A room, locked from the inside, the key plainly visible on the bedside cabinet. No spare keys. No other entry point into the room. No dodgy recent building work or amateur DIY projects to investigate for exit routes. No loose floorboards or wall panels. All the windows shut and locked from the inside. No murder weapon or anything to use as one.
And inside the room, she lay on her back on the large double bed, her eyes open and staring at the ceiling above her. Pale blue eyes, a fresh complexion with a hint of freckles, ginger hair cut in a pixie style, the lower ends of her hair bending outwards above her neck and shoulders.
Her breasts were exposed to the air, her little black dress ripped and torn across the bodice and halfway down to the lower hem, which was not low in any meaning of the word. Her nipples were still hard and proud, poking upwards from her full and rounded breasts which were themselves hard and proud, and poking upward. A black lacy bra, looking like it was brand new and only worn (if it ever was) for about forty-five seconds before being removed and tossed onto the edge of the bed, lay where it had landed, one strap hanging down towards the floor and other straps caught in her fingers, as if she didn't really want to let it go, even as she breathed her last and died still young and beautiful.
From the correct angle, and I was looking at the correct angle, I could see her black lacy knickers still tightly hugging her pudenda, up under her skirt hem. Using my biro (why is it always the biro) I lifted her lower hem to let some light fall on the cotton gusset of her knickers. There was a small dark patch just where I'd expect to find one if I was looking for clues, which I was. That's what we detectives do. The bottom of the dress had managed to cover her knickers and the top two inches of her legs, but only just. Her legs stuck out from under the dress and went all the way down to the black high-heeled strappy sandals that were still fixed firmly to her feet. Her feet in those shoes hung over the edge of the end of the bed. And those feet were beginning to swell because of the long time since death had occurred.
The rest of the room looked untouched. If it was her own bedroom, and judging by the half-open drawer with other bras and knickers neatly folded away I'd guess it was, then she kept it clean and tidy. Her IKEA drawer unit had her childhood teddies, dolls and My Little Ponies still standing upright and looking out over the rest of the bedroom. There was a clothes-hanging cupboard with the door half open so I could peer inside without touching it. This contained a couple more little dresses in various colours and designs, plus more everyday jeans, tee-shirts, sweaters and some trainers and Converses on the floor. All still straight and tidy. Other cupboards and shelves looked tidy and perfectly normal. Another cupboard had more skirts, jeans, tops and shoes in it, she must have had a large clothing budget.
The bedside cabinet lamp was still upright and working (I checked the switch with my biro). There was her phone and a book with a bookmark showing. It was a popular chick-lit title. Sorry, 'Light Women's Fiction', you have to be politically correct these days, even if she was dead. And, of course, the room key. So nothing stolen and no fighting or violence, then.
She looked kind of peaceful, lying there resting after her life had been taken from her, perhaps by person or persons unknown. That's what they say, isn't it? And here I was, saying it. I'd like to know COD - cause of death, if you're new to all this. But this wasn't going to happen for me. I had to wrap up this crime, if it was a crime, pretty darn quick before the media got hold of the story, and before my boss started getting ants in his pants. I'd also like to know TOD - time of death, try to keep up. I'm not a forensic pathologist but I'd say four to six hours ago, based on, well, I don't know really. Based on what I already knew, I suppose.
I didn't have any support with me. No SOCO - scenes of crime officers, come on. No forensics. No uniform to start making enquiries and taking witness statements, not that there were any witnesses. Nobody even to hang that annoying 'Police line do not cross' tape everywhere. I assumed all that stuff would be happening when the police actually arrived, by which time I must be long gone.
Which reminded me, it was time to go. All I had to do was to leave the scene as I found it, including the bit where I got in without unlocking the door from outside, and lock the door from the inside as I left. And as soon as I had done that, I left. In the car, part way along the main road between Tavistock and Yelverton in the queue of traffic I was in, we saw them all coming towards us, so we quickly settled back to fifty miles per hour, way below the actual speed limit, and pulled in closer to our side of the road in case the police cars were suddenly somehow wider than normal. The traffic on their side of the road pulled into the side of the road and stopped, all their rear ends poking out randomly.
Good citizens that we are, even if some people can't park properly.
I saw them flash past me, edgily pushing the speed limit up to nearly seventy-five miles per hour, all the police cars and vans with their blues and twos going flat out. There was a lot of wailing and screaming noises as well, not just the two-tone sirens. Do they still call it blues and twos? My knowledge of police procedure dated back too many years. I must remember to ask her when I got home. She would know.
The nearer I got to my home on the outskirts of Yelverton, the more upset I became over the senseless dying of any person, specifically represented on this occasion by her, the woman I had just seen lying dead in her own house, her own room, her own safe space.
I went through a sort of portal, a heightened moment where my life took a different turn. I was still driving my car. I was still in the same queue of dawdling traffic, but things felt very different. I turned left, left again then right, and stopped outside my house. I parked in the usual place, eager to go indoors, greet her with a kiss and perhaps, if she wasn't cooking tea, a cuddle.
I got inside the house and shut the front door. She was lying on the sofa, her feet up and the telly off. As I came in, she stood up and came across to me, smiling.
“Was everything alright?” she asked.
“Yes, it was just fine,” I replied. “A little sad, though. Such a beautiful woman.”
She smiled again, and yes, I got a kiss and a cuddle.
“It's too early for tea. What would you like to do?” she asked, playing with the neckline on her dress and clearly demonstrating what lay inside.
Without waiting for my reply, she led me out of the living room, down the corridor and into our bedroom. We both knew what we wanted, our pent-up passions desperate for relief. We stripped our clothes off, my bra and knickers landing on top of hers, on the untidy pile of tops and skirts from each of us that had suddenly appeared on the floor. We dived onto the bed, naked as the day we were born. My breasts met hers, my pussy met hers and we pressed into each other, letting our bodies meld and merge into each other.
I loved this moment, the first moment of making love. The moment I'd been waiting for, yearning for all day. We joined together, our souls merging into one and our bodies melding into a unity I can't describe. We stood there in the bedroom and drank each other in. Her body smelled like apples and cinnamon and her hair like jasmine. My body probably smelled like cigarette smoke and diesel fumes and old cabbage, but she never complained. We tottered nearer to the bed, crashed down on it and bounced into a love-making session that topped all previous ones. Our tongues went everywhere. Breasts, nipples, tummy buttons, pussies, ear lobes and mouths. Our fingers followed, enjoying the feel of juicy body parts touching, caressing and rubbing other body parts. My pussy began to leak fluid onto everything it touched, and she made sure she licked it and sucked it all up without letting any go to waste. And I did the same with hers. It got all over my face, in my hair, all down my front and especially my breasts. My tummy button, between my legs and right round the back between my buttock cheeks.
