But where was Lisa?
I was in the hall, calling her name, when my foot kicked something. I looked down and saw a mobile phone lying there. The room opposite was the kitchen, where she’d entertained Annabelle. Next was a dining room, then two bedrooms straight out of a film set and a third done out as an office. This was where Justin kept his trophies and souvenirs. I’d have liked to have studied them but this wasn’t the time. The last door, I presumed, was the bathroom. I knocked, and pushed the door with the tip of my knuckle. It swung back, revealing a white and gold suite but not much else. I wasn’t in the mood for gathering ideas about interior decoration.
So where was she? I shouted her name again, for no sensible reason.
Surely there’s another bathroom, I thought, probably en suite with a bedroom. I went back to the biggest room and stepped on to the thick shaggy carpet. The curtains were closed, so I put the light on.
In an alcove was another door, slightly ajar. ‘Are you there, Lisa?’ I called, softly, but there was no answer. I placed the knuckle of my first finger against the door and slowly pushed it open.
This was Lisa’s bathroom. A large Victorian bath stood in the middle of the room, and she was in it.
Her throat had been cut.
Her head lolled sideways, face as white as the porcelain, and one knee was drawn up. She looked like a discarded Barbie doll, with another mouth where there shouldn’t have been one, trapped in a bowl of strawberry jelly.
I reached a finger down towards the surface of the water, smoother than a newly opened tin of paint, and saw its reflection coming up to meet it. A drip fell from the tap, plinking into the surface and sending a single ripple arcing outwards, so a wave of distortion passed through the image, a momentary glitch on the TV screen. The water was cold.
A warbling noise startled me. After a moment’s confusion I realised it was my mobile phone. I took it from my pocket and said ‘Priest,’ into it.
‘Hello, Hinspector Priest,’ Sparky greeted me in his music hall Yorkshireman voice. ‘This is ’Eckley po-leece station. Could you cum back quickly becoss we’ve got a murder for you to investigate.’
I stared down at her. No matter what I thought of her morals she’d been a good-looker. She’d run her own business and successfully managed Justin’s affairs. But she’d loved life just a little too much for her own good. Her hair was dry except for where it dangled into the water and capillary action had carried its dark stain upwards a little way.
‘I know, Dave,’ I mumbled into the mouthpiece. ‘I’m already there. Believe me, I’m already there.’
I was sitting on the wall when Les Isles arrived, fifteen minutes later. There were no hay-wagons to slow his progress.
‘What’s this all about, Charlie?’ he asked, slamming his car door.
I told him about my conversation with Lisa the night before, about the suspicions that her father-in-law was mixed up in the Hartog-Praat robbery, and about her intimation that she knew all about it. He gave me a sideways look, as if to hint that there were other reasons, too, for my visit.
‘And her throat’s cut?’ he said.
‘That’s right.’
‘Tell me what you know.’
‘Front door open — wide open, that is. I’ve had a look round the outside and there’s no other sign of entry. Either the door was unlocked or he had a key. No sign of a struggle. He must have known exactly where she was. It’s an en suite bathroom, not where you’d find it if you didn’t know the layout of the house. The water was flat cold. No rigor mortis, but skin macerated. She rang me about ten last night. I reckon she died not long afterwards. The killer left in a hurry. Are you having a look?’
‘I believe you, Charlie. No, I’ll wait till the anoraks have done their stuff.’
‘One more thing. There’s a mobile phone lying on the hall carpet. With a bit of luck he’ll have dropped it on his way out.’
Les’s eyebrows shot up. ‘In the hallway?’ he asked.
‘Mmm.’
‘Just inside the doorway?’
‘About three yards inside.’
‘C’mon, then. Let’s see it.’
It was a Sony. We knelt on the carpet and examined it. Look but don’t touch, as my mother used to say. There really should be a standard for what all the buttons do.
‘Looks to me as if it’s still on,’ Les observed, pointing at the display. ‘Any idea what’s what?’
I shook my head. ‘No, but one of them should tell you the number of the owner.’
‘But which one?’
‘No idea. On mine you press the F button and another, but don’t ask me which. Have it checked for prints, then consult an expert.’
‘I suppose so.’
Someone outside shouted, and we let the SOCOs in. We showed them the phone and they cordoned-off that side of the hall with their coloured tape. Superintendent Isles donned a disposable overall and went with them to examine the body, while I waited outside, where the air was fresher.
He was visibly ashen when he emerged, ten minutes later. ‘It’s at times like this I wish I still smoked,’ he admitted.
‘I doubt if it would help,’ I said.
‘Probably not. How long had you known her, Charlie?’ he asked, concerned.
‘Only met her once, plus a long phone call. She was lonely. She hinted that she’d rung other people, but nobody wanted to talk to her. A look at her list of calls might be a good idea.’ I didn’t mention that I’d suggested she have a hot bath and go to bed.
‘Mmm. She was certainly a looker. Can I leave the calls with you?’
‘No problem.’
‘Where’s that bloody pathologist?’ he snapped.
We stood in the doorway, arranging the mechanics of another murder investigation to go with the two unsolved ones that Les was already overseeing for other divisions. I was hoping he’d leave this one to me, as with the Goodrich case. A red grouse landed on the wall, saw us, and flew off again, cluck-cluck-clucking impatiently as he went. Spots of rain were blowing about in the wind.
My phone was ringing again. I plunged my hand inside my jacket and withdrew it, clutching the dreaded instrument. ‘Priest,’ I said.
The warbling continued. It wasn’t mine. ‘It’s yours,’ I told the super.
‘No, it’s not,’ he said, looking at it. We both turned and stared through the open doorway, to the phone on the floor, chirruping its song of greeting.
Someone was determined to get a reply. ‘Answer it,’ I suggested.
‘God, what if it’s someone for her?’
‘Then they got a wrong number.’
We stepped inside and resumed our kneeling positions around the raucous piece of electronic wizardry. Isles removed a pen from a pocket and pointed at a button. ‘That one, you reckon?’ he asked.
‘I’d say so.’
He eased the aerial out with a fingernail, pressed the button with a little green telephone on it and said, ‘Hello.’
I couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, so I stretched upright. Isles listened, careful not to touch the phone with his ear. An earprint is as distinctive as a fingerprint, and we use all the help we can get.
‘Yes, sir,’ I heard him say, ‘we were hoping you’d ring. Your mobile phone has been handed in to the City Police headquarters.’ More listening, then, ‘Earlier this morning. Would you like to collect it, sometime?’
I couldn’t help smiling. This was too good to be true. Isles said, ‘Shall we say in about an hour. That would make it twelve noonish. If you could give me your name, sir…’ He held a hand up to me, for writing material. I pulled the cap off his pen for him and held my notebook at an open page.
‘And your first name, sir… Thank you. And your address is…’
I couldn’t read his scrawl upside down. He lowered the pen and said, ‘Thank you, sir. So we’ll see you in about an hour. Goodbye.’
I turned the book around and held it towards the light.
‘Know him?’ Isles asked, standing up and flexing each leg to restore the circulation.