Cambridge Blue - Alison Bruce [84]
He switched on the portable TV and flicked rapidly through the channels while the olive oil heated in the pan. Sport . . . sport . . . relationships . . . He kept flicking. Cop show . . . game show . . . black-and-white film. He paused. He recognized Veronica Lake and he didn’t switch over.
Veronica and Kirsten on the same night; it should have felt like his lucky day, but seeing Kincaide and Mel had thumped the scales down in the opposite direction.
He turned back to the pan and finished cooking, then he leant against the worktop with plate in one hand and fork in the other, and watched someone else trying to solve a different murder.
But before the second mouthful, he knew that it wasn’t enough to keep him at home.
THIRTY-TWO
It took Goodhew just fifteen minutes to walk from Parkside pool to Rolfe Street, Lorna’s little street, where gentrified townhouses squeezed together in neat order, their single front steps like children’s feet, lined up and waiting one step back from the kerb.
Midges danced in the glow from the streetlamps, parting only to let him pass as he strode through their light pools. His footsteps beat a crisp rhythm on the pavement. It was late enough for the streets to be empty, but early enough for the sound of him to be masked by the television sets, turned up louder than a normal speaking voice in almost every home.
Except Lorna’s, of course.
Her flat remained still and silent, the letterbox sealed from the inside, and the windows strapped with striped police tape.
The flat below hers was silent too, unoccupied and for sale when she died. Now still unoccupied and probably unsaleable, and Goodhew was glad of that. The last thing he needed was an anxious neighbour reporting footsteps overhead.
He reached into his pocket and wrapped his gloved fingers around the key. He rubbed his thumb along the teeth of it and silently prayed that the lock had not been changed. He slid it in and turned it quickly. The door opened, and he sighed with relief. Using the stairs was a far easier prospect than shinning up the drainpipe and across the ground-floor flat roof.
This way there would be no evidence of forced entry.
He closed the door behind him and began to feel his way up the stairs. Dust and mustiness had already invaded, pushing out any lingering breath of Lorna from the air.
He reached the landing and groped around, identifying first the door frame, then the door, then the handle. The door opened silently into a large, all-purpose living area. Enough light trickled through the sash window to pick out the shape of a settee and coffee table, and a circular dining set over to one side.
Both the kitchen and bathroom were at the rear of the flat, overlooked only by houses in a road running parallel to Rolfe Street. Turning the lights on in these two rooms was still a risk but, by his reckoning, one worth taking.
He chose the bathroom first, and made sure to close the door behind him before pulling the light cord. The suite had been changed circa 1978, he guessed. Those days when green toilets, in any shade from lichen to avocado, were considered desirable. This one was sage, with marble-effect tiles, pine fittings and cream walls. It was not attractive, but it was clean and well kept. All the surfaces were now bare. He clicked open the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet: that too was empty. He hoped the kitchen would yield more.
He switched off the bathroom light and proceeded from there across the hall and into the kitchen. Again he shut the door behind him, and this time he twisted the blinds shut before flicking on the overhead strip-light.
First he opened and closed each cupboard for a quick assessment. Plenty had been removed from the kitchen: the wastebin, tea towels, fruit from the bowl and any perishables from the fridge. But plenty had been left: glasses, china, cutlery, unopened jars and tins of food.
The units here were fitted, more modern than in the bathroom, and sported beech veneer