Before I Sleep

Table of Contents
 Cover
 Also by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles From Severn House
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Chapter One: If You Knew Sushi Like I Know Sushi
 Chapter Two: Hearts and Crafts
 Chapter Three: Bridal Path
 Chapter Four: We Shall Not All Sleep, But We Shall All Be Changed
 Chapter Five: Degas vu
 Chapter Six: Dunce Inane to Burnham Woods
 Chapter Seven: Asbestos You Can
 Chapter Eight: Dads and Dudes
 Chapter Nine: Lunchtime Achievement
 Chapter Ten: Rather Fun and Wholly Toast
 Chapter Eleven: Vere the Boys Are
 Chapter Twelve: It’s a Long Robe That Has no Turban
 Chapter Thirteen: Ligaments of Fire
 Chapter Fourteen: You Can’t Teach an Old Dog Newtonian Physics
 Chapter Fifteen: A Tale of Two Ditties
 Chapter Sixteen: Edifice Complex
 Chapter Seventeen: Perjury in Motion
 Chapter Eighteen: Gits That Pass in the Night
 Chapter Nineteen: Him Indoors
 Chapter Twenty: Above Rubies
 Chapter Twenty-One: The Road Not Travelled 
 Also by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles from Severn House
 Novels
 ON WINGS OF LOVE
 EVEN CHANCE
 LAST RUN
 PLAY FOR LOVE
 A CORNISH AFFAIR
 NOBODY’S FOOL
 DANGEROUS LOVE
 REAL LIFE (Short Stories)
 KEEPING SECRETS
 THE LONGEST DANCE
 THE HORSEMASTERS
 JULIA
 THE COLONEL’S DAUGHTER
 HARTE’S DESIRE
 COUNTRY PLOT
 KATE’S PROGRESS
 THE HOSTAGE HEART
 THE TREACHEROUS HEART
 The Bill Slider Mysteries
 GAME OVER
 FELL PURPOSE
 BODY LINE
 KILL MY DARLING
 BLOOD NEVER DIES
 HARD GOING
 STAR FALL
 ONE UNDER
 OLD BONES
 SHADOW PLAY
 HEADLONG
 CRUEL AS THE GRAVE
 DYING FALL
 BEFORE I SLEEP 
 BEFORE I SLEEP
 Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
 
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 First world edition published in Great Britain and the USA in 2023
 by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd,
 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE.
 Trade paperback edition first published in Great Britain and the USA in 2023
 by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.
 This eBook edition first published in 2023 by Severn House Digital
 an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited 
 severnhouse.com
 Copyright © Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, 2023
 All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The right of Cynthia Harrod-Eagles to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
 A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
 ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0619-0 (cased)
 ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0621-3 (trade paper)
 ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0620-6 (e-book)
 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents 
 are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. 
 Except where actual historical events and characters are being described 
 for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are
 fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, 
 business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
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 Stirlingshire, Scotland. 
 ONE
 If You Knew Sushi Like I Know Sushi
 Jenrich stuck her head – all cheekbones and burning blue eyes – round the door. ‘Mr Porson wants you in his room, guv. Right away.’ She gave him a look of dispassionate curiosity, like someone driving past a car crash, and added, ‘He’s got Mr Carpenter with him.’
 ‘Bloody Nora,’ said Slider. The last thing you wanted to face of a weekday morning was Borough Commander ‘Call Me Mike’ Carpenter, Slider’s boss, Porson’s boss, everybody’s boss, who had all the warmth, charm and empathy of Vladimir Putin with a toothache. ‘I never really got the hang of Wednesdays,’ he muttered as he set off down the corridor.
 He tapped at the open door, and saw that Carpenter had occupied Porson’s usual prowling space between desk and window. Porson, marooned against the filing cabinet, rolled his eyes at Slider in a look that said, Run. Run like the wind, and don’t look back.
 Carpenter was tall, well-built, with a suspiciously luxuriant head of hair – Slider suspected plugs. He was standing with his back to the door, hands in pockets, staring out of the window – purely a piece of theatre, since the windows hadn’t been cleaned since the Thatcher premiership, so the view was of grime on grime.
 He did not move or turn at Slider’s tap. More power play. Well, they could stand there all day in Beckettian symbiosis, or Slider could say, ‘Sir?’ He went with that.
 Carpenter turned majestically, like the Queen Mary in the Hudson River. ‘Ah, Slider,’ he said. He withdrew his hands from his pockets. He smiled.
 Slider flinched. He had braced himself for a bollocking, but a smile was far worse. It boded no good – and in the Job you quickly became an expert at recognizing boding.
 ‘I have a job for you,’ said Carpenter.
 ‘Sir,’ Slider said again, but without the question mark. Discouragingly.
 ‘It’s concerning Henry Holland – do you know who that is?’
 The name sounded vaguely familiar, but, ‘No, sir,’ said Slider.
 ‘He’s a writer. Of a series of novels, about a ship-captain in the Napoleonic Wars. I’d never heard of them, but apparently they’re quite popular. He makes a living at it, at any rate. Lives in St Anns Villas.’
 It was a street just over the border in Holland Park, a posh street on the unposh north side of Holland Park Avenue. On the south side of the avenue was the park itself and Campden Hill, with some very high-end residences; beautiful old early Victorian places, some of them detached, with large gardens. The north side of the avenue was really Notting Hill, and segued into the shabbier hinterland of