murders?”
“And you’re expecting me to answer that?” She snorted.
“I never even met him. He was long dead before we moved in.
You should talk to old Hayes’ she jerked her head towards the adjoining garages ‘he’s the only one who knew the family.”
“I have talked to him. He doesn’t know either.” She glanced towards the open front door but all she could see was an expanse of peach wall and a triangle of russet carpet.
“I gather the house has been gutted and redecorated. Did you do that yourselves or did you buy it after it was done?”
“We did it ourselves. My old man’s in the building trade. Or was,” she corrected herself.
“He was made redundant ten, twelve months ago. We were lucky, managed to sell our other house without losing too much, and bought this for a song. Did it without a mortgage, too, so we’re not struggling the way some other poor sods are.”
“Has he found another job?” Roz asked sympathetically.
The young woman shook her head.
“Hardly. Building’s all he knows and there’s precious little of that at the moment. Still, he’s trying his best. Can’t do more than that, can he?” She lowered the shears.
“I suppose you’re wondering if we found anything when we gutted the house.”
Roz nodded.
“Something like that.”
“If we had, we’d have told someone.”
“Of course, but I wouldn’t have expected you to find anything incriminating. I was thinking more in terms of impressions. Did the place look loved, for example? Is that why he stayed?
Because he loved it?”
The woman shook her head.
“I reckon it was more of a prison. I can’t swear to it because I don’t know for sure, but my guess is he only used one room and that was the room downstairs at the back, the one that was attached to the kitchen and the cloakroom with its own door into the garden. Maybe he went through to the kitchen to cook, but I doubt it. The connecting door was locked and we never found the key. Plus, there was an ancient Baby Being still plugged into one of the sockets in that room, which the house clearers couldn’t be bothered to take, and my bet is he did all his cooking on that.
The garden was nice. I think he lived in the one room and the garden, and never went into the rest of the house at all.”
“Because the door was locked?”
“No, because of the nicotine. The windows were so thick with it that the glass looked yellow. And the ceiling’ she pulled a face ‘was dark brown. The smell of old tobacco was overpowering. He must have smoked non-stop in there. It was disgusting. But there were no nicotine stains anywhere else in the house. If he ever went beyond the connecting door, then it can’t have been for very long.”
Roz nodded.
“He died of a heart attack.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Would you object to my taking a look inside?”
“There’s no point. It’s completely different. We knocked out any walls that weren’t structural and changed the whole layout downstairs.
If you want to know what it looked like when he was here, then I’ll draw you a plan. But you don’t come in. If I say yes to you, then there’s no end to it, is there? Any Tom, Dick, or Harry can demand to put his foot through our door.”
“Point taken. A plan would be more helpful, anyway.” She reached into the car for a notepad and pencil and passed it across.
“It’s much nicer now,” said the self-possessed young woman, drawing with swift strokes.
“We’ve opened up the rooms and put some colour into them. Poor Mrs.
Martin had no idea at all. I think, you know, she was probably rather boring. There.” She passed the notepad back.
“That’s the best I can do.”
“Thank you,” said Roz studying the plan.
“Why do you think Mrs. Martin was boring?”
“Because everything walls, doors, ceilings, everything was painted white. It was like an operating theatre, cold and antiseptic, without a spot of colour. And she didn’t have pictures either, because there were no marks on the walls.” She shuddered.
“I don’t like houses like that. They never look lived in.”
Roz smiled as she glanced up at the red-brick facade.
