Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
When Flynn got up to shower early the next morning, Lily had already been wide awake and staring at the ceiling for a while. Even the sight of Flynn returning from the bathroom with a towel slung low around his waist didn’t distract her from her racing thoughts.
“Still thinking about Mr Latham?” Flynn asked, perching on the edge of the bed.
“I don’t believe the police took the screws.” Lily sat up and shifted the pillows against the headboard to get comfy. “If they thought they were suspicious, they’d have called in detectives straightaway, wouldn’t they?”
“Probably.”
“If they didn’t take them, someone else did. Which leads to the question of why they would do that. The only answer I can come up with is that those shelves didn’t accidentally fall on Mr Latham.”
“If someone went back in there after the police had been, it’d need to be someone with a key,” Flynn pointed out.
“Not necessarily.” She shook her head. “I got in there. It only needs to be someone who knows Caroline has a spare key.”
“You think Caroline is handing the key out to whoever asks for it?”
“It was pretty easy for me to get it.” She paused, thinking. “I need to get back in there again. I want to get a better look at the bookcase and the coffee table.”
“Why?”
“If the bookcase fell and landed against the coffee table, there’d be damage to one or both items, right?”
“Probably.”
“If someone put it there to look like it had fallen, there won’t be any damage.”
“You think someone killed him, then set the bookcase up around him?”
“I think it’s a possibility.”
Flynn heaved in a breath. “But if the bookcase fell onto Mr Latham, it may not have hit the table heavily. He’d have slowed it down.”
“That’s possible,” she admitted.
“There’ll also be a postmortem. If someone killed him, they’ll be able to tell.”
“How long will that take?”
“A few days, I guess.” He rolled his eyes at her. “If it shows something suspicious, his flat will be examined for evidence. It would be better if your fingerprints weren’t all over the place.”
She nodded slowly. “So if I go in there again, I should wear gloves?”
“Do not go back in there,” he said, with an admirable attempt at sounding stern.
“Okay, officer. I’ll stay well away.”
At her mocking tone, he poked his fingers under her ribs. “Can’t you mind your own business for once?”
“I would,” she said laughing. “But my boyfriend left me alone for two days, even though he knows I shouldn’t really be left to my own devices for that long.”
“He sounds like an idiot,” he said, leaning in to give her a quick kiss. “Don’t go back into the flat, please.”
She sighed heavily. “Yeah. Okay.”
While he got dressed, Lily went to make coffee, but Flynn only took a couple of sips before dashing off to work. Ten minutes after he’d left, she heard the main door of the building opening. Through the kitchen window, she spotted Gigi heading out with Pixie.
Presumably, she wouldn’t be out for long. If Lily timed it right, she could be ready and waiting when they returned.
She’d only said she wouldn’t go back into Mr Latham’s flat, not that she’d give up her investigating entirely. Chatting with the neighbours couldn’t hurt.
Hastily, she showered and dressed, then lurked by the kitchen window. Her heart rate spiked when Gigi came into view, with Pixie trotting along beside her.
Halfway to the door, Lily paused. It’d look weird if she were just loitering in the hallway.
It needed to appear as though she was on her way out somewhere.
With that in mind, she pushed her feet into her ankle boots, not bothering with the zips.
She was still shoving her arms into her coat when she opened the door.
Gigi opened the main door at the same time.
Pixie let out a high-pitched yap, her nails clacking on the floor as she attempted to get to Lily against the barrier of her lead.
“Hello,” Lily said, bending to stroke Pixie. “Did you have a pleasant walk?”
Gigi’s features were blank for a moment, then she blinked a couple of times and her lips curved to a half-hearted smile. “Pixie enjoyed it.”
“I was just feeling like some fresh air myself.”
“Have a nice time,” Gigi said.
“Thanks.” Lily made a pretence of walking away before turning on her heel. “I went to the restaurant where Aiden works yesterday. The food was amazing. Aiden’s really sweet too.”
“Yeah.” She bent and lifted Pixie into her arms. “He’s a good guy.”
“Seems like it. He was telling me about the time you thought you were being followed and he walked you home.”
Gigi dropped her gaze to Pixie. “That was silly. I shouldn’t have taken Pixie out for a walk so late, but I’d been working and lost track of time. Thankfully, the restaurant was almost closing so I could walk home with Aiden.”
“He mentioned you thought Mr Latham had been following you.”
Her gaze came up to meet Lily’s. “My imagination works overtime sometimes. Especially when I’m wandering the streets late at night.”
“So you don’t think it was him?”
“I have no idea,” she said calmly. “Probably not.”
“He wasn’t stalking you?”
Again, her eyes dropped to Pixie, and she hugged her harder.
Lily’s mind flashed back to overhearing Gigi tell Pixie they were safe now after Mr Latham died.
“He was, wasn’t he?” Lily pushed.
“I can’t say for sure. Most likely he was just a lonely oddball. Sometimes I felt uncomfortable around him, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.”
Lily nodded her understanding. “After you went on a date with him, did he hassle you to go out with him again?”
“Not really. He suggested it a few times, in this jokey way that I wasn’t sure how to take. I’d always brush it off, but…”
Lily reached to stroke Pixie, giving Gigi space to collect her thoughts.
“I felt as though I had to be nice to him. I’d have struggled to afford it if he put the rent up, so I didn’t want to upset him.” She bit down on her lip. “Once or twice I thought about looking for somewhere else to live, but it’s not that easy to find somewhere that allows pets.”
“Did anything else happen with Mr Latham?”
“How do you mean?”
“Were there any other incidents where he made you feel uncomfortable?” Lily wished she could read minds because she would swear Gigi was contemplating whether to say more.
“Not really,” she said finally. “One time he took a photo of me when I was arriving home from walking Pixie. That’ll be the one he put up in his flat. He made a joke of it, but it felt weird.”
“And I guess he always went out of his way to help when Pixie was lost?”
“Yeah.” She ran a hand over Pixie’s back.
“That way he got to play hero.”
Gigi nodded. “I think he was probably harmless, but I don’t know. Aiden always said I should trust my gut. If I got bad vibes, there was probably a reason for it.”
“I think I’d agree,” Lily said.
“Anyway, he won’t be bothering me any more.” She smiled sadly. “It seems like a terrible thing to be relieved. It’s not as though I ever wanted him dead, or anything,” she added quickly.
“Of course not.”
“I just feel I can breathe easier now.”
“That makes sense. It sounds like a really difficult situation. And if he really was following you at night…”
“He probably wasn’t,” Gigi said quickly. “It doesn’t matter now, anyway. Not worth dwelling on. It was good that Aiden was so kind about it, though. I felt pathetic.”
Lily smiled. “I think I’d be freaked out walking the streets around here at three o’clock in the morning too.” It wasn’t a bad neighbourhood or anything, but it was nothing like Scilly either.
“Thankfully, it wasn’t that late,” Gigi said, moving towards her door. “Only half ten.”
“I thought you said Aiden was about to leave work.”
“Yeah. It’s only a restaurant, not a late-night bar. They close at eleven, so I just had a drink while I waited for him. The other staff were lovely too. They made a fuss of Pixie.”
“I see,” Lily said. That made more sense than her walking the dog in the middle of the night.
“Enjoy your day,” Gigi said before slipping into her flat.
Lily was still in a trance in the hallway when the Patel’s door opened.
“Morning!” Mrs Patel chimed as she passed Lily.
“Morning,” Lily said, then watched the door close behind the petite lady.
Her gaze went to the Patels’ door, and she wondered whether Mr Patel might continue his letter box mission with his wife out of the way. Maybe she’d keep an eye out through the peephole and see if she could catch him in the act.
Or…
Taking quiet steps to the letter boxes, she lifted the flap for Mr Latham’s and peered into the darkness. Slipping her fingers inside, she gave the metal door a wobble. The lock looked flimsy. A quick internet search should probably give her some clues about picking it.
She probably didn’t even need to bother with that though, since the front of the letter box was held on with screws.
After a root through a few drawers in Flynn’s flat, she returned with a small Phillips head and felt a hit of adrenaline when it fit perfectly into the screw.
Deftly, she worked on all four screws, setting them carefully on top of the cabinet, then easing the metal plate away.
A couple of standard sized envelopes sat in the bottom of the space.
Pinned behind them was a single sheet of A4 folded in half.
Lily was already reaching for it when she recalled Flynn’s warning about fingerprints. Not wanting to leave the letter box unattended to find gloves, she tugged on her sleeve and ungracefully removed the paper, then shook it open.
Her eyes widened at the words printed on the page.
A fraction of a second later, her heart stopped dead at a noise behind her.