Harry Garner ran his fingers through his remaining hair, sighed, ‘I don’t get it, Cush. What aren’t we seeing?’

Davie Cushman shrugged, looked away, made busy fumbling at the catch on the window. Harry wanted to tell him it was no good. He could see from where he was standing that the window was painted shut, that the room hadn’t been aired in years and that nothing would rid the room of the lingering, bitter aftertaste of death which now filled it. He wrinkled his nose. Inhaled a breath of the stagnant air. Felt it catch at the back of his throat. Tasted acrid. Hellish. A low booming bass note which underscored everything, even the high-pitched twang of the Vicks which Cushman had so liberally applied and the chorus line of the rotting food left out in the kitchen for what? Hours? Days? That smell had remained even after Copestake, the coroner, had rather unceremoniously carried off the body on a gurney which boasted one warped wheel. A warped wheel which rattled and squealed in complaint and struck Harry as just about the saddest aspect of the Colonel’s untimely demise. Hardly a fitting send-off for a war hero.

But then, this bungalow was hardly a home for a hero either. It was sparsely decorated. What furniture there was looked badly worn and sunbleached. The sofa sagged badly. A sad lightshade in the corner hung its head apologetically. There was no TV, just an old radio on the mantlepiece. The coffee table looked as though it was only being held together by a few strategically-placed bits of masking tape. That and these weird foam things which covered the corners. They reminded him of when Terri, his girl had been little and his ex, Rebecca, had covered up all the sharp edges on the furniture in the front room so she didn’t bang into them and cut herself.

‘What aren’t we seeing?’ he repeated. ‘We got no signs of forced entry. Front door, the only entry and egress route locked from the inside. Nobody could have got in, and the Colonel couldn’t very well have smashed his own head in, could he? So what happened here?’

‘It’s your typical locked-room mystery,’ said Davie Cushman, who read rather too many crime-thrillers for his own good. Thought of himself as a regular Rebus apart from when it came to actually getting his hands dirty. ‘At least we got the murder weapon though, eh?’ He held up the large, clear zip-locked bag, stared at it as though willing it to speak. The murder weapon stared dumbly back at him. Of course it did, it was an inanimate object, a cane, though in the intruder’s hands it had become something much more deadly. Until the cane was taken off for fingerprinting it could tell them no more.

He wrinkled his nose once more. Something about the smell struck him as strange. It seemed to be getting stronger. Suddenly he felt it, with a tingle and then a lurch in his stomach, the knowledge rushed through him. He hadn’t sensed it before. Before, the show-stealing scene in the front room had overtaken his every sense. He couldn’t look beyond those black blood-slicked walls, the greyish brain-spray which puddled on the carpet as far away as the back wall, the look of utter incomprehension on the victim’s face as though his final thought was I lived through the Blitz, I stormed the beach at Normandy and all for this, so I could have my head smashed in by a ruddy cane? Harry hadn’t even considered there might be another body because why would there be one? He hadn’t looked for a wife because there was so little evidence of a woman’s touch – no ornaments, no cushions, no flowers – he’d simply assumed there wasn’t one. In all of the accumulated post on the doormat, there was nothing addressed to a Mrs. Sparrow, or a Colonel and Mrs. Sparrow.

‘There’s another body,’ he said. ‘Has to be.’

Cushman gulped.

‘Did you check the bedroom?’

Cushman shook his head mournfully. ‘There was no need… The body was here and… Harry, it was locked… I’m…’

Before his partner could apologise, Harry covered the length of the room in three long strides. Shouldered the bedroom door. Felt the lock give and then he stumbled into the room. It was pitch dark inside, but his other senses took over. He gagged at the ammonia stink which hit him like a train. Had to step back and then force himself to go back through the door, reaching for the wall, trying to locate the light switch, his blind, flailing arm brushing through a cobweb. He groped further, finally fingering the plastic panel which surrounded the switch. The plastic had a strange, mottled effect to it.

Light burst into the room, shone directly down took onto the barracks-style bed, onto the old woman who was lying bound and gagged on top of it, her dirty pink nightgown cold-compressed against her legs. Her face was wet with tears. There was a streak of dried blood on her cheek. He lowered his head, tried to listen for her breathing. He saw, or thought he saw, her chest move. And then she jerked her head around. He looked into her rheumy eyes.

‘Mrs Sparrow?’

She flinched.

He held up his hands to indicate he meant her no harm. Her only reaction was to shiver.

‘Cushman?’ he shouted through into the front room. ‘Come and help me… We’ve got a live one in here.’

‘Oh my God,’ breathed Cushman as he entered the room. The smell emanating from Mrs Sparrow almost had him darting back to the front room window before Harry shot out a hand and held him back. The poor old dear only looked on insensibly. There was nothing in her milky eyes to indicate she even knew where or who she was.

Between them, they removed her gag and binds. Every time either of them made contact with her, she jumped, as though shocked. As though she hadn’t been expecting it. And finally Harry understood. The woman wasn’t simply suffering from trauma, she was blind. And the fact she couldn’t see herself, the bestial condition to which she’d descended, somehow only served to make everything seem worse.

‘Are you okay Mrs Sparrow? How long have you been in here?’ asked Cushman.

She shook her head. Then, in a reedy voice, said, ‘My Alfie’s gone, hasn’t he?’

Harry closed his eyes. ‘He didn’t make it.’

‘Then I can go out dancing tonight,’ she said, her face collapsing into a terrible parody of a smile. Amongst the many unusual reactions to being informed of the death of a loved one, this was by far the strangest Harry had heard, but then, as he reflected, how was she supposed to react after all that time tied up in here, swimming in her own urine? He reached out and took her hand. Squeezed. She squeezed back and he was surprised by the strength in her fingers. He was also taken aback by how calloused her hands were, but then, he decided that was probably as a result of using her hands to see, running them across all kinds of surfaces, the rough and the smooth.

This awful scene was definitely the rough. Harry had never seen Cushman look so pale.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll get the bast… The man who did this to you,’ he said.

‘Never mind dear,’ said Mrs Sparrow. He watched as a single tear pooled at the corner of her unseeing eye. And suddenly he wanted so very much to be able to give her some measure of her dignity back. He wanted to let her clean herself up a little. What harm would it do to let her have a bath? He knew he should call for a female officer to attend to her, but she seemed so… So pathetic, like a broken bird.

‘Would you like to wash-up?’ he asked her.

She nodded gratefully. ‘That would be… Thank you, detective. So then I can be ready for the dancing later.’

He didn’t correct her, didn’t tell her there’d likely be no dancing, not ever again. As he led her to the bathroom, she leaned on his arm all the way, her weight, flimsy as it was, swaying his moral compass, assuring him that this was the only civilised course of action. ‘You’ve got a good arm,’ she said, ‘you’d make a good dancing partner.’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said. He sat her down on the toilet and started to run the taps. Steam quickly filled the room, coating everything in a murky gloom. He blinked across at her. She was staring off into the middle distance, her head cocked to one side. It was strange, even though he knew she was blind, she looked as though she was studying something intently. He looked away, tested the water with his elbow as one would for a small baby. It seemed just the right temperature.

‘Mrs Sparrow,’ he said, standing up, ‘the bath’s full now, would you…’

She coughed. Looked embarrassed.

He quickly realised his mistake. ‘Oh… Sorry. I didn’t… I’ll… We’ll be outside. In the front room.’

‘Thank you,’ she breathed.

Harry smiled and walked back out into the front room. Now when he looked around it, it seemed somehow to make more sense. Of course everything was arranged with a kind of military precision. Mrs Sparrow was blind, probably had to memorise where everything was just to avoid tripping over it. Of course there was a lack of all the usual accoutrements which made up a womanly home. She had no need for them, couldn’t see them.

He joined Cushman at the window, looked out onto the carefully manicured lawns. There was a group of grey-looking old folk gathered behind the blue crime scene tape. One of them offered a wave and Harry nodded back.

‘What do you think?’ asked Cushman. ‘Is she a suspect? I mean, you said it yourself, nobody could have got in…’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ shot back Harry. ‘She’s blind, man. And what did she do after offing her husband? Lock herself away in the bedroom, tie herself up for days… And that’s without even considering motive. What motive could she have possibly had?’

Cushman shrugged. ‘When you’ve eliminated the impossible… And nobody could have got in. Maybe her hubbie didn’t take her dancing any more…’

‘All that reading mean you fancy yourself as a Sherlock Holmes does it Cush?’

‘No… I…’

‘Stick to what you’re good at. Put the kettle on.’

Cushman left the room rather sulkily. Harry renewed his efforts to gather evidence. Now more than ever he wanted to find the man responsible for these unspeakable crimes. He dusted the door handle for prints, he combed the carpet for fibres, he studied the pattern of blood spatter for clues. He was inspecting the rack of well-polished shoes by the door when Mrs Sparrow emerged from the bathroom wearing a tatty old man’s dressing gown. His heart almost broke when he saw how she’d tried to apply make-up. Thankfully, she seemed to have located the streak of blood on her cheek and had washed it away.

‘Are you ready to tell us everything you might have… heard?’ he asked.

She sighed, and nodded. Felt for the edge of the sofa and awkwardly sat down. Cushman came back from the kitchen with a steaming cup of tea. Placed it on the coffee table. ‘It’s just by your, um, right hand, Mrs Sparrow.’

‘Thank you.’

Harry took her hand again. ‘We’re going to ask you some questions now, but please, if you feel it’s getting too much, just tell us to stop. Do you understand?’ A nod. A brief whimper of agreement. ‘Okay. Now, let’s start from the beginning. Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to… Could have had reason to do the Colonel or yourself any harm?’

Cushman pulled out his spiral-bound notepad, his pen hovered over the paper.

‘There’s nobody.’

‘And do you have any valuables on the premises which might have led someone to, you know, want to burglarise the property?’

She shook her head, seemed to stare right down at the black bloodstain on the carpet. He should have put a rug down or something. Covered it up. He had to remind himself she wasn’t actually seeing the blood, wasn’t studying the X-marks the spot where her poor old husband had been brutally murdered.

‘What about around town? Is there anybody…’

‘Oh, we never go…’ A sniff. ‘We never went anywhere. Never met anybody. Our shopping got delivered for us by Roger. Roger’s an old friend of Alfie’s from his forces days. We never went out to the dancing or to the bingo, we never went for walks along the canal.’ A shrug. ‘Alfie… he gets… got upset sometimes. About how the town’s gone, you see. He didn’t like all this modern gubbins. All this change. He liked things better before.’

‘Ah,’ said Harry, feeling the first flutterings of something in his belly. ‘Right. That makes sense. Have you seen… heard of any kids hanging around, causing trouble, anything like that?’

‘There’s nobody… Only the other people in the bungalows, but everybody keeps to themselves around here.’

Cushman sighed, tapped his pen on the edge of the notepad.

‘Okay, well, we’ll come back to that line of questions later… Maybe you’ll remember something. But now, I’m afraid, we’ll have to move on to the hard part. As I said, this will be difficult for you…’

She blew on her tea. ‘Go ahead. Let’s get this over with, please. Then we can go dancing.’

‘Copestake, he’s the coroner, has estimated a rough time of… He reckons, judging by the rotting food in the kitchen and by… by other reckonings, that the, uh, incident, the break-in, must have taken place three to five days ago. Of course, later, he’ll be able to be more accurate, once he’s… Well, done more tests. Does three to five days sound about right, Mrs Sparrow? Was that about the length of time you were trapped in that back bedroom?’

She shivered involuntarily.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean…’

‘That’s okay, son. You’re just doing your job. Yes, that sounds about right, although it’s quite hard to tell when it’s so dark.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought it mattered if it was light or dark,’ interjected Cushman. ‘I mean, it’s not like it makes any difference to you, is it?’

Harry shot him a warning look. Then returned his gaze to the Colonel’s widow. As he did so, he caught a brief flicker in her eyes. He wondered whether she’d been blind since birth, whether she’d had to suffer the prejudice of supposedly well-read men like Cushman all her life. Her apparent love of dancing suggested she might have lost her sight more recently. Whatever. Perhaps for once, her blindness was a blessing. At least she couldn’t see the stains all over the carpet, the splatters on the wall.

‘And I had no idea whether I’d even get out of there at all,’ she continued. ‘I mean, nobody ever calls round here, apart from Alfie’s friend with the shopping and he’s not due until… What day is it today?’

‘Friday,’ said Harry. ‘It was Alfie’s friend who alerted us to the fact there was a problem… He called us this morning.’

‘Oh… Oh dear. That can’t have been nice for Peter.’

‘Can’t be nice for you, either,’ said Harry.

‘So, three to five days ago. Did you hear anything?’ pressed Cushman. ‘You must have heard something. Come on Mrs…’

And Harry felt something within him snap. The anger he’d been trying to bite back ever since he’d found her body trussed up like that – since before then, even; since he’d first stepped through the front door and into that sad, sad front room – suddenly rose up like bile in his throat. He felt his Adam’s Apple gulp up, down, trying to swallow the hatred back down into himself. But it was too much now. Bitterness filled his mouth, over-whelmed his taste buds. And it wasn’t only because of Cushman’s rather brickbat line of questioning. Nor because of all the ills of the modern world, that something like this could happen. No, deep down he knew the object of this bilious anger was himself. It was the guilt talking. Or belching, retching up things best forgotten. Things about himself. It was the guilt talking, reminding him that his own mother had died in a bungalow which was almost identical to this one, a bungalow which Harry had found just about every excuse possible not to visit, until it was too late. Until she’d been dead two weeks in the back bedroom. And sure he’d tried to call her twice, three times even, but he’d not pressed it. He’d not called the warden after, not asked whether he could go round and check up on his mother. Hadn’t even thought of going round there himself to check. Had been too wrapped up in the job. In the everyday politics of promotions, targets, figures, paperwork. In collating evidence. Sometimes evidence was given too much prominence these days, when what was really needed was a little more of the human touch. The simple look into someone’s eyes, into someone’s soul. Reading what had really gone on. And Harry knew, beyond a shadow, what had gone on here. It didn’t need one of Cush’s Sherlock stories to tell him that.

The woman had been through enough. The questioning could wait. All of it could wait. ‘Stop,’ he breathed. ‘Just stop, Cush.’

But Cushman continued scribbling in that oh so proper notebook of his. Harry felt another jolt of anger coursing through him. He glanced at Mrs. Sparrow and saw his poor old mother sitting there, crooked into the chair. And although her eyes were milky and unseeing, he thought he saw a trace of hope in them. Hope that he would come through for her. Stop all this.

Dignity. He had to give her back her dignity. Barely knowing what he was doing, he climbed to his feet. He loomed over Cushman, hoping that would be enough to stop his interminable writing. What the hell was he writing? Nobody was talking now. Just stop… Leave her alone… Now…

He reached out and grabbed first the notepad and then the pen out of Cushman’s hands. Cushman wrenched his head up, looked at him with eyes full of surprise. But they were seeing eyes, young eyes.

‘Sir?’

Without another thought, Harry tossed notepad and pen onto the floor by the shoe rack. Now Cushman’s mouth flapped open and closed like a grounded fish. Mrs. Sparrow’s head creaked round at the noise.

He went to her. Placed a consoling hand on her knee. With the other he helped her find her mug of tea. ‘Look, I don’t feel right doing this. Not at all, Mrs Sparrow,’ he whispered. ‘We shouldn’t be asking you all these questions. Not now. We can do this another time, when you’re feeling more up to it.’

Cushman tutted loudly, made a big show of bending down to retrieve his pen and notepad. The pen rolled away from him and under the shoe rack.

‘Another time,’ repeated Harry. ‘Once you’ve rested, got your head around everything. Once you’ve got over the shock.’

‘If you’re sure, love,’ said Mrs Sparrow. She took a deep slurp from her tea.

He reached up, touched her shoulder. Gently did it. He didn’t want to scare her out of what was left of her mind. ‘Of course I’m sure. There are other areas of investigation we can be concentrating on… Listen, is there anyone who you can call to be with you tonight? Anyone we can call for you? You shouldn’t be on your own…’

‘Oh, I like it on my own just fine,’ she mused. ‘I’ll manage, I’m sure.’

‘Right,’ said Harry, creaking to his feet. He made no move to leave though, kept looking down on the poor old woman with something bordering on love in his eyes.

‘Right,’ said Mrs Sparrow, taking another slurp from her tea.

‘If you find my pen, save it for me,’ said Cushman. Harry caught the glare of accusation Cushman sent his way. Ignored it.

‘Mrs Sparrow, we’ll do everything we can,’ he said, adding a note of surety to his voice. To give her hope.

She only nodded.

Sighing, Harry walked Cushman to the front door, turned, his hand resting on the jamb. ‘And you’re sure you’ll be okay.’

‘Course I will. Like Fort Knox this place,’ she said, and then her face collapsed into that terrible parody of a smile once again.

Harry rapped a knuckle on the heavy door. ‘That it is.’ Touched the two locks, rattled the chain. ‘Make sure you put the chain on, mind.’

‘Ooooh, don’t fuss so,’ she said, and then, as though remembering something important, she raised a finger, adding, ‘And when you come back, will we go dancing? Alfie never wanted to go dancing.’

‘We’ll go dancing,’ said Harry, wistfully. ‘Of course we’ll go dancing. I’d never forget something like that.’

Cushman gave an elaborate sigh and pushed through the door. Harry cast one last lingering look back at the newly widowed old woman on the sunken sofa in her man’s dressing gown. ‘Poor thing,’ he whispered, so low she surely couldn’t hear. And then he closed the door, followed his partner up the regimentally brushed, weedless path. Cushman was holding the blue crime scene tape up ready for him to limbo under.

He took one last look back before he ducked down under the tape. Saw a small gap in the door which he’d only just closed. Mrs Sparrow peeking through it. She appeared to be holding something in her left hand.

‘Detective?’ she shouted, her voice shrill in the afternoon air. ‘I found that pen you were looking for…’

‘How the hell did she do that?’ groaned Cushman.

Harry shook his head. Cushman with all his Sherlock Holmes questions. Honestly, when would he ever learn the real skills of policing? ‘You’d better go get it,’ he told his partner. ‘And make sure you thank her, properly.’

Dutifully, Cush headed back to the door.

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