Blood Guilt. Lindy Cameron

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СКАЧАТЬ doubt that Brigie will be waiting up for me.' Del followed Kit down the short hallway that opened off the landing that surrounded her sunken lounge room. Kit had turned the smallest of her apartment's three bedrooms into a darkroom. Her friend Angie, who was particularly handy with a monkey wrench, had done a bit of creative plumbing on the pipes in the adjacent bathroom so the new darkroom would have running water.

      'A photographer you ain't,' Kit said an hour later as she collected the prints from where she'd pegged them to a piece of string hung across her open lounge window.

      'But thank you for your time and assistance,' Del said snidely. 'I warned you I was only used to a totally automatic camera.'

      Kit dropped the prints on the coffee table beside the orderly piles of photos she and Del had been selecting to present to Celia the next day. She sat down next to Del and gave her an apologetic grin. 'OK, let's see what we've got.'

      She extracted some of the prints and put them to one side then sorted the remainder into chronological order before choosing the clearest shots.

      'Why are you leaving those out?' Del asked, picking up the discarded pile which included a photo of Del and Thistle and several of Ian Dalkeith surveying his wasteland property.

      'As you say Del, Celia hired me to follow Geoffrey. I doubt she'd be interested in how Mr Dalkeith spends his afternoons.'

      Kit selected the shots of Geoffrey's Wednesday meeting at the Regent Hotel with Dalkeith, the American and the other mystery man. She wrote the date, time and place on the back of each. The last photos were the seven Del had taken that evening. They were blurred but the identities of the three men standing in the foyer of the St Kilda house were still unmistakable. Geoffrey and Dalkeith stood to one side as the American leered in response to the attention being lavished on him by the same crimson tart Kit had seen Geoffrey with the first night she'd staked out the house.

      'She looks familiar,' Del said looking over Kit's shoulder.

      'She's in the earlier pics. She's also of a type,' Kit said indicating the top photo on one of the other piles. 'Our Geoffrey is obviously a legs man, although a well-endowed crutch seems to attract his attention too.'

      'She's side-on, you can't see her face properly. And you criticise my photography,' Del said picking up the photo of the two blondes Geoffrey had played with on Tuesday.

      'I gather this is the mysterious car that was lurking in the street with us tonight,' Kit said turning the photo around several times pretending she couldn't work out which way it went.

      'Oh you're such a card O'Malley. You're...' Del was about to say something truly smart when something in the photos of Dalkeith she still had in her lap caught her attention. Kit didn't notice Del had stopped talking. She was too busy staring open-mouthed at the photograph of the car.

      'I've seen this somewhere before Del,' she said reaching for the magnifying glass.

      'Quite possibly, it's a fairly common make,' Del said absently, taking the magnifying glass from Kit's hand.

      'No, I mean I've seen this one before. It was parked in the lane opposite the Patrician the other night.'

      'Yeah? Well I think maybe it is following you then. Take a look at this.'

      It was the last photo Kit had taken of Dalkeith on Tuesday, as he was leaving his riverfront investment. She snapped him as he'd turned his car left out through the old broken gateway heading away from where she had parked a short distance down the street. There in the background, parked an equal distance from the gate on the other side was the same beat-up brown station wagon.

      'Shit! What's going on? Who the hell would be following me?'

      'Beats me,' Del said. 'But I'd brush up on your techniques of observation if I were you, sweetheart. Fancy not noticing that old heap tailing you everywhere.'

      Kit felt a chill up her spine. Maybe Celia had hired someone else to make sure she got the job done properly. That was unlikely.

      'It could be Douglas,' she said aloud.

      'Who the hell is Douglas?' Del asked.

      'Celia's solicitor. I don't mean it's him. But maybe he hired someone else to dig into Geoffrey's financial dealings, while I'm running around sorting out Celia's suspicions of adultery.'

      'Seems like a waste of money to hire two detectives for the same case.'

      Kit stared at the two photos for a long time. She picked up the other piles and flipped through them.

      'There it is again!' Kit said horrified. How the hell could I have missed this?'

      'That's Dalkeith with that Yank again,' Del said. 'Who are you investigating here? Robinson or Dalkeith?'

      'That was the day Geoffrey had the meeting with Dalkeith, the American and this bloke,' Kit said pointing to the next photo. 'But this is the shot with that bloody car in it.'

      'So, what's the common denominator here O'Malley?' Del said, as if the answer was sitting right in front of them sharing the port.

      'Geoffrey... or me,' Kit said.

      'Or Dalkeith. Come on Miss Marple, this is your area of expertise not mine.'

      'God, I think I need a holiday,' Kit groaned. 'Somewhere cold. I think this hot weather is making me stupid. The night I saw that car opposite The Patrician was the first time I saw Dalkeith, in the flesh I mean. You said you think the driver has a moustache?'

      'Yeah, either a big bushy one or a beard as well. I only glimpsed him by match light remember.'

      'Well maybe Douglas did hire him. If Geoffrey's in some sort of shonky business deal with Dalkeith it would be logical to have someone follow Dalkeith. Obviously I can't do everything. I'm sure Celia would have mentioned it to me though. This is very curious.'

      'Curious indeed, my love. But I don't intend to lose any sleep over it. And neither should you. Speaking of which I am going home, and you should go to bed. You can ask your client all about it tomorrow.'

      CHAPTER FIVE

      'So what is he doing here?' Celia asked, in a tone that conveyed amused disbelief rather than disgust. She had flipped quickly through the photographs of the women her husband had picked up on the streets, saying nothing more than 'They're all tall. Typical!' before putting them to one side.

      'At the time I thought he was paying the boy,' Kit answered. 'But when I developed the film I realised that it's an envelope he's handing over. It probably contains money but it could be anything I suppose.'

      'And this house?' Celia asked, tapping the photograph with the stem of her champagne glass.

      'According to the records the council rates are being paid by a company called Wellborn Enterprises which appears to be a subsidiary of another called Freyling Imports. '

      'Wellborn indeed,' Celia snorted. 'That bastard's got delusions of grandeur.'

      'Your husband may not have any involvement with Wellborn, Celia. I know that doesn't mean much when he obviously has such an interest in the place but, short of asking him outright, I doubt if you'd be able to trace the money he's been spending to that СКАЧАТЬ