‘And she’d have been long dead by then?’ asked Grey of the scenes of crime men.
‘Yes, sir. The doctor estimated some time late last night or early this morning. He sends his apologies, by the way: he was called to an urgent operation at the Infirmary.’
‘That’s quite all right; tell him I anticipate his report as always. And no other signs of injury?’
‘Not that we could see, sir, but once we get her back to the lab…’
Grey nodded, and left them to their grim work, as standing to the sides of the removal he asked the Constable for whatever else he had to tell them. He himself began mooching around the lounge, Cori directed to do likewise in the dining area.
Began the Constable, ‘There are no signs of a break in: the door was found locked this morning and it, the lock and the frosted windows facing the corridor are all unmarked. The big window over the dining table does have a panel that opens quite wide outwards…’
‘Pre building regs,’ muttered Grey.
‘…but the building has a sheer front and you’d need to be Spiderman to get in that way. The windows are still locked anyway. Regards a burglary, there’s nothing in the flat that the Duty Manager or another of the victim’s friends could see as missing or having been disturbed, not even that little lot.’
His eyes directed Grey to a sizeable unit against the side wall at the dining table end of the room, and which might have been a dresser but for its fingerprint-dusted glass front. When Grey looked closer through the mess left by his forensic colleagues he saw it was being used as a display case for very many pieces of small silverware — teaspoons, mounted badges, snuff boxes — clearly a collecting passion of victim.
‘And did anyone hear anything last night?’
‘No reports so far.’
‘Thank you,’ he said to the man who went to keep watch outside.
‘There’s a diary, sir,’ said Cori by him at the dining table, where she now sat in the light from the window turning the small pages to find today. ‘More an appointments book than a journal,’ she summarised as the Inspector turned to her. ‘On the day she died there’s the initials “EN” then what looks like a time, four till six, and then a final initial, “ P ”.’
‘So that’s a student, arriving after school hours… and “ P ”?’
‘Paid, I’d guess.’
‘Of course,’ agreed Grey, ‘she wasn’t teaching them for nothing. Any other names?’
‘This “ EN ” and an “ SK ”, both recurring; and for this morning, “ RR, No Appointment. ”’
‘Are RR in there anywhere else?’
Cori looked, ‘Oh yes, three weeks ago, but this time with a set time.’
Grey thought aloud, ‘Today’s a weekday morning, so RR can’t be a child; and “No Appointment” — does that suggest that they’re someone she was going to see?’
But neither had an answer.
‘I wonder how much this place cost her?’ asked Grey.
‘If she was a professional all her life, probably not more than she could afford.’
He surveyed his surroundings in natural light, ‘It’s nice here, though, isn’t it.’ The place was cosy but well- appointed, the decorations few but well-made.
‘I don’t think they’re the poorest people who come to live here.’
‘No, quite. We could do with learning more about this Trust.’
‘It looks like she used the table as a desk, sir.’ Cori gestured to the neat piles of notebooks, pens and school textbooks sat along its edges.
‘” European History for Year Nine,”’ read Grey.
‘Senior school, your old Third Year,’ she clarified. ‘There’re a few different subjects here, and for different ages too.’
‘A good place to be creative,’ he murmured looking over the desk and out to the view of the trees beyond.
As Cori went to get up she saw something by her feet, leaning down to pick up an opened and empty envelope,
‘Return address in London,’ she noted. ‘Is that an auction house?’ she asked Grey, who also half-recognised the name,
‘Might be. No sign of the letter that came in it thought.’ He scanned the table. ‘I wonder where she kept her correspondence?’
‘There’s drawers in the display case.’
Indeed there were, two thin ones below the glass-fronted upper portion and above two wooden doors below. Grey tried them and all were locked.
‘Have you seen any keys? He asked.
‘Not yet. Have you looked down here?’ she asked, nodding to the lounge area?
‘Okay, you start on the other rooms.’
As she headed off he looked more closely at his surroundings. On the wall facing the display cabinet he saw a framed Certificate in Education, signed in the scrawled hand of a supervisor long dead and dated Nineteen Sixty- three. Moving back to the lounge area itself, with its the three-piece-suite and twenty-year-old television, he thought this area at least seemed a little more built for comfort. There were two paintings, both originals and placed where she would have been able to see them. Grey was no expert, but would have thought them early Twentieth Century, still representational but vivid in their use of colour. As well as these there were vases and other coloured glassware scattered around the room to brighten the place up.
Against one wall was a small electric fire. On its mantelpiece (which was there only for show, there being no flue behind it) was a small display of seashells and postcards — which under examination were all from friends staying at British or European seaside resorts, postmarked recently and saying no more than the usual holidaymaking fluff.
He sat down in the chair that looked most lived-in, hoping it might give him the victim’s perspective on things. Beside him was a small glass-fronted cupboard with more silver objet d’art, and on top of this a digital radio that he sensed had more use than the dusty-buttoned TV. Sure enough, when he rummaged through the small wooden-framed and woven-sided magazine rack at the other side the chair he found that week’s Radio Times folded over at yesterday’s radio listings.
Also in the woollen rack — the likes of which he hadn’t seen for decades — was the promised bundle of keys. Going back to the dining area, he first tried them in the lock of the glass doors to look again more clearly at the collection of silver trinkets, for a piece had earlier caught his eye through the fingerprint smudges. Opening the doors he saw it there gleaming: silver like the other items, but in this case the precious metal being merely the backing and decorated surrounds of an enamelled brooch bearing the portrait of a lady with her hair piled up, her ivory cheeks rouged, and her silk dress painted a blue that hadn’t faded with the years. Placed as the centrepiece of the collection it was exquisite, and bar a couple of statuettes the only piece here to bear a human likeness.
Being gentle so as not to rattle the contents on display above, he found the right keys to open the cabinet’s two thin drawers. In one he found only a clutch of bills, bank statements and other papers to be kept safe, and in the other draw more of the same but going back further.
Beneath the drawers were two carpentered doors, and unlocking these just as carefully he discovered some more educational materials.
They looking like they hadn’t been touched for a while, some bearing the logo not of a cedar but of an oak tree within a shield. Beside these were folders, which when he opened them were full of yellowed pages: draft proposals and minutes of meetings, typewritten and sometimes photocopied. The spine of one of these folders read TRUST, and he guessed they dated from the formation of the Cedars as a care home that Rachel Sowton had mentioned earlier. Beneath these was a still older-looking boxfile. He pulled the lot out to get at it, papers falling everywhere as he did so.
Cori moved methodically through the remaining rooms. The kitchen was small and perfectly formed, everything of good quality and neat and in its right place; similarly the bathroom, which when she opened the cabinet above the sink revealed nothing more medicinal than a toothbrush and floss.
‘Enjoying yourself?’ she asked, emerging finally from the bedroom. She knelt down beside him to help tidy the fallen papers.
