‘Where did Vicky sleep? Her bedroom seems to be an office or recording studio?’
‘On the sofa bed…’ Tess sighed, as if it embarrassed her. ‘Vicky’s an actress, and work is always, let’s say, sparse. She recently converted her bedroom into a recording studio so she could make money narrating audiobooks, but that never quite worked out. She’d been doing a podcast, and, working for us to make ends meet.’
‘What kind of podcast?’ asked Moss.
‘I can’t remember,’ said Tess. Erika could see she was starting to withdraw again, which was understandable.
‘You’ve kept your maiden name? You gave us your name as Tess Clarke?’ said Erika. Tess sat back and sighed.
‘Maiden. That’s such a quaint word… It’s a long time since I felt like a maiden…’ Her face crumpled and she looked exhausted and broken. She sighed and wiped her eyes. ‘My husband’s surname is also Clark, but without an “e”。 It’s caused a lot of hassle, getting that “e” removed,’ she said ruefully. Erika wondered who the hassle came from, the authorities or her husband.
‘What’s your husband’s name?’
‘Jasper Clark… No “e”。’
‘Do you have other siblings?’
‘No. Our parents are in a nursing home on the south coast. Oh, God. How am I going to tell them? They both have dementia… I can’t believe what’s happened. I can’t believe she’s dead.’
Tess broke down completely, sobbing into her hands.
7
Erika and Moss watched from the steps of the van as Tess was driven home with her newly-assigned police Family Liaison Officer. Despite her scruffy clothes and unkempt hair, there was a certain nobility to how she held herself, staring straight ahead in the back of the car. Erika looked back to Moss, who was rubbing her shoulder.
‘You okay?’
‘I had to go hard on Charles Wakefield’s door when I broke it down,’ she said.
‘He gave us probable cause to enter…’ Erika mulled things over for a moment. Would it stand up in court, if a judge asked her to justify a search? She looked back at the busy crime scene, and thought of the brutality of the murder. ‘Come on, while we have the chance, let’s take a look inside his flat.’
They went back into the building, and pulled on fresh Tyvek suits. The bright forensic lamps shone out of Vicky’s front door as they passed, and Erika noted that lights had the same effect on the lobby, illuminating the grease spots on the fading parquet floor tiles and the chipped paintwork.
The front door to Charles’s flat was at the end of a short corridor leading off the lobby, next to a lift and staircase. Erika pulled on a fresh pair of latex gloves and pushed the door open with her elbow. She found a light switch and flicked it on. The entrance had a small hallway carpeted in a faded orange and yellow diamond pattern. When Moss pulled the door closed, a heavy silence seemed to descend. A clock ticked.
The flat had that fusty smell of other people. Erika could never quite put her finger on exactly what that was… It was never entirely unpleasant, like the smell of earwax, mixed with skin, slightly unwashed hair, and an unfamiliar cleaning product that doesn’t quite win the battle for cleanliness.
The overhead light had a heavy shade, leaving the corners of the hallway in gloom. A rotary dial phone sat on top of the phone book and the Yellow Pages on a small shelf under a tall thin mirror.
‘Jeez. That made me jump,’ said Erika, feeling a surge of panic. She indicated a coat stand behind the door, which held a long black trench coat with a black trilby hat on the hook above.
‘It looks like a person, standing with their back to us,’ said Moss. Erika moved to the coat stand and gently lifted off the black trilby. The hat felt weighty and posh, and the label inside said JUNIPER & BROWN HATTERS ST JAMES STREET, LONDON.
‘Avocado alert!’ said Moss. Erika carefully put the hat back on the coat stand, and turned and followed her into the small musty-smelling bathroom. There was a brown carpet with an avocado toilet, sink and bath. A row of crispy dry orange flannels hung on a small wooden stand by the bath.
Erika moved to the sink and opened a small square mirrored cabinet above. There were three bars of Imperial Leather soap stacked on the bottom shelf, a crusty bottle of Old Spice aftershave, denture tablets, a bag of plastic disposable razors, and an array of prescription medications. There were eight bottles in total and the labels had all been torn off, leaving the paper residue. Erika took a photo of them with her phone.