‘She had male visitors when her daughter was away. Mr Norris noticed.’
‘What sort of male visitors?’
‘Mr Norris thought they were misbehaving,’ I said primly.
‘Professional or amateur misbehaviour?’
‘That I don’t know. Yet.’
‘If you want to join me in the lady’s bedroom, we can have a look,’ Derwent said with something approaching a leer.
‘Can’t wait,’ I said briskly, knowing that Georgia was still trying – and doubtless failing – to get a read on our relationship. ‘I should ask Oliver Norris if he saw anything suspicious when he came over to fix Kate’s dripping tap.’
‘Did you think Norris was watching Kate? Or Chloe?’ Georgia asked. ‘I thought you were implying that with some of your questions.’
‘I don’t know. Some people are nosy neighbours. Everyone likes to gossip. And Chloe is good friends with his daughter, after all.’ I shrugged. ‘It could be weird that he knows so much about the family’s comings and goings, or it could be second nature to him to know what’s going on in his neighbourhood. I don’t know him well enough yet to say either way.’
‘But you don’t like him,’ Derwent said.
‘I didn’t say that.’
He grinned at me and I knew I’d given it away, somehow, to him at any rate. But then, he knew me better than most.
‘So you haven’t managed to find us a body,’ I said. It was always better to attack than defend, with Derwent.
‘I tried.’
‘We don’t even know who we’re looking for.’
‘Kate Emery.’ He handed me a photograph that he’d liberated from somewhere in the house: a close-up of a smiling woman with shortish fair hair. She was squinting into the sun, her eyes screwed up, her smile strained. It wasn’t a picture I would have chosen to frame but she looked outdoorsy and cheerful. I knew better than to assume she was either, based on a single photograph. ‘I still can’t tell you if she’s a suspect or a victim,’ Derwent added. ‘Kev says they’ll hurry on the DNA.’
‘As it stands,’ Georgia said thoughtfully, ‘we don’t even know if it’s a murder, do we?’
Derwent turned to look at her. ‘Yeah. We definitely shouldn’t leap to any conclusions. It could have been an accident. Chopping vegetables or something, nicked herself, dripped a bit of blood on the floor while she was looking for a plaster, as you do …’
‘No, well, not that.’ Georgia’s cheeks were red.
‘Maybe she tried to kill herself and just kept missing her wrists. After the tenth or eleventh time she got bored and went to find a tall building to jump off. Is that more likely?’
‘It’s possible,’ I said mildly. ‘Not the way you’ve described it, but it happens. When I was a response officer I turned up at a scene that looked like an attempted murder. The guy had awful injuries, but they were actually self-inflicted.’
‘Spoilsport,’ Derwent said. ‘So we’ll leave suicide as a possibility because – what did you say you were called?’
‘Georgia. Georgia Shaw.’
‘Because DC Shaw thinks it’s feasible that someone did this to themselves. And then wandered off to dig their own grave, I suppose.’
I was lukewarm on Georgia Shaw but even so, I winced. I’d been on the receiving end of Derwent’s sarcasm enough times to know that it stung. I’d also worked with Derwent for long enough to know that he had formed an opinion of Georgia already, and there was precious little she could do about it for now.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Here’s what I think we should do. Georgia, I want you to get a SOCO to go over Norris’s car, especially the boot. Make sure he wasn’t moving a body around, not shifting garden rubbish. If you find anything suspicious, tell me, obviously. Don’t give him the keys back yet, even if there isn’t anything.’
‘You want to make him sweat,’ Derwent said.
‘I don’t mind if he’s a bit on edge, put it that way.’ I turned back to Georgia. ‘Then house-to-house. Find out if anyone else saw Kate Emery after Wednesday when Chloe left for her dad’s house, or if Norris was the only one. Ask if they saw anything strange too. Find out if anyone else noticed men coming and going from this house – but don’t suggest it, will you? Rumours become facts too easily, and everyone wants to help so they’ll say they saw God Almighty visiting the house if they think that’s what we want to hear.’
‘I know.’ She was still red, this time with anger, and it was directed at me. She knew very well that I was getting rid of her. She didn’t know it was for her own good.
I checked the time. ‘Half past eight. Don’t spend too long on it. We’ve been here for long enough that anyone who has urgent information for us would have spoken to us already. The immediate neighbours have already been interviewed, so go a bit further down the street. But don’t go as far as William Turner’s house, and if you do see him, be careful what you tell him.’
‘I thought you didn’t see him as a credible suspect,’ Georgia said.
‘At the moment, everyone’s a suspect. Off you go.’ I waited while she stripped off the shoe covers again, very slowly, and gathered her things. Derwent was watching too, his hands in his pockets, whistling silently to himself. It was his habit when he was thinking, and a thinking Derwent was never good news.
As Georgia left I blew my hair out of my face. ‘Hot in here, isn’t it?’
‘That’s the warm glow you get from giving orders, DS Kerrigan. How do you like it?’
‘Oh, shut up.’
He grinned. ‘It suits you, I have to say. I always saw you as more the submissive type, but maybe I was wrong.’
I looked around, peering up the stairs. The lights were off and it was shadowy up there, the horrors half-hidden in the dusk. The house was quiet. Waiting. ‘Where do you want to start? Down here and work up?’
He dropped the mockery straight away. ‘Fine by me.’
My skin was slick with sweat and my hair was sticking to my neck. The crime-scene tents at the front and now the back of the house meant that no air was circulating through it, and the temperature seemed to have gone up as the shadows lengthened. I took off my jacket.
‘Did you iron that?’
I looked down at my top. ‘Yes. Well, I didn’t. I paid someone else to do it.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because I find ironing boring and I have better things to do with my time. She cleans too.’
‘Interesting.’
‘Not
