by Emily Selby
'I will,' Katie said, her voice croaking. She probably should tell him her suspicions about Roy. Despite the music blaring, she’d seen no sign of him pottering around in the shed. But would he accept her hunch-based comment?
The DI's phone rang as Katie opened her mouth. He picked up after the first ring. Katie sighed. It wasn't that easy to talk to this new DI.
'DI Heaton... Ok, bring her in for an interview.'
Katie waited until he ended the call.
'Yes?' he asked with a hurried hint in his voice making her think her interview was over.
'Would you like to book the interview room?' Katie asked briskly. ‘I’m responsible for the schedule.’
She'd tell the DI about the shed some other time. Preferably, once she had her thoughts better organised.
It wasn't really necessary to book the interview room, since it was rarely used, but she was desperate to know whether there were any other suspects in this case.
'Ah, yes, please. We'll need it at about 10.30.'
Katie opened her mouth to ask who he wanted to interview but decided against it. She tightened her grip on the door handle and cleared her throat.
'I'll make sure the interview room is free for you.'
She walked out.
4
'So, how was he?' Chris asked before she closed the staffroom door behind her.
'Civil, I hope,' the DI's voice cut in. Jack Heaton appeared in the still open door. 'Wasn't I?' He looked at Katie and smiled.
So maybe he wasn't all that awful. Katie smiled back weakly.
'It was all right, I suppose,' she mumbled and poured the remnants of her coffee—cold and completely unnecessary, given her racing heart rate and buzzing blood pressure—into the sink and hurried into the tiny, windowless room called her office.
She spent most of the morning pushing aside crazy ideas about her future and the murder. She tried working to distract herself, but the youth crime prevention program she was organising, didn't progress much. After an hour’s work, the pile of to-be-filed reports was as tall as when she left it the day before.
Mid-morning, Katie stepped out to grab a cup of tea from the staff room. It was 10.29 am, and it would not be entirely true to say the timing for her break was accidental.
'Making some fresh brew. Anybody want a cuppa?' Katie asked, pouring water into the coffee maker.
Celia, busy on the phone, waved and shook her head. Chris was in the reception area, explaining something to an older man.
Katie stood by the exit to the reception, ready to ask Chris about a coffee, when the main door slid open and a visitor walked in.
The victim-cum-suspect for her 10.30 interview?
The woman's petite silhouette was wrapped in a silver and black poncho-shawl. The heels of her shoes clicked on the concrete floor. A subtle puff of scent, reminding Katie of an exotic beach on a warm evening, accompanied her. Chris and the other man lifted their heads.
'I'll be with your shortly,' Chris said, even though the woman had yet to open her mouth.
Vera Bower knew how to attract attention.
She slid the shawl from her head. Katie tried her luck.
'Hi Vera, can I help you?'
Vera acknowledged Katie with a curt nod.
'Can you buzz me in? I'm supposed to meet, what's-his-name for a chat at 10.30.'
Katie covered her triumphant smile with her hand, feigning a cough.
'Inspector Heaton?' she asked to make sure.
'Yes.'
'I can let him know,' Katie paused awaiting any potential protests from Chris. 'Please sign the visitors' book here',' Katie added and passed the book.
Katie backed into the staff room and dialled the DI's number.
'Vera Bower for you,' she said and hung up.
What the heck does Vera Bower have to do with Phyllis Dunbar's death?
Sadly, there was no one else to ask, so Katie retreated back to her office with a cup of fresh, steaming java.
She was still sipping on it, while trying hard to focus on the reports, when a knock on the door interrupted her.
'Hello?' she called out.
'Katie, do you have a minute?' DI Heaton looked a little less self-assured than he had earlier, his hair was ruffled, but his voice still held the same velvety smoothness.
A little bit of untidiness suited him rather well.
'Sure.' She invited him inside and swiftly moved her handbag from the only chair not occupied by piles of documents. 'How can I help, Inspector?'
DI Heaton rubbed his cheeks with both hands so hard his glasses slid off his perfectly shaped nose. He pushed them back into place in a decisive move.
'Right,' he said and paused.
Katie watched him closely, looking for a clue to his emotional state.
'You look ... confused, Inspector,' she ventured after a couple of seconds' hesitation. 'And maybe even a tiny bit, if I dare to say so, frustrated,' she added in a smooth sentence. It was brave of her, but then she was dying of curiosity.
The inspector let out a long sigh.
'What do I need to do to get you people to talk to me? Is there an innate dislike of outsiders? Or do you speak another language here that I don't understand? Or maybe I'm difficult to understand?' His blue eyes stared pleadingly at her.
For a second Katie wondered whether it was a rhetorical question, but the frustration in his expression seemed too genuine to ignore.
'I'd say ask them questions, but then you'll probably tell me "Elementary, Watson," or something.'
Heaton lifted both his eyebrows and nodded vigorously. Katie considered this an encouragement to continue.
'But judging by the tone of your voice you're probably not getting the responses you were expecting. Am I correct?'
He nodded again.
Katie thought back to those two you-didn't-quite-let-me-talk interviews she had with him. And the "no-hunches, please, just hard facts" feel to them. If there was ever going to be the right time to tell him about it, this was it.
'Maybe the way you ask the questions doesn't help.'
'What do you mean?'
'Here, in Sunnyvale, we're less pressured and enjoy a good chat, so we tend to take a while to get to the point. I'd let the person talk.'
'Never been good at small talk.'
'And then...' She paused to make sure she had the word choice right. 'We're not always very logical. We meander. Have hunches. Gossip.'
DI Heaton stared at her, his lips pursed.
'I've noticed,' he said tightly.
She let the conversation fall silent for a moment.
Yeah, that's how we operate, mate. It's not going to be easy for you.
'But why are you asking me for advice?' she asked. The worst she could hear was that he genuinely didn't know what to do. The best - that he fancied her. Oops!
'Okay,' he said slowly and shifted in the chair. 'I might have missed some important points you were trying to convey. So, I wondered if you could go over it again.'
He was capable of admitting to mistakes. It was nice, but could he take hunches?
'Like what?'
'For whatever reason, you seemed to be concerned about the cat being in the house. Why?'
'Mrs Dunbar didn't like pets. She would never let a cat enter her house.'
'Are you suggesting someone else let the cat in?'
'Maybe. But the cat might have just entered by an open window. I felt a draft.'
He nodded. 'The toilet window was open.'
'I thought so. She didn't really use that toilet; she preferred the one in her en-suite. Plus, she would never open that window, you see. It didn't have a security blocker installed. She only opened the windows with security blockers.'
The DI nodded.
'When did you last clean the spare toilet?'
'We had an agreement that I clean it every other week, because it was rarely used. I was due to do it this coming Thursday, which means I cleaned it twelve days earlier. Why?'
>
'Did you clean the mirror and the windowsill?' he carried on, ignoring her question.
Katie looked away, thinking back to her typical cleaning routine in Mrs Dunbar's house. 'Yes, both,' she replied. 'Why?'
'There was a layer of dust on the mirror, but not on the window sill.'
Interesting.
'In my experience, they both gather dust at the same speed,' Katie said watching DI carefully. What was he trying to figure out?
'If the windowsill was less dusty than the mirror, someone must have wiped it recently. It wasn't me, and I don't think it was Mrs Dunbar,' Katie offered, processing the information for herself as well. 'My guess is, the killer might have come through the window, and wiped the sill afterwards. Have you checked the handle and the frame for fingerprints?'
He snorted. 'Yes, Madam. We know how to do our job.' His voice was clipped.
Katie covered her embarrassment with throat clearing. Teaching grandmother how to suck eggs! She really had to be careful at conveying her thoughts to him.
'We have the fingerprints and we have the person who left the window open,' he added.
Now, that was a surprise.
'What's the problem then?'
'She admitted it. And she had a perfectly understandable reason for doing so. She was a guest, needed to use the bathroom, and didn't know the window should remain locked. End of story, apparently.'
Katie's jaw dropped just a bit.
'Vera Bower went to the toilet in Mrs Dunbar's house?'
It was DI's turn to let his jaw drop a little.
'How do you know it was Vera?'
'You've just interviewed her. You never thought the window was important until now. You came to talk to me about it. I'm just guessing.'
'You're guessing well, then. Yes, it was Vera. Does it surprise you?'
'Of course, it does. What was she doing in Mrs Dunbar's house?'
'Didn't they know each other?'
Katie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and began curling it slowly.
'Hmm...' she said slowly after a long pause. 'I'm not sure if "know" is the right word to use, but they have certainly met. I mean, they’d met before Mrs Dunbar's death.'
'When?'
'The last week of August, I can't remember the exact date, but it was during our Church Anniversary special meeting, for our Paper Crafts Club.'
'You seem to be pretty sure about the occasion?'
Katie waved the question away. 'Oh, I am sure of it. It was... a challenge. Vera came, because she wanted to participate in the church fete. And apparently, she loved paper crafts and other arts and crafts. But she was erh...'
'Difficult? Dramatic?' the DI cut in, smugly.
Katie chewed on her lower lip.
'Some people weren't happy she was there, but she seemed very keen to join and help. I sort of defended her. She came two weeks later as well, to the regular meeting and it didn't go very well. She left early, slamming the door.'
'Interesting,' he said slowly. 'What happened?'
'Vera was loud, and she laughed a lot. To be fair to her, she got herself into a funny situation. Glued a paper coil to her fingers and couldn't remove it. I laughed, but a couple of older, more stately ladies were offended. Linda, that is Mrs McKay, was chewing my ear about it all the time. I was sitting between Vera and Linda, because no one wanted to sit beside Vera after her loud behaviour the previous time. Mrs Dunbar was sitting opposite. I could hear Mrs Dunbar mumbling under her breath as Vera was laughing. But it was Linda McKay who lost it.'
'Lost it?'
'I mean, "lost it" the Sunnyvale style. She just said in that old-fashioned schoolteacher's voice: "Vera Bower, can't you just be a little bit quieter for once?"'
'What did Vera do?'
'Surprisingly, she calmed down. She still couldn't get the paper off her fingers, so after a few minutes she snapped and said something along the lines of not being able to cope with it all and left.'
'Slamming the door?'
'Slamming the door.'
'Never coming back?'
'Not to my knowledge.'
'Did she talk to Mrs Dunbar during any of those meetings?'
'Probably. Vera is quite sociable. I think she tried to talk to everyone. As I said, I felt she really tired hard. Maybe she is one of those people who struggle to stay focused for long. Do you know what she was doing at Mrs Dunbar's house?'
'Apparently Mrs Dunbar invited her. To show her how to make some sort of paper craft. Vera told me she wanted to learn it to make some artwork for the church fete. Does that sound right to you?'
That was strange. Katie's hand wandered to the free strand of hair again. Heaton’s eyes followed her movements. Suddenly conscious of her quirks, Katie pretended she just meant to tuck the unruly strand behind her ear.
'Yes, I remember that. Vera was talking about recreating some sort of old-fashioned elaborated piece of craft. I can't remember exactly what but I thought Vera was just exaggerating.'
'Did you see any of her artwork?'
'No. But someone must have mentioned something. Maybe Linda?' Katie sighed again. 'But why Mrs Dunbar?'
'Apparently, only Mrs Dunbar knew how to do a particularly difficult thing. Does this sound likely?'
It did, actually. Having thought about it, Mrs Dunbar might have been talking too much about her late husband's talents, and not enough about her own.
'I suppose so. Phyllis Dunbar made quite a few nice paper decorations for the Christmas sale last year. This was when she was feeling well, and when her hands were working properly.'
DI Heaton nodded.
A thought crossed Katie's mind. Apart from the murderer, Vera must have been the last person who saw Mrs Dunbar alive. Or was she?
'I didn't see Vera on my way there. Didn't see anyone, to be honest,' she ventured.
'Vera claims to have left the house at around 2.20 pm. Long before you arrived and just before Mrs Dunbar called you. She went through the new housing estate and was seen. We have it confirmed.'
'That's why I didn't see her. It's in the opposite direction. It wasn't Vera, then...' Katie mused. 'Mrs Dunbar must have been killed between Vera leaving the house and me arriving. I was the last person who spoke to Mrs Dunbar.'
'Apart from the murderer, apparently so.'
There was something not quite right with this scenario either. Katie wriggled in the chair, thinking back to the scene in the house.
'But why was Mrs Dunbar murdered in her crafts room? With the craft material still on the table?'
The DI's cheeks grew half a tone pinker. 'Maybe she thought you would do it?'
'Put away her stuff? No.' Katie shook her head so vigorously, the unruly strand of hair swung across her face. Once again, she tucked it behind her ear.
'You see, Phyllis Dunbar was quite peculiar. She was fussy and liked having things done certain ways. She liked ordering people around, but she always played by the rules. A cleaner was for cleaning, not tiding up, she told me. Sometimes, she would ask me to do her dishes, or take the washing off the line, but not put her washing on, or tidy up her crafts stuff. You see, on days I came to clean, Thursday afternoons, her house was tidy. And my job was to dust, polish, and vacuum. Nothing more. Walking into her crafts room and seeing all the craft things still on the table that was quite a surprise.'
DI smiled. 'I've learnt something today. Cleaning is different from tidying up. That's interesting. But since it wasn't your usual cleaning day, maybe she didn't have time to put the things away after Vera's visit and before you came?'
'It’s possible. I'm just not sure.'
'What are you not sure?'
'I'm not sure. Something’s still puzzling me. Why did Vera go to Mrs Dunbar for help with her project? Mrs Dunbar had been complaining of arthritis lately. It was one of the reasons she hired me to do her cleaning. Why would Vera want to learn quilling from Mrs Dunbar? Why not from other, younger members of the club?'
DI Heaton looked at her,
his eyebrows raised like big "Help" signs.
'I've no idea. All those supposition, hunches, and hearsay is foreign language to me.'
Now it was Katie's turn to be puzzled.
'I beg your pardon?'
‘Look.' He let out a big sigh. 'I'm a police officer, an IT specialist, and a detective. I can talk in zeros and ones. I analyse available data. I can talk probability, predictions and DNA evidence, but I do not work with hunches and feelings.'
Oh, boy. The HQ sent us a computer nerd. This was going to be a difficult one.
'I think you may find it really hard working here, in Sunnyvale,' Katie said slowly, carefully controlling her voice to make it sound perfectly polite. 'We do like the... human touch.'
He pursed his lips, and his Adam's apple bobbed up and down a couple of times.
'Yeah,' he said after a tense pause. 'I've noticed. And I wonder if you could'—he cleared his throat—'help a little with deciphering this gob- er, foreign language for me.'
Katie considered his request. He could admit to a mistake and he could ask for help. In a reasonably respectful way. Not too bad.
'If you think it'll help find the killer, I'll do all I can. She shouldn't have died, and she deserves justice,' Katie said decisively.
She definitely wanted Mrs Dunbar's killer to be found and punished, and to clear her own name. Regardless of evidence, people in Sunnyvale would talk about strange testaments and hidden motives. Katie didn't want anyone to think she could have killed Mrs Dunbar because of a possible inheritance.
Once DI Heaton disappeared behind the closed door of her office, Katie dug out her phone and brought up Linda MacKay's contact number. If Linda didn't know why Vera had gone to Phyllis with her quilling stuff, nobody would. She would need to be careful not to share too much, though. Linda was a bit too generous on the gossip-sharing front. Katie sent her a text and, after a short while, she received a reply with an invitation for a cuppa that afternoon.
Katie did a little fist pump. Her first step into the world of investigation - a murder investigation - was underway.
5
Katie was so excited about her first unofficial interview, she forgot to prepare her questions.
