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‘Have you spoken to the sister? Mackenzie, is it?’
She makes a face. ‘Ah, the sister. I think Holloway may have dropped the ball on that one.’
He gives her a quizzical look.
‘Turns out the Brit she’s married to is Alistair Stirling.’
‘Why is that ringing a bell?’
Bradley sighs. ‘Because he lives at Tichborne Farm.’
Asante makes the connection. ‘Which was on the house-to-house, right?’
‘Right. I’ve looked back at Holloway’s notes, such as they are, and to be fair, there is a mention of a sister-in-law staying at the house in mid-June, but nothing about her being American. If I were inclined to cut him some slack I’d say it’s an easy mistake to make, but I’m not, so I won’t. Either way, we need to get out there ASAP. That house could be our crime scene.’ She hesitates. ‘Maybe you want to come? I mean, I was going to take Bell –’
‘No, I’ll come.’
She nods. ‘I’ll meet you there if that’s OK. I’m meeting someone later – some swish new seafood place in Cheltenham. Too much information, but basically it just means I need to get changed here first.’
He grins. ‘Hot date?’
She gives him a wry look. ‘I wish. It’s just an old school friend. The nearest I get to a hot date these days is the kind Mary Berry wraps in bacon.’
***
As he turns into Snowshill Road, Asante can see Bradley’s Mini, parked just out of view of Tichborne Farm, but she’s out of the car and coming towards him before he’s even opened his door. He’d been wondering about her off-duty wardrobe and is intrigued to see it’s just up a notch from what he sees her in all week – trousers a bit tighter, shirt a bit silkier, heels a bit higher.
‘You look cool,’ she says as he locks up. ‘As in not as hot and bothered as me, before you take it as too much of a compliment. It was like an oven in that car. I reckon the bloody air-con’s on the blink again.’
He smiles. ‘At the risk of sounding like Prince Andrew, I don’t really sweat.’
She looks at him over her sunglasses. ‘Donotgo there.’
It’s Alistair Stirling who opens the door.
Asante flips open his warrant card. ‘DS Asante, Thames Valley, DS Bradley, South Mercia Police.’
‘This is about Robin, right? My father-in-law called.’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’
‘Sorry but Mack isn’t here. She’s on her way back from London.’
He lets them in and Bradley stops a moment in the lobby, taking in the space. The floor immediately above has been sacrificed for a soaring double-height living area, with a gallery running round connecting upstairs wings on either side. There’s a stove with a polished chrome chimney right up one wall, exposed brick walls, stone floors, and bifold doors opening on to the garden on the far side. A golden retriever is lying panting on the patio, as dogs always do, in the full glare of the sun. If Robin Tierney was killed here, there’s no sign of it now.
They take a seat and Asante flips through his notes. ‘When our colleagues were here before, you said you were in Cornwall from May 27th to June 17th, is that right?’
‘Right.’
‘So you never actually saw your sister-in-law when she was here.’
Stirling rubs one eye with the heel of his hand; he looks tired. ‘No. Like I told them before, she was supposed to be here when we got home but she WhatsApped Mack to say she had to go back to the States. Some work thing.’
‘Do you happen to know what that was? She was a journalist, right?’
‘She was, but she moved into research a couple of years ago. That was the bit of the job she always liked, rather than the writing. She said it was like being paid to be nosy.’
‘What was she working on recently, do you know?’