at each other and hit their blues and twos. Reggie pushed her sunglasses further up her nose, checked for other traffic and accelerated. She was a careful driver. Understatement. ‘Jeeso,’ she said, and in her best imitation of Taggart, ‘There’s been a murrrder.’
‘Eh?’ Ronnie said.
If they were being honest, which they nearly always were, Ronnie and Reggie would have admitted that they were a tad nervous. They’d both attended at plenty of deaths – drugs, drink, fires, drownings, suicides – but not much in the way of proper murders.
The 999 call had come in from a Leo Parker, a tree surgeon, who had arrived at the premises ‘to take down a tree’ (which sounded like a mob hit to Reggie). Instead he had found a body – a woman lying on the lawn. Felled, Reggie thought.
‘That’s all we know,’ Control had said. ‘Ambulances are snarled up in this big incident but the caller’s adamant she’s dead.’
In the driveway of the bungalow there was a van with the name Friendly Forestry written on the side, and parked in front of it was a huge machine that Reggie guessed was a woodchipper of some sort. It looked like you could feed a tree into it whole. Or a body, for that matter.
A man was sitting in the passenger seat of the van, smoking and looking a bit green around the gills (Reggie loved that expression). ‘Mr Parker?’ Reggie asked but he signalled towards another man, less green about the gills, who was standing next to the side gate to the garden. He had a man bun, pseudo-Viking style, and was wearing a tool belt and a harness. ‘Doesn’t he love himself?’ Ronnie murmured. He looked doubtful when they approached, holding up their warrants. They were often told by members of the public, or even criminals (sometimes the two overlapped, of course – quite often, in fact) that they were ‘very small’ or ‘very young’ or both. And Ronnie would answer, ‘I know, aren’t we lucky?’ and Reggie thought, Hi-yah!
‘Mr Parker? I’m DC Reggie Chase and this is DC Ronnie Dibicki.’
‘I thought I’d better stand guard here, you know,’ Man Bun said. ‘Secure the scene.’
Was he the one who had phoned the Emergency Services?
He was.
And did he know if there was anyone in the house?
He didn’t.
Ronnie went round the front, rang the doorbell and knocked hard on the door. All the lights were on, but no one was home.
And who was Mr Parker due to meet here?
‘The lady of the house. I haven’t met her, only spoken to her on the phone. A Ms Easton.’
‘As in Sheena?’ Reggie said, writing the name down in her notebook. ‘Do you know her first name?’
He didn’t. All he knew was that she had asked him to cut down a tree, Man Bun said. ‘A sycamore,’ he added, as if that might be relevant. He took a mangled roll-up from behind his ear and lit it. ‘In there,’ he said, gesturing with the cigarette towards the garden. Through the open gate Reggie could see the immobile body of a woman lying on the lawn.
‘Did you go in, Mr Parker?’ Reggie asked.
‘Yes, of course, I thought she might be injured or ill.’
Ronnie returned. ‘No answer from the house,’ she said.
‘Ms Easton,’ Reggie told Ronnie. ‘That’s the name of the lady who lives here, apparently. Carry on, Mr Parker.’
‘Well, then I came straight out again. I didn’t want to disturb anything. You know, for the forensic team.’ Everyone an expert, thanks to TV. Collier and its ilk had a lot to answer for, Reggie thought. Still, it meant he’d done the right thing.
‘Good,’ Reggie said. ‘You stay here, Mr Parker.’ They put on gloves and blue shoes and had a good look around before entering the garden. If someone was murdered then there had to be a murderer, and if there was a murderer he might still be lurking in the garden, although it wasn’t the kind of garden that encouraged lurking. No trees, apart from one that stood out from the neat, bland borders like the proverbial sore thumb. The unloved sycamore, Reggie presumed. There was a big patio with lots of paving that only served to make the planet’s job harder.
Why was Mr Parker so sure that it was a murder and not an accident?
‘You’ll see,’ Man Bun said.
She was wearing an almost transparent nightdress and negligée, the kind of garments you wore to have sex in, not get a good night’s sleep. Both Ronnie and Reggie