‘You think this is the crime scene?’
‘I would put money on it.’
‘If that’s the case, then this has been professionally cleaned, which is concerning,’ Imogen said.
‘Concerning, how?’
‘Who cleaned it? I’m going to assume there was some blood, which would correlate with Simon Glover’s murder having taken place here. And who painted this place? It’s not as if Glover was disposed of particularly carefully. But this level of work and attention to detail means that more than one person was involved. Cleaners, painters, movers.’
‘This seems highly organised. Is this something they have done before? Something they do regularly. Not to mention the distance from the original crime scene. We are at least an hour away from where the body was found.’
‘Maybe you do need to do a TV appeal for information. They love you at the moment.’ Imogen smiled, knowing Adrian hated being the centre of attention, but she loved to watch him squirm.
‘Seriously, though. If they have done this before then why was this job so sloppy? Why haven’t we been finding bodies in the river for years? Are they trying to send a message to someone else?’ Adrian said.
‘Sloppy, how?’
‘You know, body in the river, which is basically a trail of evidence. Not to mention the fact that they didn’t finish the woman off. Not quite professional, more confusing. I’m telling you, it’s a message. Judging by the way the woman behaved, I think she was probably the intended recipient of that message. She wasn’t beaten as badly. I reckon Glover was beaten as a lesson to her.’
‘You’ve been watching too much TV. People don’t do that in real life.’
‘Maybe not in your life. We’re missing something.’
‘That’s an understatement,’ Imogen said.
‘So, what now?’
‘Let’s go and see this co-worker of his and see if he can shed any light on what might have happened to Simon Glover.’
Adrian pulled out his phone and called Karen Bell, the lead crime scene investigator and recently promoted head of the forensics department. Imogen knew that she and Adrian alone wouldn’t find anything here – not a fingerprint, a strand of hair or a speck of blood that would confirm it as the crime scene. They needed to call the crime scene technicians in to work their magic. Even the cleanest rooms aren’t forensically clean.
They waited outside for someone to come and secure the scene; the smell inside was too chemical and overwhelming to stay there.
‘Do you think we will get any answers from the friend?’
‘I’m going to go with no. The secrecy and silence around this case is not only bizarre, it’s already pissing me off. There’s no reason to believe it’s going to get any easier.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ Adrian said.
‘So far, we have a dead guy and a missing woman who would rather risk her life and her health than tell us what’s going on. My guess is this guy we are going to see now is going to be equally unhelpful. We just need to figure out why.’
The summer temperatures were starting to kick in after another unpredictable cold spell and Dorset was a real suntrap. Leon Quick lived further away from the coast than Simon Glover, in a studio flat above the garage of his parents’ converted barn house. It was hot and stuffy inside and you could hear the clatter and clink of Leon’s father tinkering with something in the garage below.
The flat itself consisted of a bed and an armchair, plus a small side table and a TV, with built-in cupboards either side of the dated tiled fireplace. In one corner were three kitchen units with a microwave and a kettle. He also had a small fridge. There was nowhere to sit, really, so Imogen just folded her arms and waited for him to speak.
Leon looked shaken when his mother showed them upstairs and introduced them as police. Mrs Quick had given Leon a scathing look as she went back downstairs.
‘Leon Quick? I’m Detective Miles and this is my colleague, DS Grey. We are here to speak to you about your friend, Simon Glover.’
‘Is he OK? Did you find him?’ Leon said.
Imogen noted he was tense, his eyes darting around nervously as he spoke.
‘You knew he was missing?’ Imogen said.
‘Fiona called me and I’ve been calling him. He hasn’t been at work and everyone’s really concerned about him. I told the boss he had flu, but I knew something was up.’
‘What do you mean, you knew something was up?’ Imogen probed.
There was a twitchiness about Leon – she wondered if he was an addict of some kind.
‘He had been acting weird the last few weeks; he had a week off and when he didn’t come back I suspected something.’
‘Why would you suspect something? Was he in some kind of trouble?’ Adrian asked.
Leon’s anxiety had spiked when they had turned up and Imogen noticed it growing by the second. He started to chew on the skin around his thumb.
‘Just tell me what happened to him. He’s dead, isn’t he?’ he said.
Imogen could see he was shaking. Was it nerves or maybe withdrawal? For some reason, she suspected the former. Why was he so uneasy?
‘Why would you think that?’ Adrian said.
‘Why else would you be here?’
Imogen took a deep breath before speaking. ‘His sister has positively identified a body we recovered from the River Exe as Simon Glover.’
Leon shook his head and exhaled deeply before sitting on the edge of his bed. ‘What did they do to him?’
‘Tell us why you don’t seem surprised,’ Imogen said.
‘He told me. He told me this might happen the last time I spoke to him.’
‘He told you he might die?’ Imogen asked.
‘Yes. He gave me a letter to give to his sister in case anything happened. He gave me some other stuff to look after, as well. I guess you want it?’
‘Yes, please,’ Adrian said.
He got up and went to his cupboard before pulling out a small correspondence envelope and an A4 Jiffy bag. He handed the envelope to Imogen. She opened it and looked at the letter, though it felt wrong to read it. There were no explanations, just an expression of love from one sibling to another. It was a goodbye letter, but there was nothing sad about it. It certainly didn’t read like a suicide note. Leon then gave Adrian
