A uniformed constable caught her eye. He was standing at the door to a small brick and flint cottage a short distance away, a building nestled in between several others. The walls looked thick and solid, the windows quite small. This was commonplace in old buildings, especially here, built with functionality in mind where protection from the elements was held in higher regard than aesthetics. Not that they weren't charming.
She approached the officer, recognising him, but couldn't recall his name. He greeted her, stepping out of the property to make room for her. She stopped at the threshold, withdrawing plastic boot covers. If uniform felt the need to call on CID, then it was a fair assumption this was a crime scene.
"What have you found?" she asked, putting the covers on.
"A male. In his late thirties or early forties. Looks like he's bled out from a wound to his torso, but he's lying on his front, so I can't say for sure."
"All right," Cassie said, casting one last glance towards the beautiful scenery before entering the building, knowing she would soon be observing something at the opposite end of the scale. "You’d best show me. Where is he?"
"Kitchen," the constable said, gesturing for her to head through the house to the rear. The interior of the cottage was much as Cassie figured it would be. The ceilings were low and the small windows allowed precious little light to penetrate. Outside, the day was proving fine. The sun was burning off what cloud cover was present, but once Cassie passed into the rear of the cottage, she realised you would be hard pressed to know what the weather was doing beyond the walls. The neighbouring properties were built up, sitting on different levels: their walls extensive and some had mature trees overhanging the boundary. This only added to the lack of daylight penetrating into the interior.
The kitchen appeared to be an addition to the original building at some point in the past, but not recent by any means. However, the windows here were larger, which helped. The kitchen was narrow, a galley style with units on opposing walls, a small sink set beneath the window with a view over what looked like an enclosed courtyard to the side. The smell of blood was strong in the air. The body lay face down between the units, as previously described, with the left arm and shoulder pressed up against the door to the outside. A pool of blood had spread out from beneath the body, the epicentre of which appeared to be the midriff, although the pool now encompassed the man's arms, upper legs and his head and was seeping beneath the plinth of the cabinets. The blood at the edge of the pool was drying, indicative of the flow having ceased hours ago. Most likely this was when the heart stopped pumping. The blood was a deep burgundy colour. Cassie figured he must have succumbed relatively quickly because the darker shade of red indicated a major organ had been damaged in the assault.
Getting as close as she could to the body without disturbing the pool of drying blood, not easy due to the cramped conditions, Cassie dropped to her haunches. The man lay on his front, but his face was looking to his left. The eyes were open, vacant and lifeless. She'd seen death before, many times. Each face told its own story about the victim's passage from this life to the next. In this case, she considered, he died in a mixture of pain and disbelief.
Scanning the body, she took his measure. He had dark hair, probably once black but was now showing a bit of grey. There was the possibility he dyed his hair because much of it looked too black when considering the greying nearer the scalp. Or maybe he was naturally lucky. His face was angular with a strong jaw. The eyes were dark, matching the complexion of his skin tone. He was wearing a white shirt, the collar unbuttoned to the chest and the cuffs turned up. His trousers were somewhere between formal and casual wear, good quality, as were his shoes. The same could be said for his wristwatch. She could easily recognise the cheaper imitation offerings and this wasn't one of those. It will have cost the wearer thousands of pounds.
"Who called it in?" Cassie asked without breaking her gaze over the body.
"Neighbours."
"Did they stumble across him or did they hear something yesterday?"
"They heard the cat at the door." Cassie glanced towards the door, seeing the cat flap and off to the left was a small metal bowl with water in it and another, a pink plastic one, set alongside with some dried scraps of cat food on the rim. "Apparently the neighbours take care of the cat while he's away, which is quite often. He never locks the cat flap so, when they heard the constant mewing, they poked their head over the wall to see what was going on. Realising the cat couldn't get in, they came to investigate and saw him through the window."
Cassie noted the flap was blocked by the victim's shoulder.
"Did they enter?"
The constable shook his head. "They have a key to the back door, but the body is blocking it. Thought about breaking a window but called us instead."
"And how did you get in?"
"Upstairs window was open. We borrowed a neighbour's ladder."
Cassie nodded, thinking the constable was pretty big to be clambering through these cottage casement windows, particularly with all the associated kit officers carry these days, but she didn't mention it. Instead, she imagined the unceremonious entrance he must have made upstairs.
"Did you notice anything out of place up there?"
Again, the officer shook his head. "Couldn't see any signs of a break-in or a struggle, upstairs or down."
Cassie stood, turning her attention to the kitchen. She couldn't get to the other end of the room
