Mo stood in the middle of the elegant room and watched the man from Forensic as he searched the desk for fingerprints, blood, hair, dead skin, anything. The m.o. was now predictable as clockwork. The flat had belonged to a Tarot reader and palmist, one who had lately received some degree of publicity. A lurid portrait of her hung spotlit in the hall. The victim in question had returned from a dinner party to find that someone had broken into her property through the skylight. She thought they had done no more than smash her crystal ball, until she smelt smoke and opened the kitchen door. Her latest work was burning in the sink. Apparently she had tried to put the flames out herself, and so had set fire to her dress. In a desperate attempt to save herself she had stumbled to the bathroom. Trying to turn on the shower, she had ignited the shower curtain and collapsed beneath the clinging sheet of frying plastic. A neighbour had been alerted by the smell as it slowly filtered through the luxurious hall. Suspecting an unattended pan fire, they had called the police. The burnt predictions remained in the kitchen sink, a soggy black pulp.
Accidental death, of course. Even a fool like McEnery could tell from his previous appearances that their man was meticulous. Had he wished to kill, his method would have been less messy, and he would certainly have stopped a flaming victim from racing so dangerously about the flat. There were two points that the Detective Inspector was left to ponder, however: the patently emotional touch of smashing the crystal ball, and the continuing lack of rational motive. Mo knew about weird burglars. They always made a mess and peed, or worse, on their victim’s clothes and bedding. Tomcats leaving their mark. This man wasn’t weird like that. His actions were unaggressive, by and large, and certainly lacked the hallmarks of a religious maniac like that bloke Gutteridge they’d just nicked at the pumping station. Each robbery was precise and, where uninterrupted, had been clean.
Mo walked out on to the landing and leant against the wall. Yet again she trailed her gaze along the scorched traces from kitchen to shower. Another man in a white coat was working at the top of the small pine staircase that led to the skylight and so to the roof garden. She stared at his brightly clocked socks and thought.
The skylight was a sliding one and had been left open by the intruder. Possibly he had heard someone downstairs and left in a hurry. Possibly he had dropped the ball by mistake and been afraid that the noise would alert suspicion. The staircase and stretch of carpet beneath it had been slightly damp. There’d only been one cloudburst all week and that was a short burst on Saturday at about ten P.M. He must have been here before dropping in on Fairy O’Leary’s place. Depending on how deep the knife wound was, he might have gone into hiding.
Her mind spiralled off after motives again. She’d had a chat with Jack and he’d reminded her about that French dolly-bird in the Fifties who’d gone loopy over a recurrent fortune-telling that said she was going to die young. She’d run amok in her neighbourhood one night, breaking into houses simply to smash clocks and watches. Extreme, obviously insane behaviour, but peculiarly logical in one who wants to bring a halt to time. This bloke had a thing about the future too, but his vendetta was an impersonal one; he seemed to be trying to enforce some kind of astrological silence. He didn’t want people to know. Know what? That French bit had taken an overdose before they’d caught her, so it had all come true anyway.
Mo needed results badly, fast, if she was to save face with Timson and his toadies, but the more she thought about the matter in hand, the more futile her recent occupation had become.
She crossed to the kitchen. It was a bright, new affair of gadgets and glossy surfaces. She stared at her reflection in a cupboard door, stared balefully and let her eyes travel on. There was one cupboard with a perspex door. There were glasses of all shapes and sizes, little bowls for crisps, a large cut-glass jug and, incongruously, a metal hip-flask on the bottom shelf. She tossed a glance over her shoulder. The landing was empty. She pulled her snot-rag out from her cuff and, using it as an extempore glove, opened the door and lifted the flask out and down to her deep jacket pocket. It was heavy, definitely silver. She shut the door deftly and pushed the snot-rag back into her sleeve. She paused for a moment on the landing, looked first at one busy man and then at the other.
‘OK, lads, I’m going back to the station now, if anybody needs me.’
‘Cheers, Boss.’
She let herself out. Subversion was easier than one had thought.