Looking Good Dead

empty plastic bucket and scrubbing brush on the floor by the bath.
    His eyes roamed the bedroom, taking everything in, as another white-clad SOCO member busily dusted all surfaces for prints. He looked at the cedar chest at the end of the small double bed, the scattered cushions on the bed, the long antique wooden mirror on a stand, the closed Venetian blinds, the two bedside lamps, switched on, the mirrored wardrobe doors opposite the bed. He could see the spots on the wall which the killer had been too careless to wipe off. Or maybe the killer had just given up with the stains on the carpet – or been startled in the midst of his clean-up.
    Yet the bucket looked spotless, as did the scrubbing brush.
    Another enigma.
    Bins came into the room and rubbed up against Grace’s leg. He stroked the cat again, absently. Then, prompted by Tindall staring upwards, he suddenly noticed the mirrored ceiling above the bed.
    ‘A little unusual, wouldn’t you say?’ the SOCO said.
    ‘That’s well kinky,’ Branson commented. ‘Yeah!’
    ‘Maybe she had a bad back,’ Grace offered, tongue in cheek. ‘And it was the only way she could see to put on her make-up.’
    ‘There’s more,’ the SOCO added, opening the chest at the end of the bed.
    Grace and Branson peered in. To Grace’s amazement it was full of artefacts he would have expected to have found in an SM dungeon.
    Even without disturbing the contents he could see a whip, handcuffs,a full rubber face mask, several other restraints including a studded dog collar that had clearly not been designed with a dog in mind, a reel of duct tape, a bamboo cane and an assortment of vibrators.
    Grace whistled. ‘I think you’ve found her toy box.’
    ‘Whatever floats your boat, right?’ Joe Tindall said.
    Grace knelt and peered in more closely. ‘Anything else?’
    ‘Yeah, in her bedside table about twenty recent porn magazines. Serious, hard stuff.’
    Grace and Branson took a quick glance through the collection of magazines. Men on women, women on women, men on men and various permutations. Despite the circumstances Grace felt a prick of lust as he flicked through some of the women on women pages; he couldn’t help it and in truth was quite pleased that at long last, after all these years, feelings, wants, were coming back to him.
    ‘Is this kind of shit normal ?’ Glenn Branson asked.
    ‘I’ve found porn in plenty of men’s cupboards before,’ Tindall said. ‘Don’t often find it in a woman’s.’
    Grace wandered away from the two men and walked around the whole flat on his own. He wanted to get the feel of the place. And the more he walked round, the more it did not feel homely.
    He remembered the architect Le Corbusier saying that houses were machines for living in. That’s what this place felt like. It was spotlessly clean. There was a fresh Toilet Duck freshener in the lavatory in the en suite bathroom; the sink was gleaming, all the toiletries, bar an electric toothbrush and a whitening paste, stored in the bathroom cabinets. The place was incredibly clean – for a student.
    He contrasted her bedroom here with the one at her father’s house, with the poster on the wall, the stuffed toys, the collection of shells, the books; you could form an image of the person from that room, but not from this one.
    Grace went through into the living room and, using his handkerchief, pressed the last number redial on the phone. It rang a few times, then he got the voicemail of the firm of solicitors where Janie had worked. He then dialled 1471 to check the last incoming number, but it was withheld. Next he pressed the message play button on the answering machine. The cat stood near him, but he did not notice it. He was staring at a framed photograph of Janie on the desk beside themachine. She was in a long evening gown against a background of what looked like Glyndebourne opera house. Interesting, he noted, that all the photographs of her seemed to be very posed. The machine whirred for some moments, then he heard a rather bland woman’s voice.
    ‘Oh, er – hello, Janie, this is Susan, Mr Broom’s secretary. It’s quarter past eleven on Wednesday. Mr Broom was expecting you in at eight o’clock this morning to work with him on finishing the briefing notes to counsel. Can you please give me a call.’
    Grace wrote the details down in his notebook.
    There was another, similar message from the same woman, two hours later, then at three thirty in the afternoon a