Chapter Fifty
Haze
Hey hun, come over for breakfast. Need to complain about how much I hate men.
Course babe. I’ll be over soon.
I worked out that getting Felix up and out the door to her parents wouldn’t take more than half an hour.
Jenny walked through our front door at 7:01 a.m. She was dressed for work.
She insisted on only ever wearing these awful Next navy blue trouser suits that did nothing for her.
She’d once laughed for a solid five minutes when I’d asked her what was wrong with a nice business-chic high-waisted trouser and a silk shirt.
“I’m dressing for a police station in Slough, not lunch in Sloane Street. ”
“How bad is it?”
Fox and I were sitting at the kitchen table, large coffees in front of us, still in our dressing gowns. Bibi and Reggie were, by some miracle, both still asleep upstairs.
Fox cleared his throat. “We found our next-door neighbor Barry dead in our garage. Seemingly electrocuted from cutting the wire to my guitar amp.”
Jenny looked between us. “Seemingly?”
“We’re not totally sure that’s what killed him,” I said.
Fox showed Jenny his laptop with the security camera footage. We had one camera positioned overlooking our garage. The garage door started opening at 2:46 a.m. It opened right out and blocked the camera’s view. “Someone must’ve cloned our door opener,” he said.
Jenny shrugged. “Pretty easy to do.”
The door stayed open for eight minutes and then closed. No one was visible on camera.
“No other angles?”
Fox shook his head.
“Eight minutes is both enough time to dump and stage a body, and enough time to manage to electrocute yourself.” Jenny stared at the screen. “Why would The Chameleon want to leave a dead body in your house?”
Another day. Another dead man. This was busy, even for us. I felt a flicker of something. “Danny. Kristoff. Barry. They’ve all died in the last couple of weeks.”
Jenny nodded. “Maybe it’s a warning shot to show how easily he can kill people in our lives?”
He could’ve set Danny up to die at Fox’s hands. He could’ve been on the roof and pushed Kristoff. He could’ve been the one to break in with a dead Barry.
“But they were all people we didn’t want in our lives—so why would he be doing us a favor?”
“We’ve had to dump two out of three of those bodies! Maybe it’s because he wants us to get caught?” Fox stood up. “It’s why we got Barry out of here fast, in case the killer had called the police on us.”
“Where is he now?”
“I took him back to his house in our wheelie bin and set the scene for him having died there.”
Jenny winced. “How exactly did you set the scene?”
“I stuck him by an electrical socket, splashed some water around. You know…I’ve still got his house keys in case you want to…” Fox trailed off.
“I’ll go check it out.” Jenny stood up, then paused. “So, just to double-check—neither of you killed him?”
“We just found him here! Someone killed him and delivered him to our garage.” Fox pointed to the A4 folder on the table. “He’d been logging everything he saw out of his window. I think he saw something—or someone—he shouldn’t have.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Jenny took the house keys and left.
We went upstairs and got dressed. I plucked a hungry Reggie from his cot and went back down to the kitchen to feed him. I left Fox to deal with Bibi, who was having a breakdown over not being able to find her favorite hairband.
Jenny came back after half an hour. I was feeding Reggie on the sofa.
“Fox didn’t do too bad a job.” She slumped down next to me.
“The bathroom is directly above the living room. I’ve run the bath.
The water will overflow eventually, soak through to the living room, and that will help confuse the crime scene further.
When we get called over, I’ll lead with the theory that he was getting ready for a bath, and started fiddling with the TV.
Electrocuted. Dead. Bath overflowed.” She checked her watch.
“I’d better get to work. Hopefully no one peers through the living-room window anytime soon.
The longer the water has to ruin everything, the better.
” She got up from the sofa. “What do you know about Barry? Partner? Friends? Family?”
“He lived alone, and I don’t think he really saw many people.” I couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone go in and out of his house.
“There were no photos of family inside the house. No pets, either. It’s likely no one will miss him for a while.”
Barry had been a dick, but that was a depressing thought.
“It will help with making sure it’s ruled an accident. If he’s not found for a few days, things will be harder to work out.”
I watched her leave. I didn’t want to think about how easy it would’ve been for someone with keys to our house, someone who knew where the security cameras were, to help someone else break in and kill Barry.
I shook it off. Jenny had come straight over and helped us fix everything. This was Jenny. Our Jenny. We were the ultimate trio. Every success, every high we’d had in the last couple of years, we’d shared with her. We were in this together. She wouldn’t betray us.