Love Story, With Murders Read Free

photographer is there, wearing one of those white
polypropylene suits with elasticated hood and cuffs, setting up lighting.
    I ask him to give me some dates from the packages still in the bottom of the freezer. He’s not surewhether to be helpful, because somewhere along the way he’s eaten a training
manual which is telling him to do things in a different order. I ask him if he wants me to pass his professional reservations along to DI Watkins and he decides to get helpful, bending down into
the freezer with a torch.
    As he does so, I inspect the packages lying loose on the floor. Not all of them are dated,but some are. There’s a whole pile of thin little freezer bags of apple compote, dating from
2005. Some butcher’s packages dated 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009. One package of I’m not sure what is dated 1984, but in such wavering handwriting that I’m inclined to suspect the
old lady’s mind had wandered.
    The SOCO pulls out of the freezer. He has a mask on, which I don’t, but even so it musthave stunk in there.
    ‘Can’t see ’em all, and I won’t move anything till we’re done with the imaging. But what I can see – oldest is ’96, newest maybe 2002. Possibly 2003,
because the ink has run and . . .’ He shrugs. ‘We’ll know once we can start moving them and get a proper look.’
    I take some pictures of the dead girl’s shoe with my phone, and the SOCO promises to email some better-qualityshots through to me when he’s got to that stage.
    I give him the thumbs-up and head back to Condon, ready for my ride.

 
     
     
     
4
     
     
     
     
    Home.
    I asked Condon to bring me here, not Cathays. If it’s going to be a long weekend, I might as well get ready. Swap skirt for jeans, shoes for my most comfortable pair of boots. Jumper. Put
a toothbrush and toothpaste into my bag, along with a change of knickers and tights. I think about eating, but I’m not hungry, so I don’t.Think about taking a shower, but can’t
be bothered.
    I don’t put any lights on. Just let the house grow dark around me, seeing what I need to from the streetlamps outside.
    Somebody cut a young woman into pieces and put her left leg into a suburban freezer in Cyncoed.
    Up by the reservoir, it’s as dark as it is here. The voles and the snakes and the toads and the bats are either goingto bed or coming out to hunt. And we’re coming out to hunt too.
Me, Watkins the Badge, and the might of South Wales’s finest.
    For me, these things aren’t only about finding the killers, but about giving peace to the dead. It’s not primarily a question of justice. The dead don’t care about that. The
murder investigation, arrest, and conviction are just part of the funeral rite, the finalacts of completion. Gifts I bring the dead in exchange for the peace they bring me.
    The peace of the dead, which passeth all understanding.
    I’m moving slowly now. No reason. Just waiting for my energies to gather. When they do, I find a cereal bar in my dark and silent kitchen and start chomping it on the way to my car.
    I should drive straight to Cathays. I
do
drive straight to Cathays,only when I get there, I find myself driving straight on through, over the river to Pontcanna.
    Big Victorian houses. Over-ornamented. High-ceilinged and respectable. I stop at a house in Plasturton Gardens. Home of Piers Ivor Harris, MP. One of his homes, I should say. He also has a house
in Chelsea in London and a place in France.
    I’m in luck. His car is here, a silver Jag. His wife’scar too, a cream and black Mini. Lights on inside the house, curtains drawn.
    I wander up and down the road, noting down numberplates. Most of them I recognise – this isn’t exactly the first time I’ve done this, to put it mildly – but some of which
are new. Of the new ones, none look immediately interesting. The cars either not posh enough or not parked close enough to the house to suggestthat they’re connected with the Harrises. I
note the registrations