Page 29 of No Safe Place

Thursday | Morning

Field

Callum Mulligan’s house was small and unremarkable.

The search was well underway. DI Bellamy was co-ordinating the joint effort between Forensics and PolSA – the Police Search Advisors – who were already taking each room apart, an item at a time.

Field moved between them, trying not to get in the way. While they searched for a weapon, for evidence, she wasn’t looking for anything specific. Field wanted to understand what made Callum tick.

She’d noted Callum’s movements last night. Right-handed. Next check would need to be the girlfriend.

Even with all Dr Simon Dawes’ insight into OCD from yesterday, and despite knowing that it wasn’t just about being tidy, Field was shocked at how messy the house was.

It reminded her of student accommodation – drawers overspilling with junk, scuffed skirting boards, walls covered with posters and postcards.

And there were books everywhere. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases covered a wall in the little living room, at the front of the house. There were food-splattered cookbooks in the narrow kitchen, and boxes of books from the cupboard under the stairs were being picked through, pages rifled one by one.

Field was looking for one book in particular.

It always helped to get people talking about the easy topics when they were in shock.

Stunned and blood-spattered up to the elbows on his sofa, Field had asked Callum what he did for work.

He told her he was a writer, a novelist. She assumed that was code for ‘unemployed’ – but a quick google of his name had thousands of results.

A Guardian article described his novel as The Bell Jar meets The Breakfast Club.

Field couldn’t find Callum’s book on any of the shelves downstairs. There were none on display anywhere.

PolSA hadn’t made it upstairs yet. There were two doors on either side of the hallway, leading to the bedrooms. The first Field tried smelled of perfume, and the floor was covered in women’s clothes.

She found Callum’s book on the windowsill, sandwiched between Perks of Being a Wallflower and Looking For Alaska – both novels she recognised from Toby’s teenage reading.

Field picked up the slim purple paperback.

Darlings, Obsessed by C. Mulligan.

She turned it over. Instead of a blurb on the back cover there was a long list of praise from newspapers, and people Field had never heard of. She opened it to the dedication page.

For P