Chapter 29 - Carter
CARTER
The husband is lying. It’s obvious. DCI Olivia Bird is meant to be a shit hot detective, so I don’t know how she can’t see it.
Having insulted me on the doorstep, then belittled me by asking me to make the tea like some kind of errand boy, my new boss does me the honor of asking me to accompany her while she searches the house.
As though I didn’t do it properly the first time.
As though I haven’t single-handedly been in charge of law and order in Hope Falls for four whole years before she turned up.
I follow her as she walks around Spyglass.
The house looks a little different from the last time we were here together—having sex downstairs—and I know she must be remembering that too as we walk through the rooms where we did it.
But being back at Spyglass now feels strange for lots of reasons.
Not just because of her. The elderly staircase creaks and groans with every step as we head upstairs.
“You do know I searched the place already?” I remind her quietly when we reach the top. DCI Bird—I can’t call her Birdy; regardless of what she says it doesn’t feel right now—asked Harrison to remain downstairs and I’m glad. I don’t like him and I don’t trust him. Even if I can’t explain why.
“Given the house used to belong to my grandmother, I just wanted to see what they did when they renovated it,” she replies, heading straight for the master bedroom.
“Really?”
“No. Jesus, Carter. The gene pool in this village needs bloody lifeguards.”
“What—”
“Forget it.”
I’m starting to think DCI Bird is batshit.
She might be too many flavors of crazy for most people’s taste buds, but I’m still attracted to her.
Even more so since I looked her up; she has a seriously impressive track record as a detective.
One of the best in London from what I’ve read.
She’s supersmart, successful, and hot too.
I follow her around the room, watching everything she does, trying to guess what might be going on inside her head.
“Tell me what you see,” she says, staring at the bed.
It sounds like a trick question, but I’ll play along.
“A bedroom.”
She rolls her eyes. “What’s unusual about it?”
Nothing.
I shrug. “It all looks very neat and tidy to me…”
Then I spot an old Walkman on the bedside table, and I freeze because it is not a common household object and it looks just like mine. The exact same model. But it can’t be mine, can it?
“Exactly,” she whispers, thinking I am seeing whatever she is seeing.
“The bed has been made and nothing is out of place. Would you make the bed if your wife was missing, possibly dead? And I think he has changed the sheets.” She picks up a pillow and smells it.
“Did you notice what looked like bedding in the washing machine downstairs?” I did not.
“Does Harrison look like the kind of man who normally does housework to you?” I shake my head.
“So why would he do that? You have to learn to look for the strange inside the normal.”
I hope she isn’t going to patronize me like this on a regular basis.
So what if he changed the sheets?
I’m starting to think my new boss doesn’t trust me to tie my own shoelaces.
She pulls on some plastic gloves with a dramatic thwack, then takes a small evidence bag from a pocket inside her jacket.
I watch transfixed as she swipes a hairbrush from the dressing table and seals it inside the bag.
I follow her into the modern marble-and-granite en suite, where she looks at the two electric toothbrushes standing side by side, then at all the expensive-looking toiletries on display.
I’m trying to see what she sees but everything looks as it should to me.
Until Bird opens the medicine cabinet and I watch her scan the labels on pill bottles like some kind of robot.
She slips some tablets into her jacket pocket.
“Shouldn’t we bag that as evidence too if—”
She spins around almost as though she had forgotten I was here, stands right in front of me, and puts a finger over my lips. She’s so close I can smell her perfume. She leans closer still, until her lips are practically touching my ear, then whispers.
“Do you think we could use our silent voices for the rest of the search? I need quiet to do my job. Thank you in advance.”
She does what appears to be a thorough search of every room after that, and I follow her without saying another word.
I’m not entirely sure what she’s looking for but don’t want to make a fool of myself by asking any more questions.
Back downstairs she returns to the small library at the back of the house.
A galaxy of dust particles floats in a beam of light from the window, as though recently disturbed, but there is nobody in the room.
Bird folds her arms before quietly saying, “A crime has been committed here.”
“It has?” I ask, bewildered as to what I’ve missed. I look around but draw a blank.
“What do you see?” she asks, staring at the bookcases.
I hesitate, not wanting to make a tit of myself, but she’s waiting for an answer.
“A lot of books?”
“Anything about this room look different to you?”
I take in the original parquet flooring and very old-looking bookcases, then shrug. “It looks like the only room in the house that they haven’t completely renovated…”
“Because…”
“Because … maybe they ran out of money?”
“The car parked outside is worth more than your house. These aren’t the kind of people who run out of money.
These are people with more money than sense.
As the former owner of Spyglass, I know that this old wonky house came with an ancient legal covenant which stated that these bookcases were not to be refurbished or removed, having been installed by some badass carpenter. ”
“The bookcases are still here.”
“I can see that, thank you. But they have been painted. In complete contradiction to the legal documents they signed when they purchased the property.”
“They painted the bookcases. That’s a crime?”
DCI Bird doesn’t reply. She seems lost in her own thoughts again.
“Maybe we should arrest Harrison for painting some bookcases?” I say. I’m joking, of course, but perhaps she can’t tell. Londoners seem to have a strange sense of humor, and by strange I mean nonexistent.
“Did you say something?” she asks.
“I said maybe we should arrest Harrison—”
She shakes her head. “Not yet.”