Page 109

Chapter 57

Theybegan on the first floor. Poe counted the bedrooms. Doyle’s solicitor was right – there were fifteen of them. Most now served as storage rooms, packed with heavy furniture covered in dustsheets.

‘You checked all this, I take it?’

Tai-young Lee nodded.

‘I gather you sent spaniels in?’ Poe said.

‘A search and rescue Belgian Malinois, actually,’ she said. ‘We asked for one as soon as we realised the killer couldn’t have left and the house was large enough for someone to hide in. It searched all the rooms, including the attic and crawlspaces.’

‘And the perimeter was watched while the dog was inside?’

‘It was. No one left.’

‘Was the dog interested in any of the rooms?’

‘Just the study.’

‘That’ll have been Elcid Doyle’s corpse,’ Poe said.

A resourceful person could have found somewhere to hide from the police, but not from a Belgian Malinois. They had one of the keenest senses of smell of any breed in the world, keener than English springer spaniels. They were even used to smell prostate cancer.

‘Can I see Elcid’s bedroom?’ Poe asked.

Lee led them along a corridor. They watched themselves in a gilded mirror as they approached.

Elcid Doyle’s bedroom was spacious but sparsely furnished. A four-poster bed, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe. A bedside table with a lamp and a selection of magazines.Shooting Lifeand theFieldmainly. An armchair with clothes strewn across the back, probably where Elcid had put stuff that was not yet dirty enough for the wash. It was what Poe did. Something occurred to him.

‘Who cooked and cleaned for him?’ he asked.

‘He did his own cooking but someone from the village came in a couple of times a week to clean.’

‘They’ve been interviewed?’

‘They have. Nothing. They were working in another house at the time.’

‘Does Estelle still have a bedroom here?’

‘Sort of.’

Poe raised his eyebrows.

‘I’ll show you,’ Lee said.

She guided them down yet another corridor, right to the end where there was a door with a handwritten sign. It said, ‘Keep Out!’.

‘This is Estelle’s childhood bedroom, isn’t it?’ Poe said.

‘It is.’

Poe wasn’t sure he wanted to go inside. This was an echo of her past self. It would be like stepping inside her private diary. Something very personal.

He opened the door anyway.

It looked like any teenage girl’s room. A bit gothier, judging by the band posters decorating the wall. The Sisters of Mercy. The Cult. Bauhaus. Siouxsie and the Banshees. Joy Division. A record player with a stack of vinyl beside it. A corkboard pinned with photographs and gig tickets. A dressing table with lots of black and red makeup. A pair of Dr. Martens.

There were also hints of the woman she would become. A Cambridge fencing ‘Blue’. Thick books on biology and chemistry. A walnut box containing a microscope and a tray of glass slides. A shelf with rocks and geodes. A periodic table duvet cover. There was nothing to suggest the adult Doyle had ever lived in the room.