Page 86 of Twisted Lies

He stepped out of the kitchen and into the lounge, which looked out onto the road.

At eye level, everything appeared reasonably clean and tidy, if a little dated – until his gaze landed on the rug in the middle of the room, where he saw a hammer beside an Apple Mac that had been smashed to smithereens.

Seventy-Five

The home of Amelia Dixon lay on the outskirts of Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare, and looked to be a three- to four-bed semi, with a small gravel driveway. A property that was around £300,000 in the Black Country easily sold for half a million on Alcester Road.

Although Kim admired the process-of-elimination detective work Penn and Stacey had done, she wondered if the one-hour drive from the Black Country would yield any better results than the smashed-up computer Penn had just called her about.

She had instructed him to call Mitch and get the experts at Ridgepoint to have a look. She didn’t doubt Stacey’s ability to interrogate the laptop, providing it was all in one piece, but trying to put it back together first was another matter entirely.

‘You do know this woman could have left for any number of reasons?’ Bryant asked, parking the car and voicing her own misgivings; but it was a lead, of sorts, and needed to be ruled out.

Kim knocked the door and got her ID ready. Amelia Dixon certainly wasn’t expecting a late-afternoon call from police officers.

The woman who answered the door was in her early fifties and wore her hair in an auburn bob that curled around her face and ended at jaw level. The telltale signs of grey peeped out from the side parting.

‘Ms Dixon?’

She nodded.

Kim held up her ID. ‘May we come in for a minute?’

She didn’t move. ‘What’s this about?’

‘It’s in relation to your former employment, Ms Dixon,’ Kim said, hoping that would be enough to get them through the door.

It did, and she opened the door reticently.

The first thing Kim noted was the overwhelming smell of dog. It was a smell she was used to in a lesser quantity; keeping her own home stink free proved a challenge, made worse after a walk in the rain, but this was way stronger.

The woman stepped aside and held the door open for her and Bryant to enter a hallway that, although spacious, was a little dingy. The paintwork was scuffed, and the wallpaper was starting to peel in the corners. The space held a distinctive smell that Kim knew well.

One of the reasons for that smell came bounding towards them.

‘Sorry, that’s Lucky, my eldest,’ Ms Dixon said, as though talking about a child.

Kim stroked the head of the cream Labrador.

The woman opened the door into a small lounge where a further five dogs of varying size and shapes came hurtling towards the door.

‘Kitchen,’ she said, stepping aside then closing the door behind them. ‘My rescues,’ she explained, and Kim couldn’t help but warm to her slightly. She appreciated anyone who could find it in their hearts to give a rescue dog a home, let alone six of them.

‘May we?’ Kim asked, pointing to the sofa.

‘Go ahead if you don’t mind dog hairs on your clothes. That’s Bertie’s spot, and he moults.’

Kim sat. If the worst thing she got on her clothes today was dog hair, life wouldn’t be so bad.

‘Nice photo,’ Bryant said, pointing to the mantelpiece.

Kim noted the framed picture at one end of the fireplace and a candle in the middle.

‘Yes, that’s Lucky, who you met at the door. My husband used to walk her along the river every day.’

‘I’m sorry for—’

‘Oh no. Don’t be. He’s not dead. He had a midlife crisis two years ago and decided to refresh everything in his life. Twenty-three years and nothing to show for it. But that’s history so—’