Fiona smiled. “He’ll be back home before you know it. Now, rather than hanging around in the cold, why don’t you go inside and we’ll let you know when there’s any news?”

  A look of relief swept across Felicity’s face. “Oh, thank you so much. I’m Vi’s carer, y’see, and I’d never forgive myself if anything ever happened to her or Sebastian because of me. We’ll go back to the house and wait for news. Come on, Vi, take my arm.”

  As the women retreated, Ben scratched his head. When he was sure they were out of earshot, he said, “You know, I’m surprised there hasn’t been a serious accident here before now. Look at this section of safety netting, just lying on the ground. It probably got blown over but it’s so dangerous to leave it like that.” He picked it up and put it back in place before looking over the top and into the hole. “You know, that’s really deep—I can’t even see the bottom. I hope the little fella’s okay.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.” Fiona frowned. “What are we going to do?”

  Ben got a torch from the car and took off his jacket. “Right, well the first thing I’m going to do is take a look and see if there’s any sign of him. It’d be a good day if we could take little Sebastian back to his owner in one piece.” He clambered over the netting and crouched down at the side of the hole. Shining his torch into its inky-black depths, he moved the beam from side to side and called out to the absent dog. “Come on, Sebastian—here, boy.” He whistled and called again.

  “These might help.” Felicity reappeared, holding a bag of dog treats. “If you shake the bag, he usually comes running.” She wound a lock of vermillion hair around her finger and handed the treats to Ben.

  “Okay, it’s worth a try, I suppose.” He shook the bag up and down as Felicity suggested.

  “Anything?”

  Ben shook his head. “No, noth—”

  The ears and nose of a small Jack Russell terrier suddenly appeared at the edge of the hole, its front paws forcing him up and out as his back paws scrambled for their footing.

  “Sebastian!” Felicity burst into tears.

  “Ben! Grab him!” Fiona was unable to help on account of being enveloped in a vice-like bear hug by a weeping Felicity.

  “C’mere, you little rascal.” Ben lunged at the dog and caught him with both hands, pulling him out of the hole and to safety. “You gave us all quite a scare. Hey, what’s that you’ve got?” He gave the dog a treat and Sebastian dropped the plastic bag he’d had in his mouth, along with its contents.

  “Oh, Sebastian! Come to me, sweetheart. Vi’s going to be over the moon,” said Felicity, bending to pick up the little dog when it scampered over to her.

  “It’s no wonder he didn’t want to come out—I expect he was too busy enjoying his little snack.” Ben held out the bag.

  Felicity screwed up her nose. “Eeew, they’re not Sebastian’s. There’s no way Vi would give him pork scratchings!”

  “Oh, okay,” said Ben. “The bag was in his mouth so I thought it was his. Not to worry, I’ll get rid of it.” In the absence of a waste bin, he put the bag in his pocket to dispose of later.

  “Thank you so much.” Felicity pumped his arm almost out of its socket. “From now on, I’ll make sure that he’s always got his lead on before we leave the house. He’s so quick, there’s no way I’d be able to catch him without it.”

  “I’m not sure that mouse will be bothering him again,” said Fiona. “I think it might have met its match.” She jerked her head at a handsome Siamese cat, sitting on the pavement and licking its paws.

  Felicity shook her head. “Oh no, I doubt that would have eaten a mouse—rather like his snooty owner, he only eats the very best. That’s Sadie Grey’s cat, Malcolm. She gives him fresh salmon, so I doubt he’d bother breaking into a sweat chasing a field mouse unless he absolutely had to. Mind you, I suppose we’d all fancy a burger from time to time if all we ever ate was steak and caviar, wouldn’t we?”

  She eyed the cat more closely. “Actually, come to think of it, he’s been outside an awful lot this weekend, which is very unlike him. He’s so pampered, what with his gourmet diet, his personal masseuse and his climate controlled cat basket, he rarely leaves the house, and I can’t say I blame him. He follows Sadie to the shops or the pub, sometimes, but it’s not usual for him to be out during the day without her for too long.”

  “Don’t cats enjoy being out of the house?” said Fiona. “Stalking their territory, chasing birds... you know, doing cat stuff?”

  Felicity shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe Malcolm does sometimes but not usually.” She played with her hair again, momentarily distracted. “Actually, I’ve just remembered Sadie saying that she was going to be holed up all weekend on a writing binge so she could get the first draft of her latest book finished. She probably got so involved, she forgot to feed Malcolm. I daren’t knock on her door to remind her, though, ‘cos she’s got a vicious tongue if you disturb her. If he’s still hanging around outside later, I’ll take him into Vi’s. She loves him to bits so I know she’ll give him something. Anyway, thanks again, I can’t tell you how grateful we are.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Ben dusted himself down. “Always happy to be of service.”

  As he got into the car, he said, “I was rather hoping to see Sadie Grey. Shame she didn’t come out.”

  “Hmpf, from what I’ve heard of her, I’m glad she didn’t make an appearance.” Fiona flipped down the interior visor again to check on the progress of her cold sore in the mirror. “Hello, who’s this?” she said, looking at the woman approaching the car, who bent down and spoke to Ben through the window.

  “Is everything okay?” the woman asked, her forehead wrinkled in a frown.

  “Everything’s fine,” said Ben, and explained the reason for their presence. “Are you a resident of the street?”

  “Yes. Well, sort of. I’m Ellie Joseph—Sadie Grey’s housekeeper. I live-in at number 74 during the week, but I’ve been staying at my boyfriend’s place for the weekend. Sadie wanted some peace and quiet, so I thought I’d make myself scarce. She told me I could leave on Friday morning, and I didn’t need telling twice, so I’ve been away since then.

  “Anyway, I’d better go inside and get dinner on the go. She doesn’t stop to eat while she’s working, so she’d bound to be famished.”

  She walked off, her progress up the path to the house slowed by the Siamese cat weaving in and out of her ankles.

  ººººººº

  Precisely seven minutes later, as Ben and Fiona were on their way back to the police station, a call came through on the radio.

  “Any cars in the Jenson Street area, please proceed to number seventy-four. We have a report of a woman inside the house—appears to have fallen down the stairs and is non-responsive. An ambulance has already been despatched.”

  “Number seventy-four? Isn’t that where Sadie Grey lives?” Ben swung the car round again as Fiona responded to the radio.

  An ambulance was already at the scene when they arrived and Ellie was sitting on the doorstep, shivering and rubbing her hands up and down her arms.

  “What’s happened?” asked Fiona.

  “It’s Sadie. I walked in and found her lying at the bottom of the stairs. I think she’s dead.”

  Fiona put her arm around Ellie’s shoulders. “Come on, let’s get you inside and warmed up.”

  “No, no, I don’t want to go back in there. I don’t want to see her again,” said Ellie, her eyes wide as she shook her head.

  “Okay, wait here for a minute,” said Fiona. “Don’t go anywhere, will you?” She stepped inside to see Ben talking to a paramedic, and Sadie’s body at the foot of the staircase.

  “Look, is there any chance someone could see to the woman who found the body, please?” she said to the paramedics. “It’s the woman who let you in. She’s too distressed to come inside and she’s in shock. Can you check her over in the ambulance? She’s outside on the doorstep.”

  She ventured further into the house. Sadie lay on her back, eyes open, her hair a dark halo around her head. She looked peaceful, as though she was simply resting, but her usually pink cheeks were devoid of colour.

  “I don’t believe it. What happened?”

  “Broken neck by the look of it,” said Ben. “The paramedic said she’s been dead for a while. And there’s a faint smell of alcohol on the body so I wouldn’t be surprised if that contributed to her tripping over her dress and falling down the stairs.”

  “Kaftan.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not a dress, it’s a kaftan,” explained Fiona. “They’re very comfortable, apparently. A lot of people wear them instead of housecoats because they allow you to move around so freely. So I’ve been told.”

  “Well, it didn’t allow Sadie Grey to move very freely, did it?” said Ben. “It’s so long, it must have tripped her up. I mean, look at it. It’s about four inches longer than she is.”

  Fiona took a closer look. The kaftan was, indeed, much longer than it should have been. Far too long for Sadie. “That’s weird.”

  “What? That she was swanning around the place wearing a health hazard with goodness knows how much alcohol inside her?”

  “No, I mean she must have dozens of kaftans—every time you saw her she had one on. Why would she be wearing one that was so long?”

  Ben’s forehead wrinkled as he considered the question. “I dunno. Maybe all the others are in the wash.”

  “Unlikely, I’d say.” Fiona clasped her hands at the back of her neck.

  “You don’t think it was an accident?”

  “Well, it could be a perfectly genuine accident but something just doesn’t add up for me.” Fiona looked back at Sadie’s body again. “Let’s have a quick look around, just to be sure we’re not missing anything.”

  Upstairs, Sadie’s computer was still switched on, an empty wine glass standing on a wooden coaster beside it. Her desk was tidy—a notebook, thesaurus and a pack of pencils neatly stacked, gave no indication of any turbulence or disorder before her death.

  “Just a sec, I want to check something.” Pulling a pair of latex gloves from her pocket, Fiona opened the wardrobe door. As she’d thought, a whole row of kaftans hung from the rail.

  “Look, Ben. I can tell just by looking at these that they’re shorter. There was no need for Sadie to have been wearing one that was too long.”

  “So why was she, then?” Ben shrugged his shoulders.

  “No idea, but something doesn’t feel right,” said Fiona.

  The rest of the house gave no clues. Certainly nothing gave any sign that any wrongdoing had been committed.

  “It was just an accident, Fi. Sometimes, we try to make more of a case because we want there to be a reason for a death,” said Ben. “When people die accidentally, it’s such a waste of life.”

  “Yeah, I suppose so.” Fiona scanned the kitchen again. “It’s just that I was so sure that... Oh, that’s weird.” She opened the fridge door and looked inside. “Where’s the wine bottle?”

  “What wine bottle?”

  “There’s a wine glass upstairs but there’s no open bottle of wine in the fridge.”

  “Well, maybe there’s an empty bottle in the recycling?” said Ben, opening the door at the side of the house to see a neat row of plastic boxes. Taking the lid off the glass recycling box, he checked its contents. “There’s three red wine bottles in here. I’ll go up and check the glass.”

  He bounded up the stairs, reappearing a few seconds later. “It’s white wine in the glass not red—there’s still a tiny bit in the bottom of the glass. But where’s the empty white wine bottle?”

  “Well, that’s good enough for me. Something’s definitely off,” said Fiona, taking her phone from her pocket. “I’m calling the Chief. That feeling I told you I had? Well, it’s getting stronger and it’s not a good one.”

  Chapter 4

  FORTY MINUTES LATER, after Fiona had taken Ellie back to her boyfriend’s flat, rapid footsteps approaching the house signalled Nathan’s arrival amidst a hive of activity.

  “Right, SOCO are just parking the van and the pathologist’s on her way.”

  Although there was no hard evidence to suggest that Sadie’s death had been anything other than an unfortunate accident, Nathan was erring on the side of caution for the time being. He had enough faith in Fiona’s judgement to trust that something was amiss and had had no hesitation in making arrangements for a more thorough investigation to be carried out.

  “We need to keep this away from the press for as long as possible—the last thing we need are reporters staking out the place before we know what we’re dealing with.” He looked over the body. “Any signs of anyone else having been here?”

  “The woman who worked for Ms. Grey, but she was the one who found the body. She’s been away and only got back a while ago.”

  “And it looks like someone else may have been here shortly before her death,” said Fiona, quickly explaining the wine glass next to Sadie’s computer but the absence of an open or empty bottle.

  “Only one glass?”

  “Yes. But no bottle that the wine could have come from. I was thinking that if someone did call round to see Ms. Grey and they pushed her down the stairs, they could have washed their glass before they left and taken the bottle with them. You know, to make it look like she’d been drinking on her own. Where else could it be?”

  “Hmm, that sounds likely.” Nathan strummed his fingers together, the furrow at his brow deepening. “Right, can you get uniformed to set up a cordon, please, if they haven’t already?”

  On the way out, Fiona caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. She crouched down and peered into the depths of an unruly Hydrangea outside the front door to see a purple, glass button nestled amongst its leaves.

  She called inside to one of the SOCO team. “I’ve found something here that might be of interest. Can someone bag it, please?”

  At an address like Jenson Street, police cordons were even rarer than holes in the road. As two uniformed police officers rolled out the blue and white crime scene tape emblazoned with the warning, ‘POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS’, it wasn’t long before a small crowd of residents had gathered a little way down the street, watching the proceedings with anxious faces.

  Not so with Sadie’s neighbour, Violet Leyton, though. Having received a telephone call from Joyce Larkin at number eighty-three to ask what the police were doing at Sadie’s house, she’d hopped onto her stair lift and taken a ride upstairs with Sebastian on her lap, to assess the proceedings from a better viewpoint.

  She lifted the net curtain in her bedroom and looked across to the police cordon in Sadie’s front garden. “Oh, it’s those nice officers from earlier, Sebastian. The ones who saved you, remember?” She opened the window and stuck out her head. “Hello, officers!”

  Ben and Fiona looked up to the source of the voice. “Hello, again. How’s your dog after his adventure?” said Ben, with a grin.

  “He’s doing very well, thank you but what’s going on at Sadie’s? Is she alright? I haven’t seen her for a couple of days.”

  “We can’t say, I’m afraid,” said Ben, the grin vanishing from his lips.

  “Has there been an accident? Can I go in and see her?”

  “I’m afraid no one’s allowed inside at the moment,” said Fiona. “You’ll find out soon enough what the situation is but, until then, you’re probably better off where it’s warm—there’s really nothing to see.”

  “What about Malcolm?” asked Violet.

  “The Siamese?”

  “Yes. Is he alright?”

  Fiona shrugged. “I haven’t seen him around but I’m sure he is. Have you seen him, Ben?”

  “Not since we were here before. He’ll turn up somewhere soon enough—cat’s always do, don’t they?”

  “Well, if he needs someone to look after him for a while, he’s very welcome here. I’m not sure I’ll be able to stretch to fresh salmon every day but he’ll be well looked after. If you see him, will you send him my way?”

  Ben nodded. “We’ll do our best.”

  Violet pulled her window shut and sat down on her bed.

  “Something terrible’s happened, Sebastian, I know it.” She picked up the telephone on the bedside table. A few seconds passed before she said, “Joyce, it’s me. There’s something going on at Sadie’s—the police won’t say what, but my intuition tells me it’s not good.

  “There’s one of those police ribbons outside, you know, to stop people from going in, and two uniformed officers and two detectives outside the front door. What? No, I’ve no idea—I haven’t seen her since Friday morning. Look, I’d better go. You know I don’t like to run up my phone bill. If anything happens, I’ll let you know.”

  As she creaked to her feet, a mewling alerted her to the fact that she and Sebastian weren’t alone. Sadie’s haughty Siamese cat was sitting outside on the window ledge.

  “Hello, Malcolm, my beautiful boy,” crooned Violet, opening the window again so the cat could slink in. He pounced gracefully onto the dressing table in front of the window where he proceeded to wash his paws.

  “Oh, I wish you could tell me what was going on next door,” said Violet, scratching him behind the ears until he pushed his face against her hand, an appreciative purr coming from deep in his throat. “Whatever it is, you can stay here as long as you like. We’ll be your family until Sadie’s alright—if she’s alright—won’t we Sebastian?”

  Sebastian cast the cat a sideways glance. As far as dog and cat relationships went, theirs was okay—providing they kept a respectful distance from each other. He’d found that out to his detriment one day after digging in an area of the garden which, unbeknown to him, Malcolm had appropriated as his own territory. Sebastian got away lightly with just a swipe from a Siamese paw across his nose but, since that day, he’d been careful not to get too close.

  “Right, come on you two lovely boys, let’s go and get you something to eat,” said Violet, setting herself in the chair of her stair lift.

 

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