A Silent Death by Peter May (top books to read .txt) 📗

area on two levels, and acres of sliding glass that opened on to the terrace beyond, with its view of the sea.

Cristina found herself almost afraid to breathe, and could barely bring herself to look at the large patch of red-brown that stained the marble tiles. She could not help stepping over it, almost as if the body were still there, haunting her, blaming her as Cleland had done.

‘Is this the master bedroom?’ Mackenzie asked, as he pushed open the door to their left. Cristina nodded mutely and followed him in. It was where Angela had passed the last moments of her life.

It was a large room, its cold marble floor strewn with handmade Chinese rugs. Through French windows it had its own terrace that gave on to the garden at the side. A glass table and two chairs stood on the terrace. Cristina imagined Cleland and Angela sitting drinking coffee first thing, enjoying the warmth of early morning sunshine on this east-facing side of the house. She wondered what they had talked about. How much Angela had known about what he did, or who he really was. They would probably never know.

Mirrored wardrobe doors that rose from floor to ceiling reflected a king-size bed, fully made up. The couple had left earlier in the day, not expecting to return that night. Why had they come back? Forensics officers had been through every centimetre of the place, every cupboard, every drawer, every hidden space, but all they had found that might have brought Cleland back was a folder lying on the desk in his study. And all it contained were colour catalogues of luxury yachts, pictures and prices, names, addresses and phone numbers of agents. Had Cleland been a prospective purchaser?

Mackenzie slid open the wardrobe doors. Angela’s clothes hung on one side, Cleland’s on the other. She had far fewer than he. ‘Looks like he’d been living here longer than her,’ he said. ‘Do we know where and when they met?’

Cristina shook her head.

Mackenzie ran his hands along the softness of the hanging trousers and jackets, stopping from time to time to examine labels, then crouching to cast his eyes over the rows of polished shoes tilted along racks on the floor. He could feel Cleland here, smell him. The body oils exuded by the skin, his aftershave, his cologne, as though he had just stepped out a few minutes earlier.

‘He liked his clothes,’ he said. ‘Image-conscious. Designer labels. Italian shoes. Not cheap. How much did he pay in rental for this place?’

‘Five thousand a month.’

Mackenzie raised an eyebrow. ‘And maybe as much on clothes by the look of it. What was he driving?’

‘Mercedes. A-Class.’

Mackenzie nodded. ‘If they haven’t already done so, it would be a good idea for forensics to check the addresses listed in his sat-nav. I wonder where he did his banking.’

‘The financial people said Templeton had an account at the Banco Popular in Sabanillas.’

‘I bet there wasn’t much in it.’

‘About twenty thousand apparently.’ Which seemed a lot to Cristina.

Mackenzie nodded again. ‘It’s not where Cleland did his banking though. He would almost certainly have had several accounts at different banks under various names. I don’t suppose forensics found bank statements?’

‘Only for the account in Sabanillas.’

They moved on, then, to the living space at the front of the villa with its open-plan dining area and an impressively equipped kitchen. Mackenzie crouched to bring his eyes level with the black granite work surface on the island, then stood up to sheaf through the chopping boards stacked at one end. He removed several kitchen knives from their wooden block and examined the cutting edges.

Cristina watched in silence as he looked in each of the drawers and opened the doors of all the wall cabinets, before examining the contents of the big American fridge plumbed in for ice on tap. She had no idea what he was looking for.

‘I would have loved a kitchen like this,’ he said. ‘I’d have made better use of it than Cleland.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean he was no cook. The work tops are pristine, chopping boards unused. His knives are razor-sharp, suggesting that unless he was obsessive about keeping them sharpened, they’ve had only very occasional use. There’s precious little in the way of food in the house, so apart from breakfast they probably ate out most of the time, or had food delivered. If we find out where he ate, we might learn who he ate with – apart from Angela. Known associates. It’s a starting point.’

None of this, Cristina realized, would ever have occurred to her, and she found herself grudgingly impressed.

Mackenzie spent the next twenty minutes just wandering around the house, touching things, picking them up, laying them down, absorbing Cleland through his personal possessions, while Cristina followed at a discreet and silent distance.

In the study he went through all the desk drawers. The shallow topmost drawer contained pens and pencils, an eraser, a sharpener, paperclips, a small screwdriver and some loose coins.

Cristina said, ‘Forensics took his computer, and the folder, and all of his documents, as well as the contents of the bin. Apparently it was full of strips of paper from a shredder.’

Mackenzie ran his eye quickly around the room and spotted the shredder sitting on a cabinet against the back wall, next to a laser printer. Beside the printer a white cylindrical object with rounded edges encased in a fine mesh, stood about seven inches high. He crossed to examine it. Coloured lights flashed on its top surface when he touched it.

‘What is it?’ Cristina came to stand beside him, inclining her head to look at it with curiosity.

‘It’s an Apple HomePod. They might have taken his computer, but if this is still connected to the internet his music is probably in the cloud.’

Cristina had no idea what he was talking about.

Mackenzie said suddenly, ‘Hey, Siri. Resume.’ And immediately the room was filled with the sound of a dead man’s voice. Luciano Pavarotti’s soaring rendition of Puccini’s ‘Nessun