The fridge was to her right and pinching the handle with a pair of nitrile gloves between her fingers, she opened the door. The contents were meagre, stocked with basics like milk, bacon and cheese. The salad boxes had a few vegetables in them that were past their best but still edible. A bottle of white wine lay in a two-bottle rack above the third shelf. There were, however, no tubs with leftovers. Living alone, she was used to cooking for one and if she had to guess, this man had company for a meal yesterday. Whether that was lunch or dinner, she didn't know. The pathologist would need to determine the time of death and then they'd know. Either way, he'd cleaned up before he was killed.
"Have you run a check to see who this place is registered to?"
"Yes. The Electoral Roll only shows one resident, Adrian Gage. Judging by the description on the police national computer, this is likely to be him. He's not known to us, no prior arrests or convictions."
"Okay, let's make sure. Can you scout around and see if there's any photo ID lying around, holiday snaps, that type of thing?" Cassie said. The constable nodded and turned to head back to the front of the house to begin a search. "But try not to touch anything!"
The constable glanced at her over his shoulder. His straight face conveyed his irritation at the perception of his lack of competence, but he didn't comment, merely nodding and continuing on. Cassie felt bad, for a second, before remembering that even incompetent people could survive in the police and dismissed her guilt. Her thoughts turned to what could have resulted in this man's death. There was no sign of forced entry as far as she could tell. The front door was intact, the windows to the front of the property and this one in the kitchen were closed. Seemingly one of the bedroom windows was open but the officer needed a ladder to reach it. It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that an assailant might access the cottage from there but it wasn't exactly stealthy. Perhaps the homeowner returned and disturbed a burglar. That was possible but, looking around, aside from the dead man at her feet, there was no sign of a struggle. He looked physically fit, in good shape at any rate, and was therefore likely to put up some resistance.
Lowering herself down, she inspected his fingers and the visible skin of his forearms. She couldn't see any defensive wounds to the hands or arms. At this point she was assuming he was stabbed rather than shot. With neighbouring buildings so densely packed in the immediate area the sound of a gunshot would likely not pass by unnoticed and they were far from an inner-city industrial area where something could mask the noise. The sound here would carry. A stabbing was more realistic. The wound, or wounds, were to the front indicating the victim was facing or turning to face his assailant when he was attacked. It would be logical to presume in this scenario that he would either have fought back or at the very least instinctively raised his hands to protect himself. The absence of defensive wounds was surprising.
All of this left her with the nagging sense that the victim most likely knew his attacker. Perhaps he was even so relaxed in their presence that he didn't see the attack coming and therefore didn't have a chance to react. Furthermore, this suggested there wasn't an altercation either. Had there been one, he would be on edge and therefore more predisposed to defend himself, even in the event of a surprise attack. Her eyes swept the kitchen again, falling on a knife block on the work surface next to the hob. There were five slots for a matching set, but one was missing. It could be in the dishwasher waiting to be cleaned or it could be the murder weapon in an unplanned homicide. Taking out her mobile, she called Tom Janssen. He answered immediately, but her reception was so poor, he was breaking up. She hurried into the front of the house, finding the call clearer.
"Hi, Tom, sorry about that."
"That's okay. What do you have there?"
"I'd say uniform are right," she said as the constable attracted her attention from the front sitting room. "It does look like we have a murder on our hands." Still with the phone to her ear, she entered and took a closer look at the picture frame the officer was guiding her to. It was a shot of a man in a jumpsuit, still with a parachute attached to his back. Evidently it had been taken shortly after landing. It certainly wasn't local. He was standing on a beach with palm trees amid dense foliage in the background. It must have been a spectacular location to land in having jumped from an aeroplane. He looked much younger in the shot, more hair and quite dashing, but it was unmistakably the same man as the one lying dead in the kitchen.
"Cassie?"
"Yes, Tom. Sorry, I'm still here," she said, angling her head as she stared at the image. He must be dying his hair. "Yeah. I reckon he was killed sometime yesterday, probably from lunchtime onwards. No sign of a break-in as yet. The place is neat and tidy." She scanned the sitting room. It
