‘Do you cook for the residents?’
‘It depends on their need, and the flats all have kitchens of course. Stella tended to look after herself, though often took communal breakfast. Anyway, there was no answer at her door when Charlie called looking for her, and so he came to find me — I have the master keys, you see. When I got there we could see the lights still on and the curtains closed behind the corridor windows. Obviously, I couldn’t know what we’d…’
‘When was this?
‘Around eight fifteen.’
‘And the curtains still draped struck you as odd?’
‘She was a very early riser, hated slouching around in her pyjamas, would always have the curtains thrown open. When we went into her rooms it was hard to see — the lights were on, but the corridor we’d come from was still bright with the sun, and at first I didn’t see her there…’
‘Don’t worry about that for now. We’ll need a statement from you of course; but it would be as well for us to see the flat for ourselves.’
‘Then I’ll show you up.’
Grey wasn’t going to argue with this level of cooperation, and they allowed themselves to be led briskly up through the building. At the top of the stairs they met white boiler-suited scenes of crime officers who moved aside to let the party pass, one of which then followed them along the narrow walkway that ran along half the length of the second floor, saying,
‘All clear, Inspector. You can move anything you like, though you’ll need to suit up.’
The Inspector nodded his regards, as in the cramped space outside the room he and Cori took from their sterile packaging white coverings and pulled them over clothes, shoes, head and hands.
‘You must have been here all morning,’ asked Grey in the form of a statement to the man already suited.
‘Only since nine. Truth be told, there wasn’t much to find. The rooms are mostly undisturbed, though we have the usual mass of fibres and fingerprints to go through.’
‘And it was murder?’ he asked quietly.
‘All indications suggest so,’ answered the forensics man in similarly understated tones.
‘And the method?’
‘Simple strangulation, sir.’
‘Thank you.’ Grey looked to Ms Sowton, who though stood some way back had still heard them and who for all her self-control again seemed to tremble.
She gestured, ‘This is the door.’
Pausing as Cori tied back her hair, Grey took in his surroundings before entering the second apartment they had met along the corridor. There may have been a third amid a mass of cheeseplants and indoor ferns and who- knew-what else that filled the final stretch of the corridor, growing up from their baskets and pots along the walls and the spaces in-between to almost block out the brilliant white light that flooded in from that broad strip- window.
‘You could have an artists’ studio up here,’ he suggested. ‘It’s a shame to waste this light on the corridor.’
‘Believe me, in the summer the heat can be too much,’ answered the Duty Manager. ‘Better for those things,’ she pointed at the cheeseplants, ‘than for us. Anyway, we get enough light still through the inner windows,’ (for frosted glass did indeed run along the inside wall lighting the apartments) ‘and the front of the building catches its fair share in the afternoons.’
Grey turned to the outer glass within its thin steel frames, to look down first over the garden and carpark, before raising his gaze to take in the skyline of their town.
‘Like Southney’s answer to Rear Window, eh sir?’ offered Cori now kitted out, and knowing how her Inspector’s mind worked.
‘Jimmy Stewart would have loved this view sure enough.’
‘I’m not sure that’s the happiest cinematic metaphor, given what you’re about to see.’
Thus suitably chastised by Ms Sowton, Grey turned to speak to her,
‘We will need to speak to you later. We could be in here a while though, so if there’s things you needed to be getting on with…’
‘Thank you. I could use a moment alone to clear my mind.’
And so leaving her facing the window whose view Grey had so admired, the detectives followed their Constable through the door and into the scene of what Grey had now had confirmed to him after all to be a very suspicious death.
Chapter 2 — Stella Dunbar
‘I’ve set things back for you as they were when we arrived, sir,’ began the Constable.
‘Good, and push the door closed, won’t you.’ Grey didn’t want someone who knew the victim hearing what they had to say. ‘And so this was exactly as it was when she was found?’
They entered the flat down a short passageway, leading off from which were the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and other spaces, and opening out to the main lounge and dining area filling the whole width of the flat at the front and which was dominated by the single huge window currently glowing faint red through the curtains with the daylight outside.
The nearest part of the room was set out as a lounge with three-piece suite, leading through to a half-dining table set against the wall below the large window. The room was lit by only a standard lamp by the easy chairs and a low-hanging lamp at the dining table end.
Grey instantly understood what Rachel Sowton had meant about the change of light from the corridor, as it was a full two seconds after entering the gloom of the flat before he saw that at the centre of the lounge area before them was a woman’s body, lying face down and with her head over her left arm.
‘The lights were on?’ Grey knew forensics would have had given themselves more light to work in.
‘Yes, sir, just like this.’
‘Thank you, get the curtains open now though will you, and turn the lights off.’ He hated rooms being like this in daytime — wonderfully atmospheric for reading or relaxing at night, but decadent and offensive to his work ethic by day when sunlight and fresh air ought to be let in and people should to be getting active. From what the Duty manager had said this was something like the victim’s feelings too.
The curtains opened, he could see she was dressed in dark-green silk pyjamas and dressing gown, with only the untouched grey hair that fell over her face to give any indication of age. The uniform colour of the dressing gown’s material, albeit deep and vivid, was in contrast to the fiendish patterns of the Chinese rug she appeared to have fallen onto and which must have cushioned that final fall to earth.
‘So what were the chain of events this morning?’ asked Grey as he circled the rug. ‘We weren’t told of any of this over the phone; only that a second death had flagged up on the computer.’
‘Ah yes.’ The Constable rifled through his notebook. ‘There was a Mr Tanner, died here nine weeks ago. We’ve double-checked with the Infirmary: there was nothing suspicious there, a heart attack at eighty-three. It all looks innocent enough.’
‘A grim relief. But not so in Ms Dunbar’s case evidently.’
Continued the Constable, ‘After she was first found and reported, the ambulancemen who came to collect her noticed the bruising on her neck, and made a second call to us. This must have been after you were first contacted.’
A besmocked figure poked their head in around the door, ‘You’ll let us know when we can take the body, sir?’
‘Could you turn her over a little?’ he asked instead. The man came in with another and gently rolled the lifeless form of the lady still clad in expensive silk.
Kneeling beside Cori, the pair of them looked closer, she observing,
‘Look, there’s the bruising to the neck. Her hair covered it at first.’
