“What—”
“Forget it.”
I’m starting to think DCI Bird is batshit. She might be too many flavors of crazy for most people’s taste buds, but I’m still attracted to her. Even more so since I looked her up; she has a seriously impressive track record as a detective. One of the best in London from what I’ve read. She’s supersmart, successful, and hot too. I follow her around the room, watching everything she does, trying to guess what might be going on inside her head.
“Tell me what you see,” she says, staring at the bed.
It sounds like a trick question, but I’ll play along.
“A bedroom.”
She rolls her eyes. “What’s unusual about it?”
Nothing.
I shrug. “It all looks very neat and tidy to me…”
Then I spot an old Walkman on the bedside table, and I freeze because it is not a common household object and it looks just like mine. The exact same model. But it can’t be mine, can it?
“Exactly,” she whispers, thinking I am seeing whatever she is seeing. “The bed has been made and nothing is out of place. Would you make the bed if your wife was missing, possibly dead? And I think he has changed the sheets.” She picks up a pillow and smells it. “Did you notice what looked like bedding in the washing machine downstairs?” I did not. “Does Harrison look like the kind of man who normally does housework to you?” I shake my head. “So why would he do that? You have to learn to look for the strange inside the normal.”
I hope she isn’t going to patronize me like this on a regular basis.
So what if he changed the sheets?
I’m starting to think my new boss doesn’t trust me to tie my own shoelaces.
She pulls on some plastic gloves with a dramaticthwack, then takes a small evidence bag from a pocket inside her jacket. I watch transfixed as she swipes a hairbrush from the dressing table and seals it inside the bag. I follow her into the modern marble-and-granite en suite, where she looks at the two electric toothbrushes standing side by side, then at all the expensive-looking toiletries on display. I’m trying to see what she sees but everything looks as it should to me. Until Bird opens the medicine cabinet and I watch her scan the labels on pill bottles like some kind of robot. She slips some tablets into her jacket pocket.
“Shouldn’t we bag that as evidence too if—”
She spins around almost as though she had forgotten I was here, stands right in front of me, and puts a finger over my lips. She’s so close I can smell her perfume. She leans closer still, until her lips are practically touching my ear, then whispers.
“Do you think we could use our silent voices for the rest of the search? I need quiet to do my job. Thank you in advance.”
She does what appears to be a thorough search of every room after that, and I follow her without saying another word. I’m not entirely sure what she’s looking for but don’t want to make a fool of myself by asking any more questions. Back downstairs she returns to the small library at the back of the house. A galaxy of dust particles floats in a beam of light from the window, as though recently disturbed, but there is nobody in the room. Bird folds her arms before quietly saying, “A crime has been committed here.”
“It has?” I ask, bewildered as to what I’ve missed. I look around but draw a blank.
“What do you see?” she asks, staring at the bookcases.
I hesitate, not wanting to make a tit of myself, but she’s waiting for an answer.
“A lot of books?”
“Anythingabout this room look different to you?”
I take in the original parquet flooring and very old-looking bookcases, then shrug. “It looks like the only room in the house that they haven’t completely renovated…”
“Because…”
“Because… maybe they ran out of money?”
“The car parked outside is worth more than your house. These aren’t the kind of people who run out of money. These are people with more money than sense. As the former owner of Spyglass, I know that this old wonky house came with an ancient legal covenant which stated that these bookcases were not to be refurbished or removed, having been installed by some badass carpenter.”
“The bookcases are still here.”
“I can see that, thank you. But they have been painted. In complete contradiction to the legal documents they signed when they purchased the property.”
