Alice put her hand on her chest gasping for breath.
‘Yours, I presume?’ said the man. He was wearing jeans and black shoes and a black shirt beneath a navy duffel coat. He must have been around her age, Alice thought, his face craggy and lined and sporting a shadow of stubble.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry—’ Alice began, then stopped, covering her mouth as she looked past him into the room and towards the fireplace.
Pink fifty-pound notes were scattered across the floor. Enya was sprawled on the carpet amongst them, a hideous bloody wound on the side of her head, and a livid bruise on her cheek. For all the crime fiction Alice had read, she’d never seen an actual dead body. And certainly not one belonging to someone she knew. She’d read about people swooning upon seeing corpses in books and had always dismissed it as rather histrionic, but she actually did have to grab onto the doorframe just to stop herself from sinking to her knees.
‘Hands off the doorframe, and for God’s sake, don’t faint,’ the man said, a thunderous expression on his face. ‘This is a crime scene. No one’s allowed in until forensics arrive.’
Steadying herself, she looked at him instead. He was rugged in a possibly handsome kind of way, but deplorably scruffy. His shaggy salt and pepper hair curled down just past his collar, suggesting a trip to the barbers was long overdue. His accent was London — or more likely Essex, if the flat vowels were anything to go by. This must be Detective Rigby, to whom she’d spoken to on the phone.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said. ‘About the dog. She’s normally much better behaved, you see, and—’
But Rigby wasn’t interested. Even though Agatha was trying her hardest to be cute now, staring up at the detective with her tongue lolling, panting enthusiastically, it was clearly much too late. Rigby unceremoniously shoved her into Alice’s arms.
‘And you are?’
‘Miss Beeton. Alice Beeton,’ Alice said, noticing that his eyes were a disarmingly lovely shade of hazel.
‘Ah, yes. You placed Enya here. Is that the right word? For getting someone a job somewhere like this?’
Nodding mutely, Alice found herself gazing once more past the detective and around the room. A window led out onto a fire escape and snowflakes flurried outside. An open doorway opposite her led into an adjoining room. A personal gym, it looked like. Alice could see the edge of what appeared to be a state-of-the art bench press and a running machine and free weights on the floor.
Other than the obvious exceptions – Enya, the money – what struck Alice most about the study was how perfectly tidy it was. Like these three cushions neatly fanned out on the beautifully upholstered button-back chair. And those art books on the shelf ordered in ascending size. And these five pens in a regimented line on the burnished teak desk.
Her eyes were drawn to a watercolour of a pirouetting nude male dancer on the wall.
Detective Rigby stepped in even closer towards her, deliberately blocking her view of the room and backing her up even further away from the door.
‘What happened?’ Alice asked. She couldn’t help herself.
‘It’s too early to say. Now if you’d just wait downstairs with the rest of the staff. Then once the pathologist’s been, I’ll be down to ask a few questions.’
Staff. She wasn’t staff. But she supposed she knew what he meant.
‘But … you do suspect foul play?’ she said. Because he must do, looking at the state of that room.
Immediately, she regretted the question – or perhaps, more specifically, the antiquated phrase — seeing the long-suffering look on Detective Rigby’s face. That same look she had to stop herself giving new staff who asked questions about duties that were simply not their business.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I’ve read an awful lot of crime books and have probably watched far too many detective shows on TV too,’ she added with a nervous laugh. ‘Although, as far as I’m concerned, there’s really no such thing as too many of either.’
But Detective Rigby clearly didn’t give a stuff about her reading and viewing habits, or like her little joke. As his eyes locked with hers, she experienced an odd sensation in the pit of her stomach, as if she’d just been told off by a teacher. He breathed out, as if it was all too much to keep up the façade of being cross, and for a second, she thought he might be about to impart some precious nugget of information, or some idea as to what the police might be thinking, but then he looked right past her and his whole demeanour changed.
Alice turned to see two figures in baggy white paper suits, plastic over-shoes, latex gloves, face masks and protective glasses had arrived, carrying steel briefcases. She’d read enough to know that these people were Scene of Crime Officers, or ‘SOCOs’ in crime book lingo, here to carry out the forensics. Shuffling sideways, she hugged Agatha to her chest as they swooped past.
She wondered if Detective Rigby might be about to introduce her, but, ‘The kitchen,’ was all that he said, pointing her firmly in the direction of the stairs.