Locked In Read Free

their joking, they both knew it was time to be serious. The two of them ducked back under the police tape outside the house and he pointed for them to turn right. Mrs Wilson lived on the same street but on the other side of the road around a hundred yards away. Jessica thought the sun was surprisingly warm considering the time of the day and the fact it was still only May. She noticed there were a few obvious curtain-twitches as they walked down the road, which was little surprise considering the patrol cars outside the victim’s house and the obvious police presence. The ones hoping for a show would be sadly disappointed when the body was removed under a cover later on.
    Perhaps it was because she was so used to actually attending crime scenes but Jessica never really understood the interest that came when police attended an incident. She didn’t get the types of people who slowed down for motorway accidents just in case there was blood or something else to get excited about, or those who crowded around vicious fight scenes. When you had seen some of the sights police officers had to each day, and dealt with the aftermath, Jessica didn’t believe most people would be so keen to get in line for a good view.
    DC Rowlands rang the doorbell of Stephanie Wilson’s house, which set off an overly-cheery Greensleeves chime not really appropriate for the moment. The door was answered by a uniformed officer, who led them through to the kitchen.
    The basic layout of the house seemed to be identical to that of the victim’s home. There was a stairway just inside the front door with a hallway running alongside it straight to the kitchen. A couple were sitting at a small round dining table in the kitchen with mugs of tea in front of them. There wasn’t an awful lot of room but the two detectives were offered the remaining two seats around the table, while the officer picked up a third mug from the side and went through to the living room.
    Mrs Wilson was a lot larger than her husband, with short shoulder-length greying hair. Jessica would have guessed she was in her early-fifties but she was never that great with ages. The woman wasn’t massively overweight but, compared to her short unimposing partner, she seemed a lot larger than she was.
    It was the man who stood up to shake each of their hands and introduce himself. He was clearly nervous as he spoke. He kept one hand on his wife’s shoulder to reassure her and talked quickly, barely pausing to breathe, while his wife didn’t even look up from the table. ‘Hi, I’m Ray and this is Steph. It was Steph’s idea to call you, wasn’t it dear?’
    He looked down towards her but she didn’t respond. He continued speaking as he sat back down. ‘I wasn’t sure whether we should dial 999 or not. I didn’t want to waste your time. You always see those articles about people phoning up because they’ve lost their slippers or whatever.’
    Jessica took a deep breath herself, perhaps subconsciously affected by Ray’s non-stop opening. ‘I’m afraid we have some bad news for you.’
    She paused but Stephanie didn’t give her a chance to add any more. She looked up for the first time from the table, directly at Jessica. ‘Yvonne is dead, isn’t she?’
    There wasn’t too much point in trying to tone things down. ‘Yes, she is.’ The woman let out a little sob that seemed to have been building, while her husband reached to put his arm around her, making soothing noises as he did so. ‘I’m afraid we are going to have to ask you about anything you might have seen and why you contacted us,’ Jessica added.
    They had to be careful in moments such as this with balancing someone’s grief but needing to act as quickly as possible. Given the state of the body it looked as if they had already lost a day or two. Jessica let the words hang as the woman blew her nose on a tissue offered by DC Rowlands and took a sip of tea. ‘We always go to this slimming club at the local school on