Preface to Murder, M Morris [best selling autobiographies TXT] 📗

She was disturbed some while later by a sharp rap on the side window of the car. Harry. Bridget wound the glass down. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s done, ma’am. Didn’t you hear it?’

‘No.’ Bridget felt a thrill, knowing now that she had been right to trust Sam and Scott. Their version of events had been shown to be true. From inside a car at the front of the house, it was impossible to hear the sound of breaking glass at the back.

She left her car and followed Harry inside the house. Jake was just coming down the stairs. ‘Did you hear it?’ she asked him.

‘Absolutely. Crystal clear.’

‘And would it have woken you up?’

‘I would say so.’

It was just as Bridget had thought. A light sleeper like Diane should definitely have woken up when the intruder broke the glass. Yet she had been found dead in her bed. There was only one possible explanation that fitted the facts. Diane had already been dead when the glass in the back door was broken.

‘Let’s go back outside,’ she said to the others.

Harry led them around to the back. There, where the pane of glass had been propped up, fragments splayed out across the flagstones, just like Bridget had seen on the kitchen floor when she’d arrived and discovered the break-in.

‘Harry, can you walk across the broken glass for me.’

He did as she asked, a puzzled look on his face.

‘Now show me the soles of your shoes.’

He leaned against the wall and lifted up his right sole.

‘I see it,’ said Jake, ‘The broken glass gets trapped in the tread of the shoe.’

‘That’s right,’ said Bridget. ‘If the intruder had walked through the broken glass, they would have picked it up on their shoes and deposited some in the rest of the house. But the SOCO report didn’t mention any glass in the carpets. Vik’s always very thorough. He would have found it if there had been any.’

Jake scratched his head. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means,’ said Bridget, ‘that the glass wasn’t smashed by the intruder on their way into the house. It was broken by them as they left.’

‘To make it look like a break-in,’ said Harry.

‘Exactly. Whoever killed Diane almost certainly had a back-door key to the house, but they broke the pane to conceal that fact.’

30

Finally, like fragments of broken glass fitting back together, pieces of the mystery were beginning to slot into place. The killer had misdirected them by pretending to break into the house while Diane was asleep. In reality they had let themselves in silently through the back door with the key, crept upstairs and plunged the poisoned syringe into Diane’s chest, killing her before she had time to respond. They had smashed the glass in the back door on their way out to conceal the fact that they possessed a key.

Now Bridget understood how they had gained entry to the garden. If the killer had a key to the back door, it was reasonable to assume they also possessed a key to the door in the back wall of the garden. They had entered the property that way, carried out the murder, and slipped away afterwards, locking the garden door after them and leaving no trace behind.

‘So we’re looking for someone who had a key to the property,’ Bridget told Jake and Harry. ‘In all likelihood, a family member. And the only relative with a clear motive to kill Diane is her son, Daniel Dunn. He inherits everything – the house, the royalties from her book sales, the lot.’

Bridget wasted no time in sending a police car round to Ian Dunn’s house to pick up his son. She hoped he hadn’t already left Oxford. Luck was on her side for once and soon after she returned to Kidlington the officers arrived with Daniel in tow.

He was clearly unhappy at having been brought into the police station under such ignominious circumstances. But Bridget didn’t care about wounded pride. The time for the softly, softly approach had run out some while back.

Daniel insisted on his right to legal representation, arranging for a lawyer from the same firm that was handling Diane’s estate. Once the lawyer had arrived and had spent ten minutes alone with his client, Bridget entered the interview room with Jake.

The lawyer was a sombre, self-effacing man in a dark grey suit who sat slightly back from Daniel as if to take a more objective view of proceedings. Bridget wondered if he’d already formed an unfavourable view of his client during Daniel’s dealings with the firm regarding his mother’s will.

She waited while Jake handed out plastic cups of tea – the best hospitality that the station could muster – and took a moment to observe Daniel Dunn. The man looked tired, as if he hadn’t been sleeping properly. A muscle just below his left eye kept twitching, and when he reached forward to pick up his tea he knocked the plastic cup, spilling some brown liquid over the table.

‘Sorry,’ he said as Jake mopped up the spillage with a paper towel. ‘Clumsy of me. This place makes me jumpy.’

‘No need to worry,’ said Bridget. ‘You’re not under arrest.’ But Daniel did seem particularly nervous. Well, she could use that to her advantage.

The lawyer cleared his throat. ‘Inspector, please could you explain why my client has been asked to come in today?’

‘We have some further questions relating to the death of his mother.’

‘Questions that couldn’t have been asked at home?’

‘Questions that may reveal new evidence or that might suggest new lines of enquiry.’

‘I see.’

The lawyer appeared to have no objections, so Bridget turned to Daniel. ‘Mr Dunn, do you