Free Fruitful Bodies by Morag Joss

no, it’s not,’ Hilary said. The sense of solidity wasstrengthened by a nasally sensible Yorkshire accent. She stretched forward on the sofa to make her point. ‘It’s just that she’s been out all day, since before nine this morning. And she comes back before seven, usually. She’s been sat in her room for the past few evenings. And well, she … she, look, I don’t pry, but she …’ She stole a look at Ivan. ‘She was on her own, she didn’t get up to much, what with the weather so changeable. So … so I rang the police station, just in case … you know, an accident, run over, what with the traffic driving on the other side … or worse. She had seemed a bit upset, you see.’
    ‘Upset? In what way?’
    ‘My wife is very sensitive to other people,’ Ivan said, gazing at her with a look that made Bambi look like a Komodo dragon. He stroked her hand. ‘She can sense things about people. She’s very intuitive.’
    Hilary seemed to know how silly this must sound. ‘Well I don’t know if it’s that, or what. I heard Mrs Takahashi crying in her room, Thursday night it was. I asked if she was all right and she said yes. You can’t pry, can you? But she wasn’t happy. I do get feelings, vibes, sometimes,’ she said, stoutly. ‘And sometimes people try to do away with themselves, when they’re upset, don’t they?’ She glanced at Ivan.
    ‘Especially now,’ Ivan said, fondly. ‘Heightened intuition, it’s well known.’ He turned to Andrew with a look of sleepy pride. ‘My wife is having a baby. We only found out yesterday. We’ve waited so long. We’re so thrilled.’ The interlocking fingers resting on the sofa squirmed and tightened.
    ‘Oh, Ivan, don’t. We should be thinking about Mrs Takahashi.’
    ‘That’s lovely news. Congratulations,’ Andrew said, with a nod rather than a smile. ‘Got three myself.’ He was unwilling to pursue the matter of Hilary’s intuition—which he did not believe in, hers or anybody’s—and she had in any case given him several quite straightforward reasons to account for her uneasiness about Mrs Takahashi’s safety.
    ‘Now, I’m afraid,’ he began. He took in their concerned, gentle faces and judged her certainly, him less so, to be a non-panicker, which would make the next bit easier. ‘Now, I’m afraid we do have reason to suspect that Mrs Takahashi may, I stress
may
, have been involved in a serious incident which took place in Bath this morning. I would like, of course, to be able to eliminate the possibility if I can, and that means finding some identification for Mrs Takahashi.’ He paused. ‘A photograph, ideally. So I would like to have a look in her room, and if possible locate her passport.’
    ‘Oh my God,’ Hilary exclaimed, raising her hands to her face. ‘You’ve got a body, haven’t you? Oh my God.’
    Ivan stood up. ‘You’re not to upset yourself. You stay here. I’ll take the inspector along.’
    The room was adequate and unpleasant, heavy with the scent of a syrupy room spray which mixed with, rather than disguised, the gingery, inflammable smells of nylon carpet and furniture glue. The Golightlys had fixed up the room for B&B guests on minimum outlay, with dismayingly twee bedroom furniture with plastic gilt handles. Under the ugly light of an overhead bulb in a white fringed shade the woman’s unremarkable possessions were set out with precision on the dressing table, a reddish, synthetic veneer-eal surface one scratch away from raw chipboard. Andrew found the passport in the dressing table drawerand flipped it open. The woman in the photograph, looking with a half-smile towards some focal point slightly to one side, was about five years younger than the blue-faced corpse in the mortuary, but it was the same face.
    Hilary stood in the doorway. ‘She’s died, hasn’t she? You’ve got a body. You think Mrs Takahashi’s dead. Don’t you?’
    Andrew turned and nodded. ‘It’s possible, Mrs Golightly.