answered his own question, imagining how he might feel if selling homes were his passion in life.
‘You do.’ Jackie nodded enthusiastically. ‘Too right you do. Still, I’d already seen inside Dr Gane’s house, twice. I looked at the virtual tour because I was curious to see if she’d moved out like she said she was going to. Just being nosy, really. She told me she wouldn’t be able to stay there after what had happened, said she’d have to go to a hotel. I said to her, “That’ll cost you a bomb – staying in a hotel till you’ve sold, and bought somewhere else.” She’d gone and done it, though – I could tell from the tour. She’d left most of her stuff in the house, but there was no toothbrush, toothpaste or loo roll in the bathroom, no pile of books or water glass on her bedside table.’ Jackie tapped the side of her nose. ‘I’ve got an instinct, when it comes to houses – and the people that live in them.’
And the people that die in them?
‘I remember thinking, “She’s only done it – moved into a hotel, at God knows what cost. Silly woman!” And then the picture of the lounge came up, and I saw that body lying there, all that blood . . .’ Jackie shuddered. ‘I don’t want to see anything like that again, thank you very much.’
‘You said, “After what had happened”. I need you to start from the beginning, I’m afraid.’ Sam could feel Grint watching him.
Jackie laughed scornfully. ‘That’s a bit of a tall order. Like I said to DC Grint, I don’t know what the hell’s going on, so how do I know when it began?’ Bored with picking her nails, she slotted her earring back through the hole in her ear.
‘Start with the phone call on 30 June,’ Grint told her. If Sam had been a different sort of person – if he’d been Giles Proust, for example – he might have turned round and said, DC Grint! So glad you could join us.
Jackie sighed heavily. ‘I was at work. I answered the phone,’ she recited in a bored, ‘been there, done that’ voice. ‘It was a woman. She told me her name was Selina Gane – Dr Selina Gane. She made a point of saying that. Normally people don’t – normally we ask. So, like, if you rang me and said your name was Sam . . .’ Jackie wrinkled her nose. ‘What’s your surname again?’
‘Kombothekra.’
‘So you’d say your name was Sam Kombothekra and we’d say, “Is that Mr, Doctor or Professor?” Or, if you were a woman, we’d say, “Is that Miss, Mrs, Doctor or Professor?” We don’t ask about “Ms” – not allowed, orders from on high. The whole traditional image thing.’ Jackie mimed quote marks. ‘I’ve got a real bee in my bonnet about it, actually. I’m a Ms – so are most of my colleagues. But Cambridge is Cambridge – a lot of people here don’t realise that change is going to happen to them whether they like it or not.’
‘Phone call,’ Grint intoned from the back of the room. ‘30 June.’
‘Yeah, so I got this call, Dr Selina Gane she said her name was. Wanted to put her house on the market, 11 Bentley Grove, so I arranged a meeting with her for later that same day at the house. She seemed nice – there was nothing about her that made me suspicious. I looked round, measured up, talked to her about commission, marketing, we agreed an asking price. I took some photos for the brochure . . .’
‘You took the photos?’ Sam asked. ‘When I spoke to Lorraine Turner, she told me she took them.’
‘Yeah, that’s because I deleted mine,’ said Jackie, as if this ought to have been obvious.
‘Lorraine took the pictures that ended up in the brochure and on the website,’ Grint contributed from his ringside seat. ‘But let’s not leap ahead. Go on, Jackie.’
‘The woman – the one who said she was Selina Gane – she told me she’d pop into the office the next day, to proofread the draft brochure, which she did. She made a few changes, and I said, great, thanks, I’ll send a copy of the brochure when it’s ready. She said not to bother – she didn’t need one. She gave me a spare key, told me to arrange viewings whenever I wanted, let myself in and out. She was going away, she said.