‘Who’s there? I’ve got pepper spray and I’m dialling 999!’ she shouted up into the darkness.
There was silence. The heat was oppressive. Thoughts of snooping around her son’s house were gone. All Estelle wanted to do was to go home and watch the Wimbledon highlights in her cosy, brightly lit house.
Something darted out of the shadows and came straight at her from the stairs above. Estelle stepped back in shock, almost dropping the phone. Then she saw it was the cat. It stopped and began to rub at her legs.
‘Bloody hell, you gave me a fright!’ she said, relieved, her pounding heart slowing. A foul smell floated down from the landing above. ‘Just what I need. Have you done something nasty up there? You’ve got a litter tray, and a cat flap.’
The cat looked up at Estelle nonchalantly. For once, she was glad of its presence. ‘Come on, I’ll feed you.’
She was comforted as the cat followed her to the cupboard under the stairs; she let it rub against her legs as she found the electricity box. When she opened the little plastic flap she saw that the power had been turned off at the mains. Strange. She flicked it on and the hall filled with light. There was a distant beep as the air conditioning whirred to life.
She came back into the kitchen and turned on the lights. The room and her reflection bounced back at her from the huge windows. The cat jumped onto the counter and watched her quizzically as she swept up the broken tumbler. Once she had dealt with the glass, Estelle opened a sachet of cat food, squeezed it into a saucer and placed it on the stone kitchen floor. The air-conditioning was working fast. She stood for a moment and let the cool air wash over her, watching as the cat daintily licked and nibbled at the square of jellied food with its small pink tongue.
The bad smell was intensifying, rushing into the kitchen as the air-conditioning sucked air through the house. There was a clinking as the cat licked the last of the empty saucer, then darted to the glass wall and vanished through a cat flap.
‘Eat and run. Leave me to clear it up,’ said Estelle. She grabbed a cloth and an old newspaper and moved to the stairs, climbing slowly, her knees complaining. The heat and the smell got worse the higher she climbed. She reached the top and moved along the brightly lit landing. Methodically, she checked the empty bathroom, the spare room, under the desk in the small office. There was no sign of a present from the cat.
The smell was overpowering when she reached the door to the master bedroom. It caught in her throat and she gagged. Of all vile smells, cat mess is the worst, she thought.
When she entered the bedroom, she flicked on the light. Flies buzzed and whined in the air. The dark blue duvet was thrown back on the double bed, and a naked man lay flat on his back with a plastic bag tied tight over his head, his arms tied to the headboard. His eyes were open, bulging out grotesquely against the plastic. It took her a moment to realise who it was.
It was Gregory.
Her son.
Then Estelle did something she hadn’t done in years.
She screamed.
3
It was the least enjoyable dinner party DCI Erika Foster had attended in a long while. There was an awkward silence as her host, Isaac Strong, opened the dishwasher and began to load plates and cutlery, interrupted only by the low whirr of a plug-in electric fan in the corner. It barely made a dent in the heat, instead just pushing waves of warm air across the kitchen.
‘Thank you, the lasagne was delicious,’ she said, as Isaac reached over to take her plate.
‘I used half-fat cream for the Béchamel sauce,’ he replied. ‘Could you tell?’
‘No.’
Isaac went back to the dishwasher and Erika cast her eye around the kitchen. It was elegant, with a French-rustic theme: hand-painted white cabinets, work surfaces of pale wood, and a heavy Butler sink in white ceramic. Erika wondered if, as a forensic pathologist, Isaac had deliberately steered clear of stainless steel. Her eyes came to rest on Isaac’s ex-boyfriend, Stephen Linley, who sat across from her at the large kitchen table, watching her suspiciously with pursed lips. He was younger than Erika and Isaac: she guessed thirty-five. He was a strapping Adonis of a man with a beautiful face, but its expression had sly flashes that she didn’t like. She forced herself to defuse his attitude with a smile, then took a sip of wine and willed herself to say something. The silence was beginning to stretch uncomfortably.
This didn’t usually happen when she had dinner with Isaac. Over the past year they’d shared several meals in his cosy French kitchen. They’d laughed, divulged a few secrets, and Erika had felt a strong friendship blossom. She’d been able to open up to Isaac, more than she had to anyone else, about the death of her husband, Mark, less than two years previously. And, in turn, Isaac had talked of losing the love of his life, Stephen.