Page 45 of The Other Side

“Have you introduced yourself to the local shopkeepers and residents?”

If she’d read his reports, she’d know. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve been doing high-visibility patrols in all areas and dropping into businesses to introduce myself.”

“Next week, focus on familiarising yourself with local hotspots and call into a few schools.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“No need to report in person next week. Send me an overall view instead.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

What a waste of fucking time. Though he had the supermarket to look forward to.

On his way back through the squad room, the baas had been replaced by loud nasal honks and hissing. Drum ignored them. Wankers.

As well as buying food for himself and Osian, he also bought a prepaid mobile phone. Drum assumed Osian could use one.

He wasn’t in when he got back, but at the bottom of the note Drum had left, Osian had written Gone riding! xx

Two kisses. Drum swallowed hard.

He’d finished putting everything away and was setting up Osian’s phone with his contact details when he got a call on his work phone. He was being sent to do a welfare check on a Sonita Sharma. It was an unusual name and Drum suspected it was the same lady who’d not turned up for the book club meeting. She lived alone in Calver. Drum added Still working xxx to the note, then headed off again.

Although Drum’s memories of his early years had returned, he didn’t remember much about Calver, apart from walking alongside a small river for a while and feeling relieved when he’d discovered a village. He didn’t remember which door he’d knocked on or who had helped him.

Coincidence that Matthew Green’s car had been found near Calver? Coincidence that he’d disappeared just as Drum had done the opposite?

Sonita’s place was a little like the one he currently lived in. Drum walked up the path and knocked on the door. He somehow didn’t expect an answer, and he didn’t get one. He tried the knob but the door was locked. He looked through the letter box and saw a flyer and a letter on the floor inside. Drum moved around the building, looking through windows, trying the back door when he came to it, but that was locked too.

Drum knocked on the back door, louder this time. “Mrs Sharma? Police.”

Silence.

He moved back to the front of the cottage and tried to peer through a gap in the curtains. The sitting room beyond was dim. But a lamp was still on. That made him pause.

People forgot lights, but…

He contacted Control, explaining the situation, setting out his concerns. After receiving authorisation to force entry, if necessary, he returned to the front door. He looked under flowerpots for a key and tsked when he found one. So stupid.

When he opened the door, he shouted “Police!” He hoped it was something as simple as her having gone to stay with a friend but there was an odour in the air that worried him. A faint, unmistakable sickly sweetness.

Drum stopped in the hallway and listened. Nothing. No television. No footsteps. No call for help. No movement at all.

“Mrs Sharma?”

His voice seemed to disappear into the cottage.

He worked methodically, checking each room. She wasn’t downstairs. By the time he reached the landing, a cold certainty had settled over him. A bedroom door stood half-open. Drum pushed it gently with his shoe.

Sonita Sharma was in bed. At first glance she appeared to be sleeping. The duvet was pulled up neatly over her and her hands rested by her sides, but the pillow under her head was askew. His stomach tightened. He approached without touching anything.

A bedside table had been knocked askew. One slipper lay beneath the dressing table while the other was near the bed. Small details, but details that maybe suggested a tussle or that someone had moved her to the bed.

Drum crouched beside her. Her skin looked pale and waxy. He tried to find a pulse in her neck, just in case. Nothing. She was cold to the touch. Her hair… Had a piece been cut? Something didn’t look right. Drum carefully pushed up one eyelid and could see tiny red spots in the white of her eye. Petechiae. It was too early for conclusions, but the petechiae, the hair, the displaced pillow and the signs of disturbance all pointed in the same direction. Someone had held the pillow over her face until she stopped struggling, then carefully replaced it beneath her head. And taken a lock of hair as a souvenir.

His heart thumped. Another room upstairs he’d not checked. A mistake. He should have secured the scene. His safety was an issue too. Drum backed away using the exact same path he’d used to enter the bedroom to try and minimise any footprint contamination. Then looked in the second bedroom, which was empty. As was the spotless bathroom, though he noticed a small collection of grey hairs on the floor by the toilet. Drum had once trimmed his sideburns, chucked the hair away, then found he’d not picked up all of it. Could be nothing. Could be something.

Drum pressed the emergency button on his radio. There was enough to suggest this was a suspicious death.