Page 85 of Twisted Lies

She was about to ask if Dean had remarked on anything suspicious during the last few days when her phone rang.

She excused herself and walked into the hallway.

Before she answered, she heard Bryant asking the exact questions that had been in her mind.

‘Penn,’ she said.

‘Boss, about the information leak. It might be nothing, but there’s someone we think you should see.’

Seventy-Four

It was almost three when Penn pulled up in front of an end terrace on a small housing estate in Blackheath, Rowley Regis. There was no car parked outside the house, and he got the immediate impression that Jacob Powell was not at home.

Nevertheless, he parked the car and approached the front door. The old-fashioned black-and-white bell sounded in the hallway. He waited. No response. He rang again and then tried to look through the letterbox.

Beyond the front door, he could see a couple of pairs of shoes and a thick winter cardigan. He moved to the right, cupped his eyes and tried to see beyond the net curtain, but the denseness of the lace was like an impenetrable wall that probably held in as much warmth as the glass.

Penn considered for a moment. He could understand the boss wishing to speak to Jacob Powell, but they didn’t suspect the man was in any danger. Nor did they have any evidence linking him to a crime. Summoning the big key and smashing down the man’s door wasn’t really an option. Now, if there was a way to get in without causing any damage, that would be different.

He stood back to see if there was any open window, but the place appeared to be locked and secure.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he cried, stepping back as a hefty black cat appeared on the inside windowsill. Penn would swear the feline was glaring at him suspiciously.

He tried again to look beyond the net curtain, through the space which had been made by the cat, but each time he got closer to the window, the cat moved in reaction to his proximity and obscured his view.

‘Cheers, Kitty,’ he said before an idea occurred to him. He leaned down again at the letterbox, pushed it open and took a good sniff.

‘Aha, maybe,’ he said to himself as he vaulted over the waist-high fence at the side of the house.

He smiled as he reached the back door.

Gotta be worth a shot, he surmised as he judged the distance of the cat flap to the lock halfway up the door.

Most people left their key in the back door and just locked and unlocked it.

He lowered himself to the floor and pushed away the image of the black kitty clawing his hand to shreds as soon as it popped out the other side.

He slowly pushed his hand through the opening and moved his body as close to the door as he could manage. The right side of his face was pushed up against the frame. Without being able to see, he felt around in the general direction of the lock. The tip of his fingers touched on a light metal ring. Just another inch or two. He pushed himself further, his cheekbones hard against the wood, and gave one almighty stretch, getting his thumb and forefinger around the end of the key. Now he’d got hold, he knew he couldn’t turn it but had to try to pull it out. He kept his grip as horizontal as he could and pulled as a pain shot through his stretched shoulder.

He gasped with relief when the key slipped out of the lock in his hand.

He retracted his arm, stood and shook the dirt from his trousers before putting the key in the lock. He knocked the door one more time before turning the lock. For all he knew, Jacob Powell had been on a 24-hour bender and was sleeping heavily upstairs.

Still no answer, so he turned the key and stepped in.

His heart jumped as the black cat darted past his legs and ran out the door.

Penn called out again but his voice echoed around the house. The policeman in him took a good long sniff of the air. There was no scent of lingering bodies. Despite the man being a cat owner, there was no discernible smell at all.

His gaze took in the kitchen, where he found nothing out of the ordinary. For a man living alone, it looked reasonably in order.

To be sure, he moved the toaster to the right. Yeah, Jacob lived alone.

Whenever he had cleaned the kitchen down at home, he had wiped every surface and his mother would always come in and move the toaster.

‘Men clean what they see. Women clean what they can’t see,’ she would always say with a smile, he remembered fondly.

Both he and Jasper missed her terribly, but they were getting by, just one day at a time. But he did now recall that he hadn’t moved the toaster for weeks.