Page 72 of Her Last Breath

The front door opened straight onto a small lounge, which in turn led to a galley kitchen and downstairs bathroom. Worn wooden flooring was complemented by old tiles but the white goods seemed to be fairly new. There were very few possessions anywhere. The rack on the sink had one plate, two forks and a cup.

The staircase to the upper floor was in the lounge. Jane followed Terry to see where the bedrooms were.

‘No bathroom on this level, so you have to go down to use it. Still, good for the legs.’

Upstairs, the guest bedroom was made up, unused. No personal touches. Bill’s bedroom was clean, no personal mementos. Jane felt sad, thinking how some people can live their lives and not leave a trace.

‘Your colleagues took some cash and his phone,’ Terry explained. ‘Everything else is how he kept it. Man, will I miss this guy, he was so neat!’

‘Anything else of value here?’

‘Doubt it. The pi … the cops took whatever was.’

Heading back downstairs, Jane looked again around the lounge. She saw souvenir-style artwork on the walls.

‘Are they yours?’

‘Nah, his. He had all this weird – I mean, cultural stuff – from Africa. I said he could put it up. You have to be good to the decent tenants, you know? Even though I’ll have to plaster up the walls when I take it down. I thought Bill might stay for ages yet.’

Jane examined the pieces, the beauty of them, carved wood with delicate swirls of white and ochre. It was funny how people could surprise you in death. On the surface, she wouldn’t have imagined a lorry driver like him having a taste for this sort of aesthetic.

‘I did think maybe he might be a bit … you know. Single man and all that. I didn’t ask though, he paid his rent and stuff.’

‘Do you have any cause to think he might have been homosexual?’

‘No, just with the art stuff … Not normal, is it?’

‘Define “normal”.’

Jane wondered if Bill had picked these up locally or if he had made a trip to an African country, maybe a safari with someone? Was there a love story there in this man’s past? He was alone because he had a broken heart, turning to drink and losing his job?

‘There was never anybody else here with him? A partner, I mean?’

‘Nobody. Just him. Not even the whiff of a one-night stand. Then again, I don’t live here, so who knows? But the neighbours always said they never saw anyone. I keep the neighbours sweet – they give me proper intel on my tenants. It’s a win-win.’

Jane laughed despite herself at the Asian Del Boy of Burnley’s comments. She took in one of the art pieces which was displayed above the small fireplace and immediately felt a jolt. It was familiar to her; she’d seen it somewhere else. The almond-shaped head, narrow eye slits, the nose and eyebrows that were reminiscent of a tree, the ‘o’ shaped mouth. She racked her brains, trying to think. The image came into her head, only this time it wasn’t on a wall, it was on a t-shirt. She remembered because it was so distinctive.

The foodbank that Alice used to visit. Colin Wilson, the manager there.

Jane was staring at a 3D replica of the same image that was on his t-shirt.

Chapter 48

‘DC Chan, did you follow up any leads on the foodbank manager, Colin Wilson? I asked for intel to be gathered on him.’

Stopped at traffic lights, Jane had called DC Chan on the way to the haulage firm where Bill had worked.

‘Sorry, ma’am.’

‘What happened?’ Jane asked, dreading already what she would say from the tone of her voice.

‘When the nurse became our prime suspect, all resources were deployed on her. I asked one of the other analysts to delve deeper into Wilson. I’ll check if she found anything. I’m really sorry, ma’am.’

Jane bit back her irritation, She knew this was what happened when a case hotted up and a suspect like Kangna Kandasamy, who seemed to fit the profile of what they were looking for, came onto their radar. Reluctant to damage the burgeoning confidence she had seen DC Chan display, Jane spoke in a much more reasonable tone than she felt.

‘Get me that intel asap,’ she said, hoping they hadn’t dropped the ball on this. ‘And tell DS Johnson I’m going to the haulage firm where Hargreaves was fired from.’

The haulage firm was based off the A682, south of the Rose Hill area. Jane was introduced by a male executive assistant to the boss, Sarah Morne. She was a formidable woman, in her fifties, wearing full make-up, with a lithe body and dressed like a cowgirl in jeans and checked shirt.