If Snow Hadn't Fallen (a Lacey Flint short story)

unusual,’ said Tulloch, joining me in the doorway. ‘Muslims don’t usually display images of people on their walls. Not even family photographs.’
    I remembered the lack of photographs in the Chowdhury home and stepped closer.
    ‘Obviously a dance fan, though,’ she went on. ‘He had two tickets to see the Rambert Dance Company three days after he died. We have no idea who he was planning to go with.’
    ‘That’s not the Rambert,’ I said, looking at the printed text in the bottom left-hand corner of the poster, then back up again at the beautiful, slender woman at its centre. ‘London City Ballet. Recent production. Do you think we can find out who she is?’
    Tulloch stepped closer and took a photograph of the poster with her phone. ‘I’m sure we can,’ she said.
    She turned to leave the room, then looked back at me. ‘What?’ she said.
    ‘Not sure,’ I replied, still looking at the poster. ‘But there’s been something bothering me about the night Aamir was killed, something I’m missing, and for some reason, being here is making me think of it again.’
    ‘Something you saw or heard but that didn’t register properly?’
    ‘Probably. It’s no good, I just can’t think.’
    ‘So don’t force it.’
    I followed her into the living room. ‘Any feminine toiletries in the bathroom?’ I asked.
    She shook her head. ‘Just male stuff.’
    ‘I still think he had a girlfriend,’ I said.
    ‘Your mysterious woman in black,’ said Tulloch. ‘Did she show up again?’
    I told her about my stake-out the previous evening. When I got to the part about the woman foraging in the bin for food, her face took on a sceptical look.
    ‘Lacey, she sounds like one of the homeless. She probably found the burka in a dustbin somewhere and is wearing it for warmth.’
    ‘So why’s she hanging around the park?’
    ‘Same reason anyone else would,’ said Tulloch. ‘Curiosity. To relieve the boredom. On the off-chance someone leaves something valuable behind amongst the tributes.’
    I thought back. The woman I’d seen, albeit cloaked in loose black robes, had looked strong and agile. Homeless people tend not to be. I was still in the bedroom doorway and my eyes went back to the ballet poster. Dancers were notoriously strong and fit.
    ‘Seriously, do you know many men who voluntarily watch modern ballet?’ I asked.
    ‘Well, not many,’ said Tulloch. ‘But I don’t tend to move in arty circles. And how many sophisticated white women would hang around a crime scene at night in very distinctive fancy dress?’
    Fair play, she had a point.
    ‘If you see her again, by all means bring her in for questioning,’ said Tulloch. ‘I do agree that it’s odd. But what we need is something concrete on some of our suspects, and we won’t get that by hunting ghosts.’
    I agreed with her. She was my boss, why wouldn’t I? But as we said goodnight on the doorstep, I was already making plans for a night of ghost-hunting.

14
    I WAITED UNTIL the park was closed before slipping in through the broken railing and making my way over the crazy cobweb of prints in the snow to the spot where the flowers lay. The tributes left immediately after Aamir’s death had all shrivelled in the cold, but a solitary red rose lay amongst them. It had been plucked from a garden, one of the rare blooms that cling on in London even into December. Its petals were scorched and limp with frost, but its colour was as vibrant as spilled blood in the moonlight.
    She brought this
, I thought.
    I bent and left my own offering. Not for Aamir, this one, but for the woman who’d loved him and who, I increasingly believed, needed my help. It was a carrier bag of food: sandwiches, fruit juice, chocolate. I’d also left a note, written in three languages with the help of Google Translate.
I won’t hurt you
, it said, in English, Urdu and Arabic.
Trust me
. And I’d included my address. With no need to hang around, I went back to my house, climbed to the roof and waited until the woman in black appeared.
    I didn’t have to wait long this time. I watched her walk across the snow, bend, open the carrier bag and find my note. She read it and stood up, startled, looking round at the houses that ran close by the park, probably knowing she was being watched.
    Which she was, and not just by me. While my attention had been fixed first of all on the package I’d left and then on her, others had gathered around the outskirts of the park, still