Free The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes by Roger Wilkes Page A

leaving the house. If it was triggered by Mrs Brown before her death, the killer must have been composed and calm after the fatal assault, washing himself and, apparently, carrying out some kind of search with the internal and external alarms ringing. He must also have known that the alarm was not connected to a switching centre which would alert the police.
    There is no other forensic evidence of significance. Of the sixty good fingerprints that were found only four have not been eliminated. No one can say if any of them belong to the killer. There was some excitement in the first days of the inquiry when the fingerprint dust of the scenes of crime officers showed up what appeared to be a palm print in blood on the wall near Janet Brown’s body. It turned out to be oil, not blood and the print belonged to the innocent engineer who had installed the boiler some time ago.
    Along with the absence of forensic evidence there was the absence of anything associated with a struggle. No disturbance or disarray that the police would normally expect to accompany such a death. Mrs Brown did not, or could not, offer any resistance.
    Most burglaries these days take place during working hours when properties are most likely to be unoccupied. The last thing a burglar wants is to meet his victim. There was no such caution from the man who smashed his way into Hall Farm. It was not late in the evening, lights were on throughout the house, the curtains were open downstairs and two cars were parked in the drive. Perhaps, for whatever reason, he wanted Mrs Brown to be there. The police considered that her killer may have been known to Mrs Brown. But if that was the case why would he take such trouble to break in, when he could just knock at the front door? Perhaps he knew her but she didn’t know him. It did not seem like a random incident from somebody who just happened to be passing. The killer had come prepared with a glass cutter, two types of tape, handcuffs, at least one bar—if the weapon that was used to hit her was the same as the tool that was used to smash the patio door—and, the police presumed, a torch and a bag to carry all these things.
    None of the items that were left behind were traceable. The tapes were commonplace and the handcuffs had no manufacturer’s mark. Detective Superintendent Short said he was surprised to discover how many sets of handcuffs are imported and sold. They too were commonplace. There was no sign of the weapon which had killed Mrs Brown.
    The police looked hard for anything untoward or unusual in Mrs Brown’s life. They had to consider that she might have been having an affair. They found nothing at all of significance and no evidence that she was involved with anyone outside her marriage. Neighbours who had known her presumed she must have had a life revolving around her work and been close to people there or close to old friends. People at work imagined she must have had close friends outside work and old friends imagined she must have made closer new friends. The truth was that, outside the family there was nobody who knew her that well.
    In Radnage she had been one more mother supporting her daughters at pony club events, regarded by some as a woman who kept herself slightly apart from the group. We never set eyes on her from the day the children stopped riding, one villager told me. Though neighbours said they would see her out walking her dog, a Great Dane, before it died and noted that she would was not afraid to be out alone at dusk and even in darkness with the dog by her side.
    On rare occasions neighbours would see both Mr and Mrs Brown out walking together. She would be the one to smile and wave. Whatever the neighbours knew of life at Hall Farm seems to have filtered through from the Brown’s children to the other children of the village, to the other children’s parents. There was talk, for instance, of the family moving to Canada when Grahaem first began working abroad but this had