‘Find anything in there?’ he asked.
‘No, the bedroom’s as neat and tidy as everywhere else. Oh, and the bed’s still made. Great painting on the wall though, all these colourful shapes blending to make a landscape. You’d love it.’
‘Yes, there’re some good ones in here too.’
‘One odd thing — I haven’t found any medication.’
‘Seventy-one, and not even a bottle of aspirin in the place?’
‘Perhaps she kept herself healthy.’
‘But we’d all have a few aches and pains by that age; Lord knows I’ve got enough already.’
‘Then it may be Rachel Sowton keeps all they need,’ she suddenly thought.
He had to admit that was a better answer.
Both kneeling over the yellowed papers to rearrange them at one side, they opened the boxfile to find not more of the same but instead some other education certificates, a silver pocket fob watch, and a small knitted teddybear.
‘Well, what do we make of these?’ asked Grey, squeezing the bear’s belly.
‘A blue bear,’ noted Cori, ‘and a man’s watch — they can’t have been hers.’
‘A son, and a father.’
‘Or a son and a husband.’
‘And why wasn’t this watch a part of the collection?’ Grey picked it up. Tied to it was a soft leather tag with an imprinted inscription. ‘Clever that, so they don’t harm the antique.’ He read, ‘” For All The Help You’ve Given Us. ” That’s a message of thanks, not of love.’
‘Perhaps from her students, or where she taught?’
‘But a man’s watch?’
‘Well, if they knew it was what she collected…’
‘So why then hide it away?’
‘You know, boss,’ said Cori thoughtfully, ‘there isn’t a single photograph in this apartment.’
‘We need to ask that Ms Sowton about family. I wonder why she didn’t keep a diary?’ he asked suddenly.
‘I don’t,’ answered Cori.
‘Nor do most, but I couldn’t live without mine. What do you do with all that stuff that you have nowhere else to say? If I had a table with that view I’d write and write.’ But he had lost her, soon getting back on track, ‘Have a look in that drawer. You’re good with bank statements.’
Cori took the contents to the table and studied the columns of numbers carefully,
‘Hmm. Her income wasn’t huge, but with her pension and savings she seems to have been covering a whole different set of outgoings.’
‘I wonder how this Cedars Trust works?’
‘Yes, and she was a trustee as well as a resident.’
‘Something else to ask Ms Sowton.’ Grey went through to the lounge and sat down on the sofa, Cori following him in and sitting in the other single chair, each taking care beyond that of a police officer at a murder scene not to tread on the rug that had been Stella Dunbar’s resting place, and looking to the chair between the radio and magazine rack as though her ghostly presence lingered there. Grey summarised:
‘Stella Dunbar: she had a student here yesterday evening, and then would have had her tea. She had her usual walk around eight, the Duty Manager seeing her home, then possibly had another visitor later that evening, they leaving around ten — a student who wouldn’t usually have been here that late.
‘Now the early estimate suggests she died a little after then…’
‘Though yet to be confirmed.’
‘Granted. Now this evening visitor, if it was her visitor, was a schoolgirl. The marks on the victim’s neck looked to me like she’d been strangled with bare hands, which takes strength. Look around us: not a thing out of place, glass everywhere and none of it even chipped, cupboards full of carefully organised trinkets which the killer would have had to put back absolutely right if they’d been knocked. No commotion was caused for alarm to have been raised in the building last night. Now the victim was of advanced years, but she looked of average size and weight to me, and clearly had her faculties intact. Whoever did this was bigger than her and stronger than her, could grip her in their hands and keep her there till she died. It all took place in this very spot, and she didn’t have a chance.’
Each sat sombrely, taking in the nightmare of what had occurred in that room the previous night.
‘You need to call the Superintendent, sir.’
‘I do. Can you find out what’s happening with the other residents? Hopefully someone’s been taking statements.’
They got up and walked to the corridor, where Cori again found herself beside the rampant flora and feeling the leathery leaves and soft fronds of the plants that brushed her as she stood even outside Stella Dunbar’s door,
‘These are lovely though, aren’t they?’ She moved in their direction as if enchanted, ‘It looks like there’s a third door through here.’ She felt something brush her cheek as she passed through the plants and tried the door. ‘Locked; and there’s a vine wrapped itself around the handle — it would have broken if anyone had been in. I wonder who’s room it is?’
‘We’ll add that to the list of things to ask our Duty Manager when we see her, wherever she may be.’
‘Probably downstairs, sir.’ The Constable, who had been called away for a while was now returned to his watch. ‘I suggested she keep people off the stairs while we took out the body.’
‘Very wise.’
Mention of the residents reminded Grey of how few people they had seen within the building. This could have been through them keeping out of the officers’ way, or that life here was generally lived downstairs; however, Grey wasn’t sure even had there been the muffled sounds of people in their flats and the echo of feet on the stairs that the whispered magic spell of solitude that lived along these corridors would ever quite be dispelled.
‘She’ll be in the dayroom with the residents,’ the Constable continued. ‘That’s the big room on the ground floor, sir, with patio doors.’
As Cori headed in that way, Grey re-entered the flat and prepared to call his boss.
Chapter 3 — Derek Waldron
Superintendent Rose was a boss his investigative Inspector could get on with just so long as he took for granted that they each saw the job they both loved from utterly opposite directions. He had been a serving policeman himself before his promotions, yet the burdens of office denied him taking his officer’s part while also giving him a whole other set of things to worry about. These worries could come over as grouchiness; though thankfully something in the Superintendent’s nature meant that Grey knew never to take it personally, and so the pair of them got on fine.
‘We could have done with you there a bit earlier,’ the Superintendent mused.
‘Well we were out of town when the call came, and didn’t even know it was an emergency until we got here.’
‘A scene like that needs taking charge of.’
‘We’re on top of it, sir.’
‘Well make sure you don’t miss anything trying to catch up.’
‘Everything’s in hand.’
‘Is it? It doesn’t sound like you know what’s been happening there yet.’ (They had already been talking for fifteen minutes.)
‘There’s nothing obvious left for us to find — this isn’t an accident or a robbery gone wrong.’
‘Can’t be helped, I suppose. You’ll be there for the day now? And you’re sure it’s murder?’
‘As clear a set of finger bruises as I’ve seen, and big hands too. He didn’t give her a chance to get free.’
‘At an old people’s home — I ask you.’
