Constance wasn’t certain she would be able to distinguish Rosie’s house from the other almost-identical town houses as she walked along East Road, but there was no doubt which it was. Not only was there a policeman standing on the front steps, but there were piles of flowers knee-deep on the pavement outside.
There would have been plenty of opportunities for the assassin to have been seen, she thought, all those windows overlooking the street, a busy thoroughfare linking the station, the nearby public gardens and local shops. She would need to check with Dawson if his officers had gone house to house, asked for sightings, although it never ceased to amaze Constance how unreliable eye witness evidence usually was. Either people saw nothing – Mr Moses, her senior partner, often told a story about how, when he was a boy, an entire troupe of elephants from the local circus were paraded through his town, albeit in the early hours of the morning, and no one noticed – or they totally misremembered what they had seen, substituting a familiar or desirable image for the real one.
She remembered a line from a film – or was it a book? – where a murder had taken place on a busy street like this and everyone was stumped; something about how the killer must have blended in, so he could lurk unnoticed. In the end, in that story, it had been the milkman, or someone dressed up as the milkman; she wasn’t sure which.
A better ending might have been the opposite: someone so out of place, so noticeable, that connecting him with the murder was totally absurd – so no one did. In fact, maybe that was the answer to Mr Moses’ elephant conundrum; people did see them trumpeting along the pedestrianised precinct, but couldn’t quite believe what they saw, so they just blanked it out or thought they’d imagined it.
Over the years, Constance had learned how important photographs were to the investigative side of her work. Not only did they jog your memory, they often highlighted things you had never seen or noticed yourself. So she took out her phone and snapped some photographs, from different angles, in both directions along the street, before slowly approaching the house and crouching down among the floral tributes.
One of the pictures she had seen, from her recent perusal of all things Rosie-related, was of Rosie at an upstairs window of this house, her face pinched and gaunt. It had coincided with breaking news of Debbie’s transition. She imagined Rosie mouthing something unintelligible from behind the glass to the unwelcome reporters below and tugging the curtains across. Today, when Constance looked up, the house was quiet and empty.
Lower down, Constance noticed a security camera directly above Rosie’s front door, the smart brass door knocker, the wide letter box, the trough overflowing with purple blooms on the front window ledge. The messages accompanying the flowers were simple and heartfelt: ‘rest in peace Rosie’, ‘we miss you’ and ‘one more angel in heaven’. Several well-wishers had printed off images of Rosie and tucked them into their bouquets.
As Constance reflected on who might have bought the blooms, the faces to match the many names, a man came hurrying down the street, mid thirties, sandy-brown hair, wearing jeans and a navy polo shirt, espadrilles, no socks. He marched straight up to the policeman.
‘I’m hoping you can help,’ he said, without looking at Constance, who continued her perusal of the flowers. ‘I’m Ellis Harper, Rosie’s brother. Is there any chance I could come inside?’
Constance was careful not to show any obvious interest in Ellis, but she was keen to take in everything she could from her stooped position. The policeman raised one hand towards Ellis’ chest and spread his frame out to block the entrance.
‘I’m sorry, sir, no one can come in. Not even family. Can I help you with something?’
‘It’s for Ben, Rosie’s son. He’s running out of clothes. I said I’d ask.’
‘If you’d like to leave your number, I’ll ask Chief Inspector Dawson to call you. He’s in charge. He won’t be releasing any clothes now, but maybe in a few days.’
‘No, that’s fine. I’ll pick up some things for Ben from the shops then, and I’ll come back during the week. Any idea how long you’ll be here?’
‘I think we’re nearly done.’
Ellis stood gazing up at the house’s façade before casting a glance in Constance’s direction again and striding back the way he had come. Constance rose and stretched out her legs, nodded to the policeman and then hurried off after Ellis, taking care to stay a fair distance behind.
* * *
Ellis walked purposefully along the street, sidestepping a pile of beer cans lined up in a row, then re-tracing his steps and kicking at them, so that they ricocheted off each other and rolled into the gutter. Then he stopped, drew back into a doorway and checked the messages on his phone before continuing on his way.
Constance wasn’t in the habit of undertaking gumshoe surveillance, but Ellis intrigued her – ‘waster’, ‘bear hugger’, ‘gofer’ – and she had the time to spare. Rosie’s house wasn’t going anywhere fast. She followed him all the way to Upper Street, where he entered one boutique and then another, exiting with purchases each time. Then he treated himself to an espresso and a chocolate twist, in a café, before riding the underground to Old Street and taking the short walk to Hoxton Square. Constance watched him enter a property on the west side and take the stairs to the first floor, where he disappeared from view, only to reappear briefly at a window.
Constance took more photographs; the square, the first-floor apartment, the view towards the east side, and revisited some she had taken earlier of Ellis perusing t-shirts in the shops. She wondered if Ben, the nephew, Rosie’s son, would appreciate his uncle’s fashion choices. But, maybe, probably, if your mother had just been murdered, you weren’t too bothered about what you wore.