Ruby shrugged on her shoulder harness. Her handcuffs and baton lay nestled next to her ribs on one side and a small can of incapacitant spray snapped into a pouch on the other. The weight was unevenly distributed because she preferred to keep a radio clipped onto the waistband of her belt. But she was willing to sacrifice a lopsided harness for the reassurance it provided. It would be even better if she was allowed to carry a firearm, but her ability to handle a gun was not widely known. She palmed the keys she had booked out from Ash, the designated exhibits officer. The four leaf clover keyring hadn’t brought Harry Edmonds much luck, Ruby thought, as she strode to her car. The keys were due to be returned to his relatives this afternoon, and she had promised Ash that she would be back within the hour. Given that the house had been thoroughly searched, she did not intend on staying very long.
Ruby pushed the police card onto the dashboard of her car, hoping it would save her yet another ticket. Advertising her vocation was an invitation to having her tyres slashed, but she was tight on time and had enough confidence in Tresham Walk to take the chance.
Slowly turning the key in the front door, she silently slipped into the hall. It would not be the first time she had returned to a scene to find a perpetrator present, and such an experience kept her nerves tightly bound. She glanced around. The air was rich with the scent of death, and the lilies that once bloomed brightly were now drooping gracefully in their vase. Cast in gloom, the living room took on a menacing hue as the tightly drawn curtains absorbed all natural light. Ruby flicked on the light switch, her eyes falling on the blood-encrusted carpet, now stained in a deep burgundy red. The aftermath of the police investigation was plain to see. Cupboard doors yawned open and upturned furniture lay next to piles of paperwork and books stacked on the floor. Violent red blood splatters patterned the wall, having being analysed, photographed and recorded in detail. Ruby followed a pitter-patter of red-stained paw prints from the living room, tracing them to the cat flap embedded in the back door. Searching in the cupboards, she drew back the lid on a tin of cat food, emptying its contents into a plastic bowl. Hopefully someone was looking after the cat who had come in search of food. The kitchen drawers were grimy with fingerprint dust, but the answers she sought did not lie here. It was far too busy a room to keep secrets. The answers lay somewhere more private, somewhere hidden.
Tap… tap… tap… a knocking noise from upstairs reignited the feeling of foreboding that had shadowed her entry. She stiffened, casting her eyes to the ceiling. Sliding her hand under her blazer, she popped the clasp holding her baton in place, gripping it tightly in her palm. There was no need to extend it. Not yet. Most officers would have plodded into the house and slammed the door behind them, but past experience had left Ruby wary.
And now she found herself creeping up the stairs towards the source of the noise. Shadows danced on the landing, but she did not want to alert any possible intruder by turning on the light. Tap… tap… tap. The noise grew louder, and Ruby cocked her head to one side. It was coming from inside the walls rather than footsteps on the floorboards above. Pressing her hand to the radiator, she heaved a sigh of relief. It was just the heating on a timer, although why they needed it during an Indian summer was beyond her. But she wanted to leave just the same and clipped her baton back in place before finishing what she came here to do. Intuition drove her into the bedroom, and she searched every inch of floor space for a weakness. The thin bedroom carpet revealed sturdy wooden flooring with well-driven nails to negate any hiding places underneath. Regular hiding places had been well searched. She needed to delve deeper. Emily was a victim of domestic abuse, and such contact with her daughter would have been unwelcome by her jealous abuser. After half an hour of searching the bedroom, Ruby pushed her hair back from her face and got to her feet.
The bathroom still held a fresh lemony smell, and she examined the air freshener before placing it back on the shelf. The small sterile space was the one place Emily would have been granted some privacy, at least for a little while. She ran a hand along the paintwork on the outside of the door until she found the curve of an indentation. It was foot height, and a double layer of paint had been applied to the cracks in the wood. Someone had tried to kick it in. Gliding her hands over the lock on the door, she could see it had recently been fixed. Each clue painted a chilling picture of Emily Edmonds’s life. Unlike Ruby’s bathroom the grout in between the floor tiles was a perfect shade of white. She pressed down on each one, searching for a weakness, but there was none. After checking the cistern, she opened the cabinet. Shaving foam, mouthwash, a razor and some paracetamol. Emily would not hide anything here: not when it was filled with her Harry’s things. It was just a regular family home. And yet Ruby could not shake off the feeling that somewhere in this house lay clues. Putting herself in Emily’s shoes, she imagined she had received news from her daughter, but was reluctant to share it with the world. Her head tilted to the right, and she narrowed her eyes at the bath. Police should have removed the panel and checked inside.
Couldn’t do any harm to check again. She cupped her fingers under the lips of the cheap plastic panel, driven by her intuition. Like a game of hot and cold, she knew all at once that this was Emily Edmonds’s hiding place. With the slightest pressure the corner popped free. Activating her phone torch she peered inside. Nothing but cobwebs and a layer of dust. Tilting her iPhone she illuminated the panel. ‘Gotcha,’ she whispered, reaching in her gloved hand. Taped to the inside was a small plastic bag. At last. Now she could leave. She would return the keys and update the search officers in case they wanted to return. Fixing the bath panel, she got to her feet. She had found what she was looking for, and it was time to share it with her team.