“Then why are they here?”

“Ask Foxton.” Sophia started shutting down all her computers. She didn’t think Carla capable of hacking any computer. She wasn’t even sure the woman could operate a computer that wasn’t already turned on. “Will you be working alone?”

“No. Carlie should be here any minute.” She flicked ash onto the floor.

“You’re working with a girl named Carlie and your name is Carla?”

“We’re both Carla but she agreed to be Carlie so it wouldn’t be confusing.”

“Why didn’t they just put you with someone else?”

Carla shrugged and blew smoke toward the ceiling. The room was quickly filling with smoke.

“The smoke alarms will be going off.”

“Nah,” replied Carla, waving her hands about as if it would improve the situation. “No batteries. I took them out ages ago.”

A knock at the door sounded again. This time Carla went for it and returned with an Asian woman wearing a track-suit and large cardie. In her hands, she held a file-box.

“You must be Carlie,” said Sophia. Again holding out her hand. This time the woman moved the box over to one arm and shook. “And this is my partner, Crystal.” Sophia nudged her friend with her elbow and Crystal held out her hand.

“What’s wrong with her?” Carlie asked.

“She’s deaf.”

“So what is she doing here?”

Sophia was glad Crystal couldn’t hear the remark, as it was, she was upset enough by it. Crystal finished collecting everything that the two of them could possibly carry out. Including the mobile phone she had been working on all afternoon.

“Everything is ready. Our notes are here,” said Sophia, pointing. With that, Sophia grabbed Crystal’s arm and pulled her from the flat.

Sophia waved good-bye to Crystal and climbed into Liam’s car, pulled the seat forward, and backed the car out of the car park. She had only been in his car a few times and she was not happy that now Liam had an excuse to see her after work hours. Nor was she impressed with the music stations programmed into his car radio. However, within a few seconds, she almost forgot she wasn’t driving in her comfortable leather seats and made her way through the streets toward home.

Somehow, however, she found herself in front of Marcus Master’s residence. Or previous residence. A new family—husband, wife, and two small boys—had moved in only three weeks ago. She pulled across the street from the flat and looked in the windows of Marc’s old study. Though the curtains were drawn, Sophia could see the silhouette of a woman walking about in the room. The woman gestured wildly with one arm. Then paused. Then gestured wildly again.

Sophia couldn’t understand her obsession. Why did she continue to come? Surely, she never expected him to be there, to run out and greet her like in the past. He was gone. She knew that deep inside, but still, there were times when she wasn’t quite sure. Perhaps she didn’t watch him die. Perhaps she didn’t shoot him. Perhaps the case just ended and she had to say her good-byes. But, she knew the truth; the horror couldn’t be re-written. In her dreams, she could still see the shock in his eyes when he turned around to look at her.

“Sophie,” he had said. That’s it, one word. How could life be over so fast?

No matter what she did, she couldn’t stop the bleeding, she couldn’t call him back. She couldn’t take back the fact she was now a murderer. And she knew what they said, it gets easier after the first. She had seen many officers recover after missions, but she didn’t feel like them. She wasn’t meant for the field. She wasn’t meant to kill people. Especially Marc.

The woman walked out of Marc’s flat with a large retriever and headed down the street. Did she know a man, in fact many men, had died in that house?

Chapter Twelve

Theo scanned his newly set up incident room. Tables with computers and phones zig-zagged throughout. Staff had pinned maps and photos to the boards on the wall. Why did he feel the rooms were getting smaller? Soon the team would be looking to him for direction and he didn’t have anything really concrete to go on. Who murders an old man in front of his house? What possible reason could the killer have?

He stepped up to the whiteboard and scanned the photos: the knife, the note, and the face of Doc Tipring. Doc’s eyes stared back at him, lifeless, hollow. Did he suspect he would die that morning fetching the paper? He looked at the note again and wrote the words down in his notebook. Why did Doc have it in his pocket?

“Shite.”

Theo turned around to see Dorland staring down at the floor. In his hand, he held the remains of his coffee mug—the handle.

“Bloody cheap . . .” Dorland said as he stepped back from the dark brown stain on the carpet and brushed off his trouser legs. “Well, don’t all just stand there, will someone get me some towels?”

They all looked to Theo, and he pointed to one of the ladies standing near the door.

“Yes, of course,” she said, crossing her arms, “because I’m a woman, I’m expected to clean up the messes around here.” She stomped off.

Gathering his team in the incident room was simple, explaining to them what they needed to do for the case was more difficult because he himself was not sure which route to take. “All right, everyone, stop staring at the bloody floor and let’s get this case solved. It should be easy, a man goes to collect his morning paper and is stabbed. Who did it? Why did they do it? Any thoughts?”

He looked round the room. Everyone looked from the stain to their shoes. Dorland sat down.

“What no one?” asked Theo. “Then we need more information, don’t we? Did the man have a wife? Kids? If so, where do they live? There are the pieces of art. Are they important to the case? We also need to find anyone who could’ve possibly had a motive. The nurses who cared for him would most likely know. His sister said he lost his leg due to an infection from a work injury. I want that confirmed. Where are we with the CCTV footage? Were there any cameras in the area?” He fired a lot of questions at them and the members of his team wrote the questions down like madmen.

“I put my money on the nurse,” Dorland said as he came and stood by Theo at the whiteboard.

“Why?”

“Although she truly appeared distressed and saddened by the whole event, it could’ve been an act. She had access and may have a motive we haven’t yet uncovered.”

“Well, until we uncover it, it’s all speculation,” replied Theo. “The nurse said Mr. Tipring rarely left the house, had no friends or family visits. Which makes me think, why would the nurse kill him outside? She could’ve easily killed him inside the house and who would be the wiser. No one would’ve noticed if he never retrieved the paper. She could have retrieved the paper herself later.”

“Perhaps it would look suspicious if she murdered him in the house, but who would suspect her outside?”

“It is far riskier to murder someone outside a house than inside, Dorland.” Theo turned to him and continued, “Especially on the street of a highly populated neighborhood. I need you to work with the team, find out whatever you can about our victim, his art, his career. Dig, people! The victim may have had many nurses and I want you to find all that were employed to care for him in the last year or two. Someone saw something this morning, even if they don’t realize what they saw. Make sure you talk to everyone on the street, twice if you have to. Go through their statements carefully. Compare them. I want to know what our killer looks like and I want to know today, people.”

With all the assignments given out, Theo walked back down the hall to his office. The past two years, his office went from neat, even pristine, to a rat’s haven. The five level bookshelf against the left wall did not contain many books, mainly piles of papers on various shelves. At the start, he knew what each pile contained—case notes, budget allocations, and varied forms—and would add to the piles accordingly. However, over time, he would forget and add papers and case notes without being sure what was underneath. Only recently, in an effort to save paper and store information electronically, piles were added to his sofa when a corrupted database forced officers to re-enter their work. His boss had given various ultimatums—have the papers cleaned up by such and such a day—but the deadlines passed without result. Each time he entered his office, he couldn’t ignore the mounting problem. What he needed was motivation. And a filing cabinet. And a secretary.