The Dead Place

‘When Mrs Birley called, you were already home, sir?’ asked Hitchens.

‘Yes, I was on an early shift.’

‘Your wife didn’t happen to say what the work was she had to finish?’

‘No, she didn’t often talk about her work. She told me about the people in her office – little bits of gossip, you know. But she didn’t bring her work home. She was good at her job, but she liked to keep the two halves of her life completely separate, she said.’

It was a good trick if you could do it. Fry glanced at Hitchens, who nodded.

‘Mr Birley, we have to ask you this,’ she said. ‘Can you think of anyone who might want to harm your wife?’

He frowned and shook his head. ‘No, not at all. Everybody liked her. She wasn’t the sort of person to get into arguments. She hated upsetting people. If there was someone at work she didn’t get on with, she would just try to avoid them.’

‘I see.’

‘It wasn’t somebody Sandra knew, was it? Surely it was one of these lunatics who prey on women? She was a random victim. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘Most likely, sir,’ said Hitchens. ‘But we have to cover all the possibilities.’

Geoff Birley looked up at his sister again. It seemed to Fry that it was Trish he was talking to now, as if the police had already left his house.

‘Only, I’d hate to think it was someone Sandra knew that attacked her. I couldn’t bear the thought of that. It had to be a stranger, didn’t it? That’s the only thing we can cling to. It’s some consolation, at least.’

‘What time did you first try to call your wife’s mobile, sir?’

‘About eight, I suppose.’

‘And it was already off then?’

‘Yes.’

Hitchens leaned forward in his chair, as if about to leave.

‘Would it be all right if we take a look around while we’re here, sir?’ he said.

‘What for?’

‘Anything that might help us find your wife.’

Puzzled, Birley looked at his sister, whose face had set into an angry expression. ‘I suppose it’ll be all right,’ he said.

The Birleys lived in a detached limestone cottage with an enclosed garden. Fry guessed there were probably three or four bedrooms upstairs. From outside, it was obvious that the property had been created by combining two cottages whose roofs were at slightly different heights. An external chimney stack at one end suggested there might have been a third cottage in the row at some time.

Fry looked first into the kitchen and saw an enamelled range, the kind that provided central heating and hot water as well as cooking. She’d never be able to manage one of those herself. In the sitting room, the focal point had been a castiron stove with a carved surround, which looked equally impractical.

In the dining room, Fry paused to admire a carving of a leaping dolphin on a table near the fireplace. There was much more light at the back of the house, thanks to a sliding door that led into a conservatory, with pine floorboards covered in raffia matting. She walked straight through it and out into the garden, past a lawn and a series of raised borders, until she found a brick store place and a garden shed that had been painted bright blue. Neither of them contained the body of Sandra Birley.

Re-entering the house, Fry saw Hitchens descending the stairs from the bedrooms. She shook her head, and they both went back into the sitting room, where they were met with a glare from Trish Neville. Geoff himself was gazing at the carved surround of the stove, as if searching for a meaning in its decorative curlicues.

‘Is that your car parked outside, sir?’ said Hitchens. ‘The green Audi?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Do you mind if DS Fry takes a look?’

Birley found the keys to the Audi without argument. Either he’d cottoned on by now, or his sister had explained it to him while they were out of the room.

Fry went outside and checked the interior and boot of the car. It contained nothing more incriminating than half a roll of blue stretch wrap that looked as though it might have come from the despatch department at a distribution centre.

‘I don’t know what I’ll do without Sandra,’ Birley said, as the detectives prepared to leave.

‘We don’t know that your wife is dead, Mr Birley,’ said Hitchens.

‘What? You think he might be keeping her prisoner somewhere?’

‘It’s quite possible. Until we know one way or the other, we’re keeping an open mind.’

Birley had begun to look hopeful. But now he dropped his eyes again.

‘You’re just saying that. You’ll find her dead, won’t you? You know you will. Why else would he have snatched her from that car park?’

‘Until that happens, we can still hope for the best, sir.’

As soon as he’d spoken, Fry remembered having said something similar quite recently. But she couldn’t quite recall when and where.

Detective Chief Inspector Oliver Kessen leaned against the side of the crime scene van and thrust his hands into his pockets. ‘Well, this place must be dead overnight,’ he said. ‘Do many people leave vehicles in here until morning?’

Fry assumed that the DCI was talking to her, though he gave no sign of it. Scenes of crime had almost finished with Sandra Birley’s Skoda, and were moving away along the retaining wall towards the ramps.

‘Very few,’ said Fry. ‘It’s too expensive.’

She looked around for Ben Cooper to get confirmation.

‘This is a shoppers’ car park,’ he said. ‘It’s meant for short stay. But some of the office workers use it, if they need to. The other parking facilities get full.’

‘That’s what Mr Birley told us, too,’ added Fry.

Kessen kept his eye on the Skoda, as if it might do something. Perhaps he expected it to crack open its bonnet and make a confession.

‘The attacker must have known it would be empty by that time.’

Fry nodded, though she knew Kessen wouldn’t see her gesture. He’d barely looked at her yet.

‘Yes, he certainly seems to have known his way around. There are eleven CCTV cameras in here – one on each level, and two at the entrance and exit. But he must have known exactly where they were, because none of them seem to have caught him, so far as we can tell from the attendant.’

One of the SOCOs, Liz Petty, glanced over towards them and smiled. Fry thought she’d found something significant, but she went back to dusting the edge of the wall near Sandra Birley’s car. Elsewhere, DI Hitchens was supervising a search on the stairs and in the lift, followed by the concrete parking bays between them and the car. The whole of Level 8 had been sealed off, which meant no one could reach the roof level of the car park either. Apart from the Skoda, the only vehicles here now belonged to the police team.

‘Just one attendant?’ said Kessen.