Flyte

FLYTE

‘Time of death is a guesstimate but given how long Bronte's body lay undiscovered she most likely fell before 0100 hours to give enough time for lividity to develop and become fixed.'

DI Streaky Bacon was running a case conference for the newly arrived team working on the Bronte murder investigation. Aware of curious eyes upon her, had arranged her face into what she hoped would pass as a neutral expression. But she was not enjoying the experience of being a passenger – a civilian .

‘The lack of any forced entry suggests she knew her killer,' Bacon went on. ‘The downstairs entryphone has a camera and there's a spyhole in her front door. We know from Bronte's phone records that on the day of her death she spoke with her father, her mother and her on-off boyfriend Ethan Fox – in that order. They all say there was nothing unusual in those conversations, and all deny being at the flat that day. And, of course, all three of them have legitimate reasons for their DNA to be present.'

He turned to a youngish guy with a sharp haircut and suit to match. ‘Craig, did Ethan's alibi check out?'

‘Yes, guv. He was doing band practice over in the Holloway Road and one of his bandmates has confirmed Ethan stayed at his flat on the night of the murder.' Along with most of the six other officers in the room, DS Craig Ellwood had been recruited from DI Bacon's regular base: East London Major Crimes in Canning Town. The sideways looks which caught were cautious, if not outright suspicious, but Craig, who seemed to act as Bacon's unofficial consigliere, made an almost-comic point of ignoring her. He reminded her of the detectives in her last, doomed posting, the breed whose casual sexism, racism and homophobia – the full house of antediluvian attitudes – had tarnished the Met's name so badly in recent years.

‘CCTV update?' asked Bacon.

‘Nothing in her block,' said Craig. ‘We're on the hunt for any footage from the other cams nearby, but it's not looking good – the key council camera was vandalised, and the ones from outside clubs and so on, they only tend to keep the files a week or two.'

‘What about door to door?' Bacon aimed the query at Becca, a DC in her twenties and the sole female on the team. Looking flustered, she opened her notebook, but before she could answer Craig jumped in.

Of course he did.

‘Nothing useful, guv. The old dear next door said she might have heard "heavy breathing" but she wasn't sure it was that night or even whether it actually came from Bronte's place.' Craig's raised eyebrow indicated how reliable he found the account of an ‘old dear'.

‘In case she did hear something let's recheck all the block residents,' said Bacon. ‘What about the Chinese couple who were in the penthouse upstairs – the Airbnb?'

‘No reply yet from the email address we have.'

He frowned. ‘They're party people aren't they? Communist Party I mean, not the fun kind.' Bringing a titter from his audience. ‘That could be problematic.'

‘What about the printing of Bronte's phone?' jumped in, drawing hostile looks.

‘Thanks, Phyllida,' said Bacon, with a tight smile. ‘I was just coming to that. Clearly it was Bronte's killer who sent the fake suicide message from her phone. And so it wasn't exactly a surprise to find the handset had been cleaned of all prints.'

‘Which, had it been discovered at the outset, would immediately have prompted suspicion' – couldn't resist pointing out.

There was a silence you could eat with a spoon.

Ignoring the jibe, Bacon went on, ‘Moving forward .?.?. Obviously it tells us that the killer was known to Bronte. Close enough to know her phone passcode.'

‘It tells us something else as well,' said , failing to hide her impatience.

‘Enlighten us, Phyllida,' said Bacon, starting to sound irritated.

‘Assuming that the killer arrived at her flat planning to murder her, he would surely have expected the phone to be fingerprinted. And knowing that a clean phone would look suspicious, he – or she – must have planned to put Bronte's prints on it after he'd sent the suicide text. He was hardly going to tip her over the balcony then take the lift down and do it on the towpath, was he? So he must have been planning to kill her inside the flat.'

‘Maybe she was trying to get away from him and ended up going over accidentally,' said Bacon. ‘But once she caught hold and was hanging there, he had to finish her off.'

‘You said yourself that given the height of the balcony her killer would need to have lifted her to tip her over.'

‘And if you're saying his initial idea was to kill her in the flat and make it look like suicide how exactly would he have pulled that off?'

made a face. ‘I don't know. Get her stoned on the psychoactive cannabinoid, then make it look like a hanging, or slash her wrists?'

‘Her tox screen came back negative for drugs,' Bacon pointed out.

Fair point . ‘Maybe something went awry with his plan,' was all she could say.

After the meeting broke up he caught up with in the corridor, and leaning towards her said in a conversational tone, ‘IOPC or not, if you try to fuck me over in front of the team again, I'll tear you a new one.'