Flyte

FLYTE

The next morning Becca, the DC who struck as seeming a bit unsure of herself, came over to Bacon's desk in the incident room. overheard her saying that she'd got hold of the Chinese couple who'd been staying in the Airbnb above Bronte's flat the night she'd died.

‘I booked a Zoom call for 10 a.m. our time – 6 p.m. over there. In the email the husband says he speaks English. I thought better to grab them quickly than wait till we've found a Mandarin interpreter?'

Bacon waved a hand. ‘Courageous and correct,' he said. ‘Do you want to sit in?'

Becca shook her head. ‘Now we've got a warrant I need to trawl Bronte's emails.'

‘Fair dos,' he said, getting to his feet and hitching his trousers up. Turning to he asked, ‘Care to join me?'

‘Sure.' She had to admit that despite his eighties throwback act, Bacon appeared genuinely to value the female angle.

Half an hour later, they were in the conference room facing a screen which showed a middle-aged Chinese guy and his wife seated at an island in a swanky kitchen. After the introductions, Bacon said, ‘As you know, Mr and Mrs Chen, we are investigating the tragic death of a young woman who lived in the apartment directly beneath you, on the final night of your stay in London. Did you see or hear anything unusual that evening after coming back from the restaurant?'

Mr Chen did the talking, his wife smiling but silent beside him. He spoke like a man used to addressing minions – apparently he was a Party bigwig – but despite what he'd told Becca, his English was hit and miss to say the least. He was able to make one thing clear though: they had neither seen nor heard anything out of the ordinary that evening either when they returned from dinner or during the night.

thought she detected something a bit too definitive about his claims – no hesitation, no racking his memory, no asking his wife – as one might have expected. No doubt the Party wouldn't be ecstatic at the prospect of one of their officials getting entangled in a UK murder case.

could see Bacon's leg starting to jiggle under the table as he grew impatient, although his manner remained calm and polite. After a while, he turned to the wife. ‘What about you, Mrs Chen?' But Mr Chen raised a hand. ‘My wife doesn't speak English,' he said, sweetening it with a smile.

‘No problem,' said Bacon – before launching into a stream of fluent Mandarin. couldn't stop herself from turning to stare at him.

Mrs Chen was talkative and seemed keen to help, despite her husband's increasingly meaningful sideways looks. couldn't understand a word, but it was clear from their back and forward that she was telling Bacon something of possible significance. Bacon asked a supplementary question and she nodded vehemently, and touching her neck, made a guttural sound as if she was trying to clear something stuck in her throat. This brought a furious look from her husband who cut in, clearly trying to bring the conversation to a close. Bacon was laying on the charm when Mr Chen leaned forward and cut the connection.

He and looked at each other.

‘You got the gist?' he asked.

‘She heard someone coughing? Choking?'

He nodded. ‘She got up in the night for some water, stepped out onto their balcony and heard someone – she couldn't say if it was a female – gasping for breath from the floor below. But the noise stopped quickly and she went back to bed.'

‘Did she hear anything else? A scuffle? The fall?'

‘Nothing. Just the gasping. We can't know whether it was just before Bronte fell or earlier of course.' He frowned. ‘And as we know there was no post-mortem evidence of someone strangling her.'

‘Suffocation? Plastic bag over the head?'

Bacon screwed up his face. ‘That ought to leave physical signs.'

‘Petechiae.' The pinprick haemorrhages found in cases of asphyxiation.

‘Yeah. I'll double-check with the pathologist – if I can get hold of him. Why don't you talk to your chum at the mortuary?' He nodded to himself. ‘She struck me as a smart cookie.'

After a pause, said, ‘So you speak fluent Mandarin. Clearly.'

‘Just enough to get by,' he demurred, before sending her a sly look. ‘My Cantonese is pretty solid though.'

What the .?.?. ? couldn't think of a question that wouldn't sound over-personal or intrusive. But after a pause Bacon put her out of her misery. ‘My wife comes from Hong Kong. We've been married thirty years.'