Page 30 of Dead Fall

‘Best CSM north of the Thames,’ said Bacon beaming, before introducing Flyte. ‘So, Tina, we need to take another look at the scene with fresh eyes.’

‘Thank you, DI Bacon,’ said Flyte meaningfully, before turning her gaze on Tina. ‘Let’s start with the balcony shall we.’ This was still her investigation and she wouldn’t stand for being demoted to the role of passive spectator.

The balcony was edged by a glass panel topped with a rail, and at only a couple of metres long by less than a metre deep, too small for any furniture.

Flyte indicated the steel balcony rail. ‘Was this dusted for prints and swabbed for DNA?’

‘It wasn’t requested,’ said Tina – a construction that avoided mentioning the name of Hickey, the uniformed sergeant who’d decided off his own bat that the death was non-suspicious.

‘Well let’s do it now,’ she said.

With a flicker of her heavily mascaraed eyes towards Bacon, Tina replied, ‘I can do, but after over a week of rain, pigeons et al, the chances of getting any results are close to zero.’

‘I’m quite aware of that,’ said Flyte sharply. ‘We’d have had a far better chance had it been printed and swabbed straightaway.’

Bacon dropped to his haunches with an audible ‘Oof’, and examined the gap between the concrete base and the bottom edge of the glass panel. After whipping out a tape measure he measured the base and gap above before running the tape up to the top rail.

‘One hundred and fifteen centimetres high,’ he said. ‘And the victim was only one hundred and fifty-seven centimetres, barely five foot three in old money, so even if she stood on the base, the rail would still be at chest height on her. Hard to see how a short-arse could have got herself over without anything to stand on – or a helping hand.’

Flyte nodded. Despite the questionable language his meaning was spot on.

Just inside the balcony doors she recognised the coffee table where the ‘synthetic cannabis’ had been found after Bronte’s death. She and Bacon took a seat on the sofa which looked out over the canal and he handed her printouts of the scene photos, including those showing the tabletop with its psychedelic packaging and turquoise Rizla papers, which had prompted Sergeant Hickey to mention drug use in his report as a possible contributory factor in Bronte’s supposed suicide.

‘No remains of a joint, no ashtray?’ huffed Flyte, gesturing at the photo. ‘What was Hickey thinking? That she smoked a joint and then what, flushed the stub down the toilet, washed the ashtray and put it away?!’

Bacon gave a headshake, his expression making it clear that he agreed with her. ‘I’ve told the toxicology lab to bump her samples to the top of the queue, given the public interest in the case.’

They went into the kitchen, where Flyte opened the built-in fridge-freezer. She called Tina in from the balcony and asked, ‘I assume it wasn’t empty before? What was in it?’

‘It was pretty full, actually.’

‘Here,’ said Bacon, handing her another photo. Leaning in, Tina pointed out the fridge contents, which had been snapped lined up on the worktop.

‘Bag of salad, fruit, tofu, yoghurt, a jar of mustard, vegan ice cream.’

It sounded more like the fridge of a health nut than a druggie.

Flyte tried to keep her expression neutral. It wouldn’t be fair to blame Tina for the failure to properly analyse the scene: the blame for that lay squarely with Sergeant Hickey.

Suicidal people didn’t tend to fill their fridge before topping themselves. And it would have been a challenge for a woman of Bronte’s height to scale the balcony unaided. All of which would have raised a big fat red flag with any trained detective, had Sergeant Hickey bothered to request one.

Chapter Nineteen

Early the next morning, wearing her full PPE, Cassie was once again unzipping Bronte’s body bag.

‘Here,’ she said, lifting free Bronte’s right hand, all the nails now cleaned of varnish, before angling it into the light for the benefit of Phyllida Flyte and DI Bacon who stood the other side of the open drawer. ‘See?’

The forefinger and middle fingernails were indigo, darkening to deepest purple towards the cuticle, while the third nail was a paler blue.

‘And they couldn’t have been bruised in the fall?’ asked Flyte, frowning.

‘Hard to see how,’ said Cassie. ‘All the other injuries are consistent with her falling on her left side.’

Flyte’s gaze swung to Bacon. ‘There was that gap at the bottom of the balcony, between the concrete and the glass, wasn’t there?’

Bacon nodded. ‘After she fell she must have grabbed hold of the ledge, if only for a moment. Until some bastard stamped on her fingers.’

Flyte and Bacon looked at one another for a moment, before Flyte swivelled her gaze back to Cassie. ‘So why did you only remove her nail varnish now and not at the PM?’

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