Maud arrived at work at half past six the next morning. She put the bagel in front of her, eased off the lid on her cardboard cup of coffee, switched on the computer. She had woken at five with the niggling sense that there was something she was missing, something she hadn’t seen.
She pulled up the photos of the crime scene, sat back, took a mouthful of her coffee and then a bite of bagel, and studied the images. She had looked at them often enough, and she would have said she could describe everything that was in them. The body hanging like a rag doll above the chaos of the room. The stool lying on its side, too low as it turned out to do the job, the absence of any other solid objects that could have added height, the chaotic jumble of clothes strewn around the room.
Maud zoomed in on them: underwear, skimpy dresses, bright shirts, a young woman’s wardrobe. Why were they tossed around like that? The mess looked frantic. Had Kira done it, or someone else, and if it was someone else, why? Maud answered her own question. They had been looking for something. What?
She clicked forward to the body on the slab. The body: how quickly a person becomes an object, a site of clues. She looked at the slight facial congestion and protruding tongue, both marks of hanging from a low height; at the furrow round the neck where the rope had been. She thought of Kira’s mother seeing her daughter like that.
She had been happy on Saturday and sad on Sunday and had never seen Monday.
Maud moved back and forward between the photos until they almost lost their meaning. What had been bothering her?
She stopped. There: that was it, that was what she had been looking for without knowing it. In one of the photos of the room, right on the very edge of the frame so that it looked like a trick of light, a thin, vague strip of shadow, was a dark shape. She leaned forward and gazed at it: a slightly slanted line, like a narrow wedge. What was it?
She sat back and ate her bagel, drank her coffee, all the while staring at the image. A little smile appeared on her face.
‘Morning.’
She turned to see Forrester. He had cut himself while shaving and his face was pink and naked.
Maud pointed at the screen.
‘What do you make of that?’
He stared hard, his eyes flickering from object to object.
‘That in the corner. It’s only in one of the photos, which is why I missed it.’
‘It could be just a shadow?’
‘It can’t be a shadow. That’s not the way the light is falling.’
He wrinkled up his face.
‘I think it’s a mobile,’ said Maud. ‘The edge of a mobile, lying on the floor.’
‘Is that a good thing?’
‘It’s an interesting thing.’
Maud heard a familiar sound and realised it was her ringtone. She looked at the caller ID and answered.
‘Hello, Nancy.’
‘Sorry to bother you. I told you I’d keep you informed of my movements. I thought you should know I’m not at the address I gave you.’
‘What’s the new one?’
‘I don’t have one. I’m on a bus, on my way to look at a couple of places in Dalston.’
‘That’s a fair way.’
‘I want to put distance between me and that house. And it’s my bit of London.’
‘Everything all right?’
There was a small pause.
‘I got a job in a restaurant.’
‘Well done.’
‘I lost a friend, though. Anyway, I’ll let you know when I have a place.’
Maud sat in silence while Chief Inspector Craig Weller read the report on his screen. Occasionally he made little grunting sounds and murmurs. They felt like responses of some kind, but Maud couldn’t understand them. When he finished, he swivelled round.
‘I expect you want me to say that I’m sorry and that you were right.’
‘I haven’t said anything like that.’
‘I didn’t say you said it. I said it’s what you were thinking.’
Maud couldn’t quite believe that she was having to defend herself against what Craig Weller had decided she was thinking and for a moment she struggled to find a response.
‘I’ve just sent you a report on the investigation,’ she said finally. ‘All I was thinking was that you should be kept informed.’
‘There’s no need for the defensive tone,’ said Weller. ‘If you’d shown yourself to be more of a team player, then maybe there wouldn’t be that feeling about you.’
‘What feeling?’
‘That you’re not a team player.’
‘So,’ said Maud, trying to change the subject in as calm and polite a way as she could, ‘the report.’
‘Yes. A murder inquiry. We’ll need to set up a full team.’
‘I wanted to discuss that.’
‘Don’t worry, Maud, don’t worry. You’ll be in charge. Until Kemp gets back from annual leave at any rate. He led on this.’
Maud kept her expression neutral.
‘That’s not what I meant.’
Weller looked suspicious.
‘Then what did you mean?’
‘I don’t think we should set up a team. I’d like to carry on as I am.’
‘Are you about to make an arrest?’
‘I don’t want to say anything just now. But I think it’ll be a couple of days, maybe three.’
‘It’s that neighbour, isn’t it?’
‘Just a couple of days.’
‘What’s the problem with having a full team?’
‘If we start all that, we’ll waste a day choosing them, setting up the office, getting everyone up to speed. I don’t need them.’
‘It’s the way we do things, Maud. What makes you think you’re special?’
‘I’m not special and I’ve got nothing against that way of doing things. But I’m almost there. If I’m wrong, then I can put a team together in a few days.’
‘By which time you’ll have wasted a few days.’
‘We’re always being told we’re short of staff. I thought it would be a relief.’
‘Not for a murder inquiry,’ said Weller sharply. ‘But I take your point. You’d better not mess this up. A woman’s been murdered. We’re supposed to show that we take something like that seriously.’
‘Well, I’m a woman. That may count for something.’
Weller narrowed his eyes, as if he suspected that she was being sarcastic.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Go away.’