“Is something wrong, Ms. Cantor?” She repeated no. “Where’s your stepmother?” She shrugged.
“I don’t know. She’s an adult, you know. She doesn’t always stay here every night.”
“Do you?”
She shook her head, again. “I broke up with my boyfriend, and I’ll be staying here for a little while. I just brought all my stuff from his place.” She held up the half-used Fairy liquid. “I was the only one who washed the fucking dishes. Sorry,” she quickly added. Suddenly she looked as if she’d been left out in the rain. Her long hair appeared limp, her face stretched down. It was the streak of a headlamp through the front window changing the shadows. In a moment she was restored.
“Have you ever seen Dr. Paul with your stepmother before?”
“I don’t know the name.”
All right. “Where’s your father?”
“He’s in Bangalore. He works there. They’re divorced. Look, I’m really tired. I’d like to go to bed.”
I got the father’s name and address in India, and made a move to the cottage door. I fiddled with the handle. It had a proper lock. “Do you have a key, Ms. Cantor?”
“Yes, of course. We used to live here. When they were married.”
“Did your stepmother-what’s her full name, please? Susan…”
“Susan Madison.”
“Was she expecting you today?”
“I’d called earlier. She didn’t pick up, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t know. She screens.”
“Ah.” I nodded. That seemed sufficient for now.
Dr. Jensen stood up from his crouch beside the body. “Two sets of injuries,” he said, plunging right in. “She was hit once, in the vicinity of four hours ago. Likely thrown. There’s damage to the back of her head that matches with a stone underneath it. Lividity suggests that she’s lying where she died. The other injuries occurred post-mortem. She was run over and nearly cut in two by the weight of the vehicle. That’s preliminary. I’ll have more for you tomorrow.”
I stood back to take in the scene. Hit twice on a road so little-used as this? Her body was on the part of the road well past the drive. If it had been dark when Melisma arrived, she wouldn’t have seen the body.
I turned around to head for the car and bumped nose to nose into Nick, who’d been standing right behind me. “Why the hell aren’t you in the car?” I said.
“I was just-if it was going to be much longer I wanted to ask permission to phone… Is it true? Did she really die four hours ago?”
I rubbed the back of my neck and held in several expletives. Frohmann appeared over his shoulder. “Greene asked me to look at something…” she explained, sounding guilty. It was hard to know whether to treat Nick like a suspect or a found missing person.
“That finding is not yet official,” I told Nick, as to the time of death. But he sagged with relief.
In the car, Nick said, “Look, I’m really sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you. I have no doubt there were long hours put in on my behalf, and I’m not surprised that you’re angry with me. I can only apologise.”
Who talks like that? What a perfect little gentleman he is.
I turned around inside my seatbelt and faced him in the back. “Susan Madison. Do you know that name? Has Gretchen ever talked about her?”
“Of course,” he said. “Is that a trick question?”
I held back a nasty retort. “No.” I glared. “Why would it be?”
He smiled. He was lighter and lighter the closer we got to home. “That’s her mother’s character. Susan Maud Madison. She wrote five books about her. Well, Linda Paul did. Gretchen was looking for anyone who’d named her child after the character. You know, been influenced by the books. Looks like she found one.”
Looks like she did.
Nick’s family lived in a white modernist box from the 1930s: all stacked and protruding rectangles, with a long, thin window striping across the whole thing. Tall trees spiked in silhouette behind it, filling the sky over the flat roof.
It was now ten o’clock. There were lights illuminating the ground floor, so we wouldn’t be waking them up. Frohmann pressed the bell. I suppose Nick might have had his key, but he hung back obediently.
Mrs. Frey called out “Alexandra?” as she came down the stairs, and, again, “Alexandra?” while unlocking the door. She saw me and Frohmann first, and recoiled.
We parted to display Nick between us. She pitched forward to embrace him.
Frohmann backed the car out onto the road and we were tossed in our seats by the ruts beneath the wheels. “Damn private roads,” she muttered.
The private segment emptied out onto a proper city-kept street, and shortly thereafter onto a main road that eventually linked with the M11. We took the direction away from the motorway.
“Is it just a husband?” she asked. I think she dreaded facing suddenly motherless children.
“Just a husband,” I assured her.
“Did you know her?”
“Not really.” Richard knew her, but they weren’t close. I knew Gretchen Paul more from this case. She’d paid for Miranda Bailey’s solicitor but, from what I understand, didn’t actually know her. It was odd. I hoped the husband could tell me why. I looked in my notebook for his name. “Harry Reed,” I said. Frohmann nodded.
She turned down Grange Road, driving past Robinson, Selwyn, and Newnham colleges. Grand Victorian houses filled in the gaps between them. Frohmann turned left off Grange Road onto Barton and then almost immediately right onto Millington. The change was immediate: Orbs of gaslight glowed white in the fog.
“What did they do to rate the special effects?” she asked.
“Another private road. So the city didn’t include them in the electric upgrade.” Millington Road has about thirty houses on it. The gas lamps don’t shine much beyond themselves; they’re just dots tracing the right angle of the street.
The house we wanted was typical of the area: brick, gabled, big. I’d not been here during Nick’s investigation; I’d interviewed Dr. Paul in her office.
Our feet crunched down on the thick scattering of pebbles acting as a pavement. It was like walking on the bottom of a dry fish tank.
The bell control was a thin iron rod with a small handle at the bottom. Frohmann twisted it, and we were rewarded with a sound like scraping a butter knife over a glockenspiel.
We waited. She twisted the bell pull again.
“No one’s home. Perhaps he’s out looking for her,” she suggested.
“He’s the husband. He’s a suspect.” I pulled out my mobile and punched in their number. Some people keep a phone by the bed. “Or a sound sleeper,” I said.
The phones inside rang with different bells: one a trill, one a buzz. And then another sound. Some kind of… coo? chirp? Whatever it is that birds do, coming from inside the house.
“Look at this,” Frohmann called. She’d walked around to the side of the house. I joined her.
She shone a torch on a parked car. It had a cracked headlamp and dented front.
“Call for forensics,” I told her.
A sudden light hit my face. Someone else’s torch. “Police,” I barked. “Lower it.”
A smallish man came out from behind the shrubs. “Pardon me,” he said, stepping closer, “you looked suspicious.” He wore a heavy jacket over a dressing gown over pajama bottoms. “I’d like to see some I.D., please.”
We accommodated his request. “Harry Reed?” I asked.
He frowned. “No, I’m not.” He looked back and forth between my I.D. and my face. “I’m the neighbourhood watch coordinator,” he said proudly. I’m surprised he didn’t proffer identification of his own. He added as an afterthought, “I’m his next-door neighbour.”
“Really?” I asked. “Seen anything interesting lately?”
He pointed up.
Several small, colourful birds perched on the roofline. Two more were on the sill of an open window.
He sighed in disappointment at our incomprehension. “They’re cage birds. Norwich canaries.”