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By Root 778 0

judge what you saw. I can only judge what I saw.' She looked around. 'There is no walking corpse following you,' she said and started to walk away.

Wait!' Chloe hurried after her. 'Wait. I'll come with you.'

Leela kept on walking. 'You do not know where I am going,' she said.

Chloe walked beside her pretending not to have heard. 'I saw a demon,'

she said conversationally. It was a thing like a man but with long spindly legs and a horribly twisted face.' She twisted her face into a feeble demonstration of a snarl. 'It was shouting and gibbering and it rushed at me. I fled.' She laughed. Boy, did I flee. It chased me. I thought I was never going to be able to stop running.'

'That is very like what I saw,' Leela said. 'We have imagined the same demon.'

Chloe said, 'No. It was real.' Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw a shrouded figure following them. Where did you say we were going?'

she asked.

Quietly Simpson opened the door to the dead girl's study bedroom and stepped inside. He watched the security supervisor poking about in the desk drawers for a moment or two before he said, Hullo Fred,' and saw his brother-in-law start guiltily. "They told me I'd find you in here.'

'Dear God, Bob, you frightened the living crap out of me!' the supervisor exclaimed.

'What are you doing?' Simpson asked, his voice casual, his expression mildly interested.

'Mr and Mrs Cox asked me to gather up some jewellery and a few odds and ends. For safekeeping.'

Simpson wandered across to look into the last drawer the supervisor had been searching. 'I thought you said I'd frightened the crap out of you,' he murmured.

'Meaning?'

Meaning that was crap, Fred.'

Very deliberately the supervisor said, 'Mr and Mrs Cox asked me to gather up some jewellery and a few odds and ends for safekeeping.'

'Saying it twice doesn't make it twice as convincing, you pillock.' Simpson looked close to laughing. "What are you doing in here?'

The supervisor squared up to leave. 'I don't have to tell you anything.'

Simpson stepped between him and the door. 'Yes you do.'

'Or what?' The supervisor was shorter than Simpson, but he was stockier and his shaved head made him look the more threatening and aggressive of the two.

'Or I nick you and give you a kicking,' Simpson said matter-of-factly.

'It's too late for that,' the supervisor said. 'You've already used that one.

You're not going to nick me.'

Simpson nodded. 'And saying it twice doesn't make it twice as convincing,'

he agreed, I should've done it, shouldn't I? At the time. Tell you what I am going to do, Fred. I'm going to invite you round to Sunday lunch and let your sister give you a kicking.'

'I'm not frightened of my sister.'

'Yes you are.'

'Yes I am.'

Simpson said, 'I did you a favour.' It was a statement of fact.

'I know you did, Bob,' the supervisor said earnestly, 'I know you did. I won't forget it. I promise you I won't forget it.'

'Neither will ‘I’ promise you.'

'That's fair.'

Tell you what I'm not going to do, shall I?' Simpson's tone was suddenly cold. 'I'm not going to lift a finger to help no matter what happens to you. If I can drop you in it, I will drop you in it. And trust me, I can drop you in it.' He stepped aside to let him pass.

The supervisor hesitated. 'I was checking for drugs,' he said finally. 'They wanted me to check for drugs.'

"The parents did?'

The supervisor returned to searching the room. 'The powers that be.' He lifted the desk drawer out and peered underneath it.

'You don't think we did all that?' Simpson asked.

Grunting, the supervisor stretched an arm down behind the other drawers.

'I'm supposed to make doubly sure. They don't want anything unexpected turning up at the inquest.'

'What sort of drugs?' Simpson folded his arms and leant against the door jamb.

The supervisor crawled under the desk. Any sort: pills, powders, potions.

You know what the little buggers are like these days.' He crawled out again. 'They'll take anything.'

'Bit late to cover it up,'