaway for a burglar, Slider thought as they trod up the steps.
    Beside the door there was a vertical toast-rack of labelled bell-buttons. Three of the bedsits were apparently occupied by the ubiquitous Mr Friedland. The second bell from the top offered
Slaughter,
and Slider pressed it just on the offchance. Nothing happened. Atherton went to press his face to the hammered-glass panel of the door. Slider pressed again, and heard the rattle of a window going up. Stepping back, he saw a pretty, painted face surrounded by fuzzy dun hair hanging out of a second-floor window.
    It smiled winningly. ‘Are you looking for Mandy?’
    ‘Are you Mandy?’
    ‘That’s right’ She leaned out a little further, and Slider caught a glimpse of a scarlet satin dressing-gown. ‘Are you Bob?’
    Atherton was out of sight under the overhang of the porch. Slider flicked him a glance to keep him there.
    ‘No. Were you expecting him?’
    ‘I don’t think he’s coming now, he’s ever so late.’ She looked him over with interest and approval. ‘D’you want to come up?’
    ‘Yes please,’ Slider said eagerly.
    ‘Second floor, door on the right’
    The head was withdrawn; the buzzer sounded, and Slider pushed his way in to a narrow hall with very shiny, very old lino, smelling strongly of furniture polish, stretching straight ahead up the stairs. On the second floor Mandy was waiting at the door, her dressing-gown invitingly parted at the neck, one bare knee poking through the folds and a feather-trimmed slipper appearing at the hem. How reassuringly traditional, Slider thought. Under the make-up she looked about nineteen, going on thirty-five.
    ‘That lino’s a bit slippery,’ he commented.
    ‘Oh I know, it’s lethal. It’s Kathleen – the housekeeper –she will polish it. I don’t know how many times a week people go arse over tit down the stairs, excuse my French. What’s your name, love?’
    Slider pulled out his warrant card. ‘Detective Inspector Slider.’ Her face sagged with dismay at the sight of it, and of Atherton coming up the stairs behind him. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Atherton. Don’t worry, it’s not trouble for you,’ he said quickly. ‘We just want to ask you some questions about someone who lives here.’
    ‘I haven’t done nothing,’ she wailed, pulling her dressing-gown tight at the neck with belated modesty.
    ‘I know you haven’t,’ he said soothingly. ‘It’s all right. We just want to talk to you about Mr Slaughter who lives upstairs. I promise you you’re not going to get into trouble. Can we come in?’
    Inside, her single room was mostly taken up with a double bed covered by a quilted satin counterpane and crowded with dolls and frilly cushions. It left little room for awardrobe, an armchair, and tiny table by the window covered in a lace cloth and bearing a vase containing a bunch of plastic violets. There was an old-fashioned gas fire with a mantelpiece crowded with ornaments, cards, letters and photographs, and on the wall above it a mirror in a frame encrusted with sea-shells. In the far corner was a sink with a geyser, and a marble-topped side-table bearing a single gas-ring and a collection of mugs, spoons and coffee-jars.
    Slider felt a pang of nostalgia. Barring the personal clutter, it was exactly like the room he and Irene had first lived in when they got married. It even smelled the same, of carpet-dust mingled with the faint but penetrating aroma of tomato soup. And on just such a gas-ring he had cooked exotic one-pot meals for his bride, and they had sat on the bed together and eaten with spoons straight from the saucepan.
    Back in prehistory. He shook the thoughts away, and concentrated on reassuring Mandy, who was passing from fear to indignation as she looked from Slider to Atherton and told herself how she’d been tricked. When