Free The Stranger You Know by Jane Casey Page B

worst.’ Burt looked around. ‘Shouldn’t DI Bradbury be in here too? I thought he was following me. Where’s he got to?’
    ‘Have a look in the superintendent’s arse,’ Peake suggested, very quietly, so that only I could hear, and I smothered a laugh, converting it into a cough that made everyone stare at me. To do something worthy of everyone’s attention since it was on me anyway, I asked about the vase. Kev Cox had made sure it was removed since Godley and I had noticed it, but I described it.
    ‘Did you have anything like this in either of the other flats?’
    ‘Flowers, yeah.’ Groves’s face was twisted in thought. ‘Don’t know if we ever worked out where they came from.’
    Peake was flicking back through a folder of photos he’d been carrying under one arm: pictures from Maxine’s flat. I looked over his shoulder, seeing rooms that were neat but IKEA-unimaginative, and all painted the same shade of cream.
    ‘There. On the draining board.’ I put out a hand to stop him as he flipped past the kitchen. ‘That’s a vase, isn’t it?’
    It was turned upside down, as if it had been washed out.
    ‘Do you think he left it like that?’
    ‘Could be. He definitely cleaned up after he’d finished with Maxine. He wasn’t in a hurry to leave. He even vacuumed the place, we think, and took the bag away with him. He must have been feeling very confident. If there was more noise here – didn’t you say a neighbour called 999? – maybe he didn’t feel it was worth his while to tidy up after himself.’
    ‘You could be right.’
    Groves and Burns were conferring in low tones, and concluded that there might have been a vase. They couldn’t remember.
    ‘What’s your theory?’ Peake asked.
    I squirmed. ‘I don’t really have one yet. Maybe he delivers them and that’s how he gets to check out the victims and their homes. Or maybe he brings them flowers to get them to trust him.’
    ‘Well, he must be fucking charming is all I can say. They let him in. They don’t fight back.’ Groves shook his head. ‘Maybe he buys them chocolates too.’
    ‘And offers to fix a few things around the house,’ Burns suggested. ‘And tells them he hates football.’
    ‘But he loves shopping.’ Peake was grinning.
    Burt looked as entertained as I was, which is to say not very. Poor silly women, pinning their hopes on Prince Charming , trusting the wrong man . ‘I hate to interrupt, but I think we’d better move on. Dr Hanshaw is going to want to move the body, so if you want to see it in position …’
    The three of them fell into line and we toured the rest of the flat, including the small bathroom, now SOCO-free, where I noticed the shower curtain was decorated with tiny yellow ducks. It was the kind of detail that reminded me why we were there. The person who had chosen it and hung it up and looked at it every morning was now stiff and dead and lying exposed to anyone’s view in her own bedroom, because someone else had decided she should be.
    The bedroom itself was getting crowded and I hung back, watching Caitriona extract herself from the room with the urgency and purpose of a cross wasp fighting its way out of a bottle. Glenn Hanshaw had finished and Godley was listening, patiently, to Andy Bradshaw’s self-important account of the Maxine Willoughby crime scene and how it had been different.
    ‘I thought we’d discuss this at the local police station. I’ve asked them to let us have a room,’ he said when he could get a word in. ‘We need to see your crime-scene photos. And I’d like everyone to hear what you have to say, not just me.’
    ‘Of course.’ Bradshaw sounded as if that was only natural, not appreciating perhaps that it was meant to apply to everyone.
    ‘Then, Kev, I think we’re finished here. Can you let them know they can take the body?’
    Kev nodded cheerfully. ‘We’ll finish up.’
    As I followed the others out of Anna Melville’s flat I felt bleak. Someone would come