‘Yeah, it’s pretty weird.’ Felix is typing a message into his phone. ‘I’m not really getting a clear read of this woman.’
The tiny room is suffocating. I’m struggling to take a proper breath. It’s as if my lungs have shrunk. I stamp my foot, suddenly desperate to go outside. Felix jumps slightly.
‘C’mon,’ I say. ‘Let’s have a quick chat to the neighbours. See what they say about her.’
We walk to the top of the drive. I take the first cottage, he takes the next, and we alternate like that for the next forty-five minutes. Surprisingly, all seven occupants are home; the investigation gods are clearly smiling down on us. On the flipside, all we learn is that Rose was a perfect neighbour, perhaps a bit shy but always friendly enough.
An itchy young man in number three tells me that Rose had asked him to fix a light fitting a few weeks ago and then left beer on his doorstep the following day. ‘Didn’t expect anything in return. I would have done pretty much anything for that smile of hers. So yeah, I helped her out from time to time. Just odd jobs around the house. She used to sunbake at the top of the driveway sometimes. I couldn’t help but notice. She’d give me a wave. Very friendly.’ He wipes at his eyes, which are red raw, and scratches his elbow again. ‘I’m really going to miss her.’
An old woman in number five is warier and obviously hasn’t been watching the news. ‘Something’s happened to her, hasn’t it? I saw the policeman come yesterday with that ribbon you lot use.’
‘Yes. I’m afraid so.’
She purses her lips. ‘Ah. Beautiful girl like that. It figures.’
I don’t have the heart to tell her that bad things happen to ugly girls too. It’s just that they slip off the front pages a little bit quicker and are less likely to be the subject of A Current Affair specials.
‘She’s dead then?’
‘I’m afraid so, Mrs …?’
‘Miss Murphy. Never married.’ She says this proudly, as if she has escaped a fate worse than death. Then, ‘Oh dear. That poor girl.’
‘Yes, it’s very sad,’ I say.
‘Well, my fault for not watching the local news, I suppose,’ she says primly, but her jaw wobbles. ‘I only ever watch the BBC.’
‘I’m sorry, Miss Murphy. I know this is hard but I just want to ask you a couple of questions about Ms Ryan. Did you ever see anyone hanging around her place?’
She clasps her hands formally. ‘Not really and I’m home all day. I’m always sure to keep an eye on things. I sit in the chair over there near the window.’
I look over to a chair rendered shapeless by a mountain of blankets. A fan and a heater are propped about a metre from the chair, aimed at it like spotlights.
‘And nothing ever seemed out of the ordinary?’ I ask.
‘No. I don’t think so. She didn’t have many visitors, which always seemed strange for a girl like that. A young man did come a few times. Her brother, I think, from the way they were together. And a few weeks back a man came in a posh car. I remember that because it was the same day that Luis died on The Street, god bless him, and I stood at the front door to get some fresh air—a bit upset, I was—and I saw the car. They talked outside though. It didn’t seem like a romance call, if you know what I mean.’
I nod, taking notes. ‘That’s very helpful. Is there anything else?’
‘I don’t think so. It’s actually rather dull around here really.’
‘Do you remember what her visitors looked like?’
‘I think so. The man in the car was flashy. Nice suit, nice smile. Older. Maybe forty? Doing well for himself. The other one was young. Dark hair. Tall. Good-looking, but all slumped over. Terrible posture.’
‘How old?’
‘Well, it’s hard to say these days, isn’t it? Twenty-five? Or it could be older. Or younger. Honestly, I’m not sure. It’s not like I was spying on her.’
‘Of course not. Well, thank you for your time.’
Felix and I meet back outside Rosalind’s.
‘Anything?’ I say to him.
‘Nope. Just a bunch of bullshit about how pretty she was. One guy clearly had the hots for her, which normally I’d be all over, except it seems that everyone had the hots for her. You?’
‘Some male visitors we need to track down but no real leads. Mainly just a disappointed Miss Marple who’s wanting a bit more action than this block delivers.’
‘Huh,’ says Felix.
We stand looking at Rosalind’s home for a moment, the pots of flowers leading to the plain flyscreen door, the pinwheel in the largest pot doing a lazy turn in the wind.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘it’s usually the way, I guess. Nosy neighbours never come through with the goods. Only in Hitchcock.’
‘Exactly.’ Felix looks at me and briefly everything else disappears. I’m so lucky to be able to spend so much time with him, yet it’s so horribly unsatisfying. I want to reach out and hold him. Be a normal couple.
Reluctantly I break the moment. ‘Let’s head back. Anna should be ready to start the autopsy by now.’
We make our way down the short drive back to the cars. I spot a guy with a camera getting out of a beat-up Holden. I recognise him from the local paper. Smithson is just waking up to Rosalind’s death, but no matter what happens it will be in the local news for months. Probably years. I’ve only been involved in a couple of high-profile cases since I joined the force. I see the guy raise his camera to snap a shot of Felix and me getting into our cars. A familiar shiver runs down my spine as I duck my head out of sight. I’ve worked on all kinds of mysteries, some that have really got under my skin, some that have got me on the front page of the paper, but certainly none that have ever been as personal as this.
The Robbie case happened by accident. It started as a run-of-the-mill car theft. The girlfriend of the owner reported it and I just happened to be walking through reception when she came in. Young and skinny, she had a voice that hit high notes every third beat as she recounted finding the car missing that morning, how she and her boyfriend heard nothing, how the thief must have known how to get the car started without keys, and how yes, they had insurance, which was lucky.
I listened to all of this with my back turned as I pretended to sort through papers on the bench. Immediately I just knew something was off. Why was this girl coming in to report her boyfriend’s missing car—‘He’s at work, you see, had to catch the bus!’—and how was it that her boyfriend was driving a brand-new Audi when her hair had the distinct tint of supermarket dye and she’d said that she waited tables at Woody’s for a job. Her boyfriend, Warren Robbie, was twenty-four and a brickie. Yes, he could come in tomorrow to report the theft if they really needed him to, but they’d figured the cops would want to know immediately. Surely they had a better chance of catching the guy that took the car if they started looking as soon as possible? Surely her statement would be all they really needed?