Free A Killing Resurrected by Frank Smith Page B

door.
    â€˜That’s right,’ said Claire. ‘Aunt Jane would never let anyone else use it after Barry died, so you’ll find it virtually the same as it was then. She cleaned and vacuumed in there as she did throughout the rest of the house, and she took the sheets and pillows off the bed, but otherwise it’s pretty much the way Barry left it.’
    â€˜Are you saying she kept it as some sort of shrine?’
    â€˜Oh, no, it wasn’t like that,’ Claire assured him. ‘She simply had no reason to change it, so it’s remained as it was.’
    Alcott opened the door and stood there for a moment before moving inside. Paget followed, while Claire hovered uncertainly in the doorway. The room smelt musty, suggesting that neither the door nor the window had been opened for some time.
    It was as Claire had said: the room looked as if Barry Grant might return to it at any time. There were clothes in the wardrobe; there were books and papers on his desk, and magazines stacked neatly on the floor. Yellowing posters featuring cars and scantily clad girls were still pinned to the walls, and a guitar with broken strings stood in the corner.
    The temperature outside was already climbing rapidly, but Claire shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. ‘I don’t know why,’ she said, ‘but this room always gives me a funny feeling.’
    â€˜You searched this room yourself, did you, sir?’ asked Paget.
    Alcott nodded. ‘Looking for a note,’ he said, ‘or anything at all that might explain why the boy felt compelled to end his life in such a violent way, but there was nothing. Now we know why: Mrs Grant had taken the notes away.’
    Paget turned to Claire. ‘I doubt if we will find anything in this room after all this time,’ he said, ‘but I would like to have someone come in to search the house for anything that might tell us who Barry’s friends were – old photographs, letters from university, perhaps, things that Mrs Grant may have kept locked away. With your permission, of course.’
    Claire hesitated. ‘It’s not that I mind,’ she told him, ‘but I have quite a lot on at the moment. Do I need to be here?’
    â€˜I think you should be,’ Paget told her. ‘And the sooner we do it the better. Do you think you could be here Monday morning? Say about nine? It shouldn’t take too long.’
    Claire frowned as she mentally rearranged the plans she’d had for Monday, then nodded. ‘I can do that,’ she told him. ‘In fact it will give me a chance to sort a few things out myself.’
    â€˜Then that’s settled,’ Paget said, ‘and thank you.’
    Alcott was shaking his head as he moved towards the door. ‘It’s uncanny,’ he muttered as much to himself as to the others. ‘Nothing’s changed. After all these years, it looks exactly as I remember it.’
    â€˜Does it trigger any memories that might prove useful to us in this new enquiry?’ asked Paget hopefully.
    â€˜Memories? Oh, yes,’ said Alcott soberly. ‘But useful . . .?’ He shook his head.
    â€˜I believe you wanted to see the packing shed as well,’ Claire said as she led the way to the head of the stairs, then started down without waiting for an answer. At the bottom, they followed her down and along the hall towards the back of the house. ‘The key to the shed is in here,’ she said, pausing beside an open door leading to the conservatory. ‘You go ahead and I’ll catch up with you.’
    Alcott continued on his way to the back door, but Paget followed Claire inside. ‘Now this
is
a surprise,’ he said as he looked around. Over twenty feet long and perhaps twelve or thirteen feet wide, and all windows down one side, the conservatory looked out on a narrow strip of lawn and a vegetable garden, both woefully overgrown and in desperate need of water,