GRAVE MATTER

TWO

Orange fluorescent evidence markers are spaced intermittently on the stairs, distinguishing footprints. A camera flashes on the third floor, sending a pulse of light through the metal railings of the staircase.

The flat was immaculate, with pristine white walls and cream carpet. Entrancing into the bedroom, and I went over to the sash window from which the victim had fallen. A constable stood on guard beside it.

He stood to one side as I approached. Pulling it up, I found it only opened about fifty centimetres, about the same distance from his elbow to his fingertips. A can of Diet Coke, a packet of cigarettes, and a cigarette lighter were lined up neatly in a row on the narrow window ledge.

I looked down, where a team of four were trying to manoeuvre the body from the railings.

"Your officers closed the window before it was photographed, rather than leaving it open to document the narrow gap through which the victim meant to have jumped?" I ask.

"That is just in case the weather could change, and we didn't want to lose the forensics."

"But you haven't carried out any forensics yet?"

"No, because it is just a simple case of suicide."

"How is it that Chase had landed on the railings, a metre out from the wall?"

"I've got no idea. But, of course, we would only follow this procedure if we believed it was a suspicious death, but it is not suspicious," the Inspector replied.

I tried to keep calm. "You could be right," I say, "except for a couple of things."

The Inspector sighs. "And what may that be, Sherlock?"

"Well, let's start with the can of Diet Coke, the packet of cigarettes, and the cigarette lighter lined up neatly in a row on the narrow window ledge."

"What about them?"

"This lighter is a very slim and dainty object," I say, "Robbie Chase would have smashed the lighter on the floor, and he would have spilled the Coke if he had manoeuvred himself up, but they were perfectly placed there."

The Inspector said nothing.

"When you lean out of the window and look down at the last sight, the victim saw with the strong iron fence looming up below. It makes no sense to me that, from such a small opening, he would have hurled himself onto those spikes."

"You don't know what he was thinking?" The Inspector insisted. "Before his death, he phoned his ex-girlfriend Casca Ashakova and told her he was going to jump out of the window and to stay on the phone; so, she could hear him."

"And did she?"

"She ended the call before he jumped," he replies, "but then he sent a text message about ten minutes before he died. It said, Now I have hit rock bottom, as you will see. I loved you like no other. Love you always and forever! xxx."

"How do you know it was him who sent the text?"

"Who else could it have been?"

"His killer."

"Look, Mr Grave, I know all about your reputation, but this case is as straightforward as they come. It is a suicide and nothing more."

"What about this?" I say, pointing.

Rows of faint scratch marks in the dirt show on either side of the outside windowsill, about as far apart as the fingers on a hand.

"I guess it's him fighting for his life," I say.

"We haven't dusted for prints yet."

I looked at him, puzzled.

"Why not?"

"It's a suicide, plain and simple, and we don't need to, given the circumstances, and that is what I shall be writing up on my report."

"How do you know that?"

The Inspector moved a step closer. At first, I thought it was the anger I saw in his eyes, but it wasn't. It was fear.

"Look, Mr Grave, what you must understand is that even when intelligence strongly points to an assassination, there is often too little evidence to make a case stand up in court. In such instances, it is easier to pronounce a death unsuspicious than to stoke diplomatic tensions and public alarm over an accusation of political assassination that probably won't stick."

"Inspector, we both know that the government withholds evidence to pass off Russian-linked deaths as suicides, in part because it's diplomatically easier, and they are scared of angering Russia, who are known to be quite ruthless. You and I both know there is a clear pattern of brazen Russian assassinations in Britain right out in the daylight, and it has been allowed to continue because the UK is soft on such things."

"I strongly deny that the British government would ever cover up an assassination for political reasons."

I smiled. Someone had undoubtedly briefed detective Inspector Mark Brooks.

"May I look at the main bedroom?"

"Be my guest."

The main bedroom is straight ahead and, in a mess, with clothes spilling from drawers and draped over the end of the bed, which is unmade. The duvet bunched against the wall.

I noticed a shoebox customized with fashion photographs clipped from magazines. Someone has pulled it from beneath the bed and opened the lid to reveal a collection of bandages, plasters, needles, and thread.

It is Casca Ashakova's cutting box and also her sewing kit.

The untidiness of the room is in total contrast to the rest of the flat. It looks like a quick ransacking—a search.

Turning my head, I notice an oval-shaped mirror on a stand, reflecting a white square of light onto the bed, highlighting the tiny purple flowers stitched into the sheets.

I looked at myself in the mirror and can also see the door behind me. Stepping back into the room, I partially close the door and stand behind it. Again, I can see the Inspector reflected in the open doorway.

His eyes met mine.

"What is it?"

"Someone stood right where I am standing. The mirror told whoever was waiting when Robbie Chase was in the doorway."

"But there's hardly any room."

"The door was half-closed."

"Meaning?"

"They were hiding from him."

I open the large walk-in wardrobe and step inside, where I smell expensive perfume. I touch dresses, skirts, shirts, and I put my hands in the pockets of Chase's girlfriend's jackets, find a taxi receipt, a dry-cleaning tag, a pound coin, and an after-dinner mint.

An evening gown slips from a hangar and pools at my feet. I pick it up again, feeling the fabric slip between my fingers. There are racks of shoes, at least a dozen pairs, arranged in neat rows. There is a gap for a missing at the end of the lower shelf.

I glance out the bedroom window, which overlooks an allotment with vegetable gardens and a greenhouse guarded by an elm tree. Spider webs appear woven through the branches of the trees, like watching the apartment block and not be seen.

Blanche Bradbury emerges from the bathroom, looking like a surgeon preparing to operate.

"There are traces of pubic hair in the S-bend of the sink."

"Somebody cleaned up."

Brooks stated.

"Forensic awareness is such an important life skill." Blanche alleged

"I blame it on all these bloody murder mysteries on the telly and in the bookshops. They're like 'how-to' guides. How to clean up a crime scene, how to dispose of the weapon, how to get away with murder…."

Brooks winks at me.

"What's wrong, Blanche, did some smart defence lawyer punch a pretty little hole in your procedures?"

"I got no problem with defence lawyers; it's the juries I can't abide. Unless they see fingerprints, fibres, or DNA, they'll never convict.

They want the proverbial smoking gun, but sometimes there aren't any forensic clues. The scene is cleaned up, washed by rain or contaminated by third parties. We're scientists, not magicians."

Blanche scratched her nose and looked at her index finger as though she finds it fascinating.

Meanwhile, I wander across the landing to the bathroom. A wicker laundry basket tucked beneath the sink. The toilet seat is down, and above the sink, on the shelves is toothpaste, toothbrushes, liquid soap, and mouthwash. The hand towel beside the sink is neatly folded and hung over the railing.

"They tidied the place."

I exclaim out loud.

Brooks appears behind me.

"Make any sense?"

"Not much."

"What about the CCTV cameras in the street?"

"At the moment the victim fell, every single camera in the square was pointing away from the window."