2
Orange fluorescent evidence markers are spaced intermittently on the stairs, distinguishing footprints. A camera flashes on the third floor, sending a pulse of light through the metal railings of the staircase.
The flat was immaculate, with pristine white walls and cream carpet. Entrancing into the bedroom, I went over to the sash window from which the victim had fallen. A constable stood on guard beside it.
He stood to one side as I approached. Pulling it up, I found it only opened about fifty centimetres, about the same as the distance from his elbow to his fingertips. A can of Diet Coke, a packet of cigarettes, and a cigarette lighter were lined up neatly in a row on the narrow window ledge.
I looked down, where a team of four were trying to manoeuvre the body from the railings.
"Your officers closed the window before it was photographed, rather than leaving it open to document the narrow gap through which the victim meant to have jumped?" I ask.
"That is just in case the weather could change, and we didn't want to lose the forensics."
"But you haven't carried out any forensics yet?"
"No, because it is just a simple case of suicide."
"How is it that Chase had landed on the railings, a metre out from the wall?"
"I've got no idea. But, of course, we would only follow this procedure if we believed it was a suspicious death, but it is not suspicious," the Inspector replied.
I tried to keep calm. "You could be right," I say, "except for a couple of things."
The Inspector sighs. "And what may that be, Sherlock?"
"Well, let's start with the can of Diet Coke, the packet of cigarettes, and the cigarette lighter lined up neatly in a row on the narrow window ledge."
"What about them?"
"This lighter is a very slim and dainty object," I say, "Robbie Chase would have smashed the lighter on the floor, and he would have spilt the Coke if he had manoeuvred himself up. But they were perfectly placed there."
The Inspector said nothing.
"When you lean out of the window and look down at the last sight, the victim saw with the strong iron fence looming up below. It makes no sense to me that, from such a small opening, he would have hurled himself onto those spikes."
"You don't know what he was thinking?" The Inspector insisted. "Before his death, he phoned his ex-girlfriend Casca Ashakova and told her he was going to jump out of the window and to stay on the phone; so she could hear him."
"And did she?"
"She ended the call before he jumped," he replies, "but then he sent a text message about ten minutes before he died. It said, Now I have hit rock bottom, as you will see. I loved you like no other. Love you always and forever! xxx."
"How do you know it was him who sent the text?"
"Who else could it have been?"
"His killer."
"Look, Mr Noone, I know all about your reputation, but this case is as straightforward as they come. It is a suicide and nothing more."
"What about this?" I say, pointing.
Rows of faint scratch marks in the dirt show on either side of the outside windowsill, about as far apart as the fingers on a hand.
"I guess it's him fighting for his life," I say.
"We haven't dusted for prints yet."
I looked at him, puzzled.
"Why not?"
"It's a suicide, plain and simple, and we don't need to, given the circumstances, and that is what I shall be writing up on my report."
"How do you know that?"
The Inspector moved a step closer. At first, I thought it was the anger I saw in his eyes, but it wasn't. It was fear.
"Look, Mr Noone, what you must understand is that even when intelligence strongly points to an assassination, there is often too little evidence to make a case stand up in court. In such instances, it is easier to pronounce a death unsuspicious than to stoke diplomatic tensions and public alarm over an accusation of political assassination that probably won't stick."
"Inspector, we both know that the government withholds evidence to pass off Russian-linked deaths as suicides, in part because it's diplomatically easier, and they are scared of angering Russia, who are known to be quite ruthless. You and I both know there is a clear pattern of brazen Russian assassinations in Britain right out in the daylight, and it has been allowed to continue because the UK is soft on such things."
"I strongly deny that the British government would ever cover up an assassination for political reasons."
I smiled. Someone had undoubtedly briefed detective Inspector Mark Brooks.
"May I look at the main bedroom?"
"Be my guest."
The main bedroom is straight ahead and, in a mess, with clothes spilling from drawers and draped over the end of the bed, unmade. The duvet bunched against the wall.
I noticed a shoebox customised with fashion photographs clipped from magazines. Someone has pulled it from beneath the bed and opening the lid to reveal a collection of bandages, plasters, needles, and thread.
It is Casca Ashakova's cutting box and also her sewing kit.
The untidiness of the room is in total contrast to the rest of the flat. It looks like a quick ransacking—a search.
Turning my head, I notice an oval-shaped mirror on a stand, reflecting a white square of light onto the bed, highlighting the tiny purple flowers stitched into the sheets.
I looked at myself in the mirror and could also see the door behind me. Stepping back into the room, I partially close the door and stand behind it. Again, I can see the Inspector reflected in the open doorway.
His eyes met mine.
"What is it?"
"Someone stood right where I am standing. The mirror told whoever was waiting when Robbie Chase was in the doorway."
"But there's hardly any room."
"The door was half-closed."
"Meaning?"
"They were hiding from him."
I open the large walk-in wardrobe and step inside, where I smell expensive perfume. I touch dresses, skirts, shirts, and I put my hands in the pockets of Chase's girlfriends' jackets, find a taxi receipt, a dry-cleaning tag, a pound coin, and an after-dinner mint.
An evening gown slips from a hangar and pools at my feet. I pick it up again, feeling the fabric slip between my fingers. There are racks of shoes, at least a dozen pairs, arranged in neat rows. There is a gap for a missing at the end of the lower shelf.
I glance out the bedroom window, which overlooks an allotment with vegetable gardens and a greenhouse guarded by an elm tree. Spider webs appear woven through the branches of the trees, like watching the apartment block and not be seen.
Blanche Bradbury emerges from the bathroom, looking like a surgeon preparing to operate.
"There are traces of pubic hair in the S-bend of the sink."
"Somebody cleaned up."
Brooks stated.
"Forensic awareness is such an important life skill." Blanche alleged
"I blame it on all these bloody murder mysteries on the telly and in the bookshops. They're like 'how-to' guides. How to clean up a crime scene, how to dispose of the weapon, how to get away with murder…."
Brooks winks at me.
"What's wrong Blanche, did some smart defence lawyer punch a pretty little hole in your procedures?"
"I got no problem with defence lawyers; it's the juries I can't abide. Unless they see fingerprints, fibres, or DNA, they'll never convict.
They want the proverbial smoking gun, but sometimes there aren't any forensic clues. The scene is cleaned up or washed by rain or contaminated by third parties. We're scientists, not magicians."
Blanche scratched her nose and looked at her index finger as though she found it fascinating.
Meanwhile, I wander across the landing to the bathroom. A wicker laundry basket tucked beneath the sink. The toilet seat is down, and above the sink, on the shelves is toothpaste, toothbrushes, liquid soap, and mouthwash. The hand towel beside the sink is neatly folded and hung over the railing.
"They tidied the place."
I exclaim out loud.
Brooks appears behind me.
"Make any sense?"
"Not much."
"What about the CCTV cameras in the street?"
"At the moment the victim fell, every single camera in the square was pointing away from the window."
3The living and the dead stainless steel: basins, scalpels, and scales disinfected and polished to a dull gleam under the halogen lights.The mortuary is located in the new coroner's court basement and smells like a hospital, and looks like an office block. A ramp leads down the road to an underground parking area where Home Office' meat wagons' are parked in bays.Pushing through swing doors, Brooks walks like a sailor in search of a fight. A white leads the way along brightly lit corridors. The place seems deserted until a cleaning lady appears wearing elbow-length rubber gloves. I don't want to contemplate what she's been cleaning.Another door opens. Blanche Bradbury had her hands deep inside a butterflies ribcage. Half a dozen students are gathered around him, dressed in matching surgical scrubs and cloth caps."You see that?" Blanche questions, adjusting a lamp on a retraceable metal arm above her head.Nobody answers. They're staring
4It's almost six by the time we reach Amber Chase's house. Blanche came with me as support and as my driver. I don't drive, never have done and never will do.Three cars parked in the driveway. Visitors. That makes it more difficult. Finally, the front door opened by a woman in her early twenties, red-eyed from crying. A young man, bearded and shaggy-haired, joins her, putting his arms around her waist. "I'm looking for Mrs Amber Chase," I say. "That's my mum," says the young woman. "I'm Louisa, and this is Jamie." "We phone ahead earlier," Blanche says, "I am the Home Office pathologist, and this is Quintus Noone." The young couple stares at me, n
5The Aeroflot jet touched down in Moscow on a bitter morning with thick snow lying on the ground. The customs men waved Amber Chase and me through as if uninterested, though they seemed to be taking apart a man of much my age on the next bench. No protest, no anger, nor, I could see, any apprehension.As we went on my way, one of the officers picked up a pair of underpants and carefully felt his way around the waistband.I was thinking purposefully of taxis, but it transpired that we had a reception committee. A girl wearing a knee-length black coat and a black knitted hat approached us tentatively and said, "Mrs Chase? Mr Noone?"She saw from our reaction that she had the right couple. She said, "My name is Julieann. We have a car to take you to your hotel."She turned towards a slightly older woman standing a pace or two away."This is my colleague, Miranda.""How kind of you to take so much trouble," Amber said politely. "How did
6Miranda waited, hovering in the dining room, and stepped forward as I appeared. She wore a blue wool suit with rows of bronze-coloured beads and would have fitted un-remarkably into the London business scene. Her hair was clean and well-shaped, and she had the poise of one accustomed to organising."You can sit here," she said, indicating a stretch of tables beside a long row of windows. "Mrs Chase will be joining you shortly.""Thank you.""Now," she said, "tomorrow….""Tomorrow," I said pleasantly, "I thought Mrs Chase and I would walk around Red Square before we meet with deputy prosecutor general Ozdoyev.""But we can add you on one of the guided tours," she said persuasively. "There is a special two-hour tour of the Kremlin, with a visit to the armoury.""We'd rather not," I said, "this is difficult enough for Mrs Chase as it is."She looked annoyed, but after another fruitless try, she told me that our lunch was
7After breakfast, the receptionist summoned us, where two prominent men stood with impassive faces, flat uniformed caps, and long grey coats.One of them handed Amber a stuck-down envelope addressed to her. Inside there was a brief hand-written note, saying simply. "Please, accompany my officers," and below that, "Deputy Prosecutor General Ozdoyev."During our progress through the foyer, there were several frightened glances. The bulk and intent of our two escorts were unmistakable. No one wanted to be involved in our situation.They had arrived in a large black official car with a uniformed driver. They gestured to us to sit together in the back, and I gave Amber a reassuring squeeze of her hand as the vehicle set off and made unerringly for Dzerzhinsky Square.The long façade of the Lubyanka loomed one side, looking like a friendly insurance-company building if one didn't know better. Finally, however, the car swept past its large sides a
8Unsurprisingly, Ozdoyev did not offer a lift, and after collecting our coats, shuddered out into the saturated air. As darkness fell, it seemed to be colder than ever, and Amber linked her arm in mine and moved closer to me so that we could share our little body warmth.There were even fewer cars than usual to mow one down and not another pedestrian in sight, let alone a policeman."Did I do the right thing?" Amber asked in due course."Of course, you did," I answer. "The Russian's want that hard drive as much as you want to know the whereabouts of your ex-husband's money."The Majestic Hotel lay in the distance down the hill, with its canopy stretching out over the street. I turned up my coat collar, wondering why most of the centre of the top was an intentional hole rectangular hole, like a skylight without glass, open to every drop of rain or snow which care to fall. As a shelter for people arriving and departing, the canopy was a non-starter.
9My room looked calm and sane to reassure me that tourists were safe to roam the city's main streets.It could happen in London, I thought. It could happen in New York and Paris, and Rome. What was so different about Moscow?I threw my coat and room key onto the bed, poured a large reviver from the duty-free whisky, and sank onto the sofa to drink it.The attack had been, perhaps, an abduction attempt. Without glasses, I could have been a pushover. They could have got us in the car. And the drive? To what destination?Did Amber expect me to stick to the task until I was dead? Probably not, I thought, but then I don't think Amber underestimated the whole situation.More than anything, I could be lucky again. But, failing that, I had better be careful. My heart gradually steadied, breath quietened to normal.I drank the whisky and felt better.After a while, I put down my glass and picked up the box containing a pay-as-you-go mo
10A limousine collected us about seven o'clock that evening, and we sped down the Komsomolsky Prospect, and I looked two or more three-times out of the window. A black car followed us faithfully, but we were on the main road where that would happen anyway.We arrived outside a restaurant ten minutes late because more snow falling clogged the public transport and taxis almost to a standstill. There was a short queue outside shivering, but the chauffeur led us past the row and opened the firmly shut door.The place was packed, and somewhere there was some music. Led to the one empty table, a bottle of vodka materialised within five seconds."Of the two decent restaurants in Moscow," a voice said behind us, "I like this the better."We turned to find Ozdoyev, standing there accompanied by a tall, slim, and beautiful young woman, wearing a deep-blue velvet jumpsuit and high-heels which made her taller than me, and I am over six-foot."This is m