She shapes to throw. I yell no, but the handset is already tumbling through the air. Mitch plucks it out with his left hand, like he’s fielding at first slip.
‘Good catch,’ yells Evie.
Lenny has sent me a message.
Maya Kirk’s brother-in-law has been arrested for breaking into the crime scene. Meet me at the house.
Dean Sterling is sitting in the back seat of a police car, resting his eyes, or asleep. When he hears my voice, he blinks at me and raises his handcuffed wrists. ‘Hey, Cracker, explain to these guys that it’s all a mistake.’
Ignoring him, I join Lenny at the mobile incident room, a police-liveried caravan parked in the driveway, where officers have been guarding the scene and quizzing locals who might have seen or heard something that night.
‘Sterling was caught coming out the back door,’ she says.
‘How did he get inside?’ I ask.
‘He had a key.’
Sterling shouts from the car. ‘I was picking up my tools. I left them in the cupboard under the stairs.’ He motions to me. ‘I told him.’
‘And I said it was still a crime scene,’ I reply.
‘Yeah, but I got bills to pay; mouths to feed.’
He gives me a locker-room grin, as though we’re both the same, working stiffs trying to do a job.
Lenny looks at me. ‘Did he mention the tools?’
‘At the hospital.’
She seems to chew over this detail. She nods to the constable. ‘Cut him loose.’ And then to Sterling. ‘Next time, do as you’re told.’
‘There won’t be a next time,’ he says. ‘Sorry to waste your time.’
The cuffs are keyed open. Dean rubs his wrists, before walking quickly to his van, which he deliberately parked further along the street because he knew the police were guarding the house.
‘What was he carrying when you arrested him?’ I ask the constable, who has orange hair and freckles.
‘Nothing. I mean, he had the house keys and a small screwdriver.’
‘What about the tools he came to collect?’
‘Told me he couldn’t find them.’
I look at Lenny. ‘Does that make sense to you?’
She takes the keys from the constable. ‘Time for a look.’
The house has been locked up since the forensic teams departed, but the signs of their presence are still everywhere – evidence markers and fingerprint powder and a missing section of carpet that once lay beneath Rohan Kirk’s body.
Moving along the main hallway, I check the cupboard beneath the stairs. Inside is a wine rack and a spill-over pantry with canned goods, boxes of pasta and jars of preserves.
‘Not the sort of place you’d put tools,’ I say. ‘A tile cutter is a heavy piece of kit.’
I move up the stairs to Maya’s en-suite bathroom, which smells freshly painted. The bath has been recycled but the folding glass shower screen looks new, along with the tap fittings. I crouch to examine the floor drain and notice scuff marks on the edge of the bathtub. A faint pattern has been left behind by the soles of work boots. Someone was standing on the bathtub. I glance up at the ceiling light, which doubles as a room heater. There is also a smoke alarm with a round plastic cover.
Lenny has joined me.
‘What sort of screwdriver was he carrying?’
‘A small Phillips-head.’
‘About yea big?’ I ask, pointing to the smoke alarm.
‘Yeah.’
Leaning one hand on her shoulder, I stand on the edge of the tub and reach up, twisting off the cover of the alarm, which would normally be secured by two small screws. Both are missing.
I turn the cover over in my hand. There is a battery, but no smoke detector.
‘What is it?’ asks Lenny.
‘Best guess – a spy camera. The battery has been unplugged but the camera has gone.’
I put the cover into a plastic evidence bag while Lenny uses her phone to photograph the ceiling and the edge of the bath. She calls Hoyle, asking for a search warrant for Dean Sterling.
Meanwhile, I go to Maya’s bedroom and look for other likely hiding places. Eventually, my eyes settle on the shelf of stuffed animals near the window. The toys are lined up in order of size, but one of them, the Paddington Bear, is slightly askew. I pick it up and discover that the back has been ripped open and one of the glass eyes is missing.
‘In here,’ I shout.
Lenny appears.
I hold up the bear. ‘Another camera. It was most likely hooked up to the home Wi-Fi and accessed using a phone app, or a laptop. The batteries would have to be replaced every so often, but other than that, he could have been watching Maya from anywhere.’
‘Where are the cameras?’ asks Lenny. ‘He was searched when he left the house. He was only carrying a screwdriver and the house keys.’
I take a step towards the window and feel something small and brittle snap beneath the heel of my shoe. Bending to investigate, I find a shard of black plastic. The sash window is pulled shut but unlatched.
I’m moving. Out the door. Down the stairs. Lenny follows. We reach the kitchen and take the side door, along a short path to the garden. Stepping onto the muddy grass, I look up at Maya’s bedroom window, estimating the trajectory. I pull aside the branches of a shrub. Lying in the dirt, amid the dead leaves, are broken pieces of plastic, glass and circuit board.
‘We need to get hold of his computers and his phone,’ I say.
‘I’m on it.’
28
Evie
Mitch has been working inside, fixing my bedroom door, which doesn’t lock properly because this house seems to shift with the seasons, creaking and groaning as it inhales and exhales. Someone can close a door downstairs and my bedroom rug will ripple and bulge. It terrified me at first because I thought the place was haunted.
Having unscrewed the hinges, he lowers the door and props it between two chairs. Then he uses a tool that shaves off slivers of wood that curl and flutter to the floor like party streamers.
‘What was jail like?’ I ask, watching him from the attic steps.
‘Slow.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Everything comes down to time, but you learn to make it pass.’
‘How?’
Mitch pauses and blows wood shavings from his wrist. ‘We humans are the only animals that worry about time. Other animals live in the continual present, with no sense of the past or the future. That’s what I learned to do in jail. I ate. I slept. I breathed. I worked. I lived in the continual present.’
‘What job did you do?’
‘In the laundry. It was OK in the winter, but a sweatshop in the summer. I also studied for a degree. Almost finished.’
‘What degree?’
‘English Literature.’
‘My least favourite subject.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m dyslexic.’
Mitch planes off another sliver of wood. ‘Did you hear about the dyslexic bank robber? He walked in and shouted, “Air in the hands, mother, this is a fuck-up!”’
I laugh, even though dyslexics don’t mix up words when they speak.
Taking a square of sandpaper, Mitch rubs at the base of the door and checks it with a spirit level, before lifting it back into place. I hold it steady while he attaches the hinges.