Chasing the Dark by Sam Hepburn Page A

jacket, grey trousers and brown lace-up shoes.
    â€˜What’s all this?’ I said.
    â€˜I’m not having anyone delivering my food looking like an oik.’
    Thanks, Doreen. At least I don’t look like a whippet in a wig .
    â€˜Come on get dressed, we’ve got to leave in ten minutes.’
    That’s when I took my life in his hands, told her no way and threatened not to go. She backed down on the trousers and let me wear my black jeans. But I still had to wear the shirt, jacket and tie. A tie! And she wouldn’t budge on the shoes. I felt like a total freak.
    Doreen wasn’t the only person in Saxted who’d got their knickers in a knot about Norma. She’d heard in the shop that there were reporters going door to door, trying to rake up gossip about the murder. We’d just loaded up the car when a sleazy-looking bloke came down the path, flashing a picture ID with ‘Press’ stamped across it, saying that he’d heard Doreen’s mother had worked for the Clairmonts and did Doreen have any photos or stories she wanted to sell. Doreen slammed the car door in his face and drove off, which was a shame. I could have done with picking up a few investigation tips from a pro.
    Doreen dropped me outside Elysium at exactly eight o’clock. She didn’t seem in much of a hurry to leave, andwatched from the car as the gates swung open and I walked down the floodlit drive. If she was hoping for a glimpse of Norma she was out of luck. A big bloke, with a golden tan, cropped blond hair and a sharp suit opened the front door. I wasn’t sure if he was a butler or a bodyguard. Either way, I wouldn’t want to upset him, which was a problem because, judging by the look on his face, I already had.
    â€˜I’ve got Miss Craig’s dinner,’ I said.
    He paused, just long enough to make me think I’d got the wrong day, before forcing out the words, ‘Come in.’
    Talk about a makeover. The hall was cleaner than a disinfectant commercial, glittering with light and full of sweet-smelling flowers that made me sneeze. I glanced down the corridor to the cellar, wondering if there was much in the way of butlers and flower arrangements where Yuri had ended up.
    Tan-man pushed open the door to the lounge and music flooded out; a bloke with a throaty voice singing an old song about windmills, spirals and half-forgotten dreams, I remembered Mum listening to it on one of her ‘Hits of the sixties’ CDs and singing along. The sound added to the creepy feeling I had that I was stepping back in time and made me think of Nan’s photos and the way Elysium had looked in its pre-murder glory days.
    I stood in the doorway and took it all in. The dust sheets and cobwebs had gone. The walls were painted, the leather couches cleaned, the curtains replaced, and the wooden floors polished. All the pictures of Norma had been dusted and straightened, and a row of little walllights filled the whole place with a soft warm glow. Mum would have loved it.
    A tall, slim woman was standing by the fireplace with her back to me, holding up a glass of wine that sparkled in the firelight. She turned slowly as I entered and, for a split second, it was like seeing a negative of the portrait behind her. Her hair was piled up in a similar way only it was white not black, and her long, floaty dress was black not white. The slanty eyes were just the same though, and they were scanning me inch by inch, just like Mum’s used to do when she knew I was trying to hide something.
    Norma Craig. She had to be well over sixty by now. No way did she look it. She must have seen I was shocked.
    â€˜What were you expecting? A crone?’ Her voice cut the silence, husky and scornful.
    â€˜Er, no, Miss Craig.’
    It looked like her lawyer had warned her I’d be doing the delivery because she didn’t seem at all surprised to see a kid standing there with her dinner. I held up the