Page 9 of Her Lips Are Sealed

‘I don’t know, I haven’t asked.’

Marc pulled a piece of scrap paper towards him and uncapped his pen. ‘What’s the address?’

‘Crosslands Mews, Coniston.’

‘Why didn’t you go to Barrow station? It’s nearer.’

‘I work in Rydal Falls, at the library.’

‘Oh, okay. Right, well I’ll ask one of my officers to look into it, but what I really need is for you to ring it in the next time you see him hanging around, okay? It’s easier for us to speak to him when he’s there than for us to try and find him. There’s a lot going on at the moment, it’s very busy.’

She nodded. ‘Sorry, he’s just spooked me, that’s all.’

‘You’ve done the right thing, don’t ever be sorry for asking for help.’

She laughed. ‘Yeah, I get the feeling you’d rather I hadn’t.’ Then she stood up and walked out of the door.

He sighed. Folded the paper up and tucked it into his pocket. He’d pass it on to the duty sergeant to get a patrol to check it out. He was far too busy to be dealing with this kind of stuff.

SIX

Morgan wanted another look inside of Rachel’s apartment now that she had a feel for who she was as a person. The bright red lips had really brought up a lot of questions for her. She saw Ben and Declan, heads bent, deep in discussion, next to the CSI van and headed towards them. They both looked at her and she whispered, ‘I have the names of three people who need to be spoken to and the victim’s sister’s address.’

Declan arched an eyebrow at Ben. ‘She’s on fire today, better watch you don’t burn your fingers, especially that ring finger.’

Morgan shook her head at Declan at his poor joke. He was more frustrated and upset about Ben not proposing to her on their not-so-recent trip to New York than she ever was. ‘Just doing my job, can I go back inside?’

Ben pointed towards the front door. ‘Be my guest, if Wendy doesn’t chase you out.’

This time she smiled at them both. ‘I’ll chance it. Do you have a rough time of death, Declan?’

‘Always with the questions, Detective Brookes. Estimated TOD is between eight and 10 p.m., the body is still in the full state of rigor mortis, which can take up to sixteen hours to kick in once the body starts cooling. Plus, her body temp and the ambient temp is backing my estimate up nicely, although you know that it’s not set in stone, every body is different.’

Morgan nodded. ‘Thanks, I appreciate that, so she let whoever did this into her flat quite late, really. She had to have known them, I mean you wouldn’t let someone you didn’t know come in at that time of night, would you?’

Declan nodded. ‘I wouldn’t let anyone I know, present company excluded, into my house at any time of day.’ He winked at her.

‘There’s no sign of a struggle either. I’m confident this is not a stranger murder.’ Morgan was thinking more out loud to herself than anything, but she continued suiting up and for the second time she headed for the front door.

Wendy was walking out with an evidence bag.

‘Can I go back in, please?’

‘Don’t touch anything.’

‘I won’t.’

Morgan slipped inside and this time paused taking everything in slowly. Purposely not looking over to the floor where Rachel’s feet were visible.

She studied the small space, it was so light and airy. She looked around for signs that a cat lived here and spied a lemon and white porcelain cat bowl tucked away behind the sofa, and next to it a matching water bowl. At least the cat had someone to take care of it – this time she wouldn’t have to talk Ben into letting her take it home with them.

Morgan was the complete opposite to Rachel: a messy person by nature, books, coffee mugs and discarded Blackcraft hoodies left around Ben’s house that he was forever picking up after her. This looked like a show home. She went into the bedroom and wasn’t surprised to see that was equally as tidy. No half-drunk water glass on the bedside table, no pile of books, or make-up all over the place. The bed was made and as she walked towards it, she noticed a piece of paper sticking out from underneath one of the pillows. Her interest piqued, she took out her phone, opened the camera and photographed it before gently tugging the corner of it, her gloved fingers teasing it out without moving anything so Wendy wouldn’t have a heart attack. It was a folded sheet of lined A4 paper torn from a notepad, with a note written in large, messy block capitals in black ink.

SHE LIVED ALONE NO ONE TO HEAR HER SCREAM EXCEPT FOR THE NEXT ONE WHO WILL HEAR HER IN HER NIGHTMARES I AM COMING FOR HER SHE LIVES ON HER OWN I HAVE FOUND HER I WILL STOP HER FROM BEING LONELY EVER AGAIN

No punctuation, it was all one long sentence. Underneath the words was a blood-red lipstick kiss.

‘What are you doing? I said no touching.’