The door-to-door enquiries yielded very little of
interest, with the exception of Sarah Cooper, an attractive divorced Accountant
who lived in one of the slightly less grand properties in close proximity to
the Mackay residence, and it was one of the doors that DI Steve Cutler knocked
on.
“Yes?” she said after opening the door
“DI Cutler Nettlebridge CID” he responded holding
out his warrant card
“Oh, is it about the murder?”
“It is I’m afraid”
“Well, you had better come in” she said and
stepped aside
“I’m sorry to disturb you while you were
changing” he said as he had noticed she was wearing a pristine white silk
blouse on her top half and loose-fitting shorts and flip flops from the waist
down
A look of confusion crossed her face until the
penny dropped
“Oh no this was the look I was going for” she
said and laughed before going on to explain
“I have my own accountancy company, but I work
from home three days a week and I do a lot of teams calls so the top half is
the professional look for the camera the bottom half is for comfort”
“That makes sense” he said
“So how can I help?”
“Well, we’re asking if anyone saw anyone or
anything out of the ordinary or out of place or generally suspicious over the
last 24 hours” Steve said
“Well apart from Clare Macbeth you’re the only
person I’ve seen for two days” she said “But there was something that struck me
as odd this morning”
“Oh, what was that?”
“Well I go up to Macbeth’s stables every morning
before work, I leave home at 6am and walk up Farmers Lane, which runs alongside
the Mackay’s property” she explained “Now it’s not unusual for cars to be
parked in the lane, a lot of dog walkers park there, but they’re all of a type,
but this morning there was a gold coloured Tesla parked up which is not the
normal dog walkers car”
“Ok and then what?”
“Well I walked up to Macbeth’s mucked out the
stable, groomed Snowflake, had a coffee with Clare and walked back, and when I
got back the Tesla was gone, but now there was green Lexus parked in the lane
instead” she said and looked straight at him “And that’s what struck me as odd,
two cars that looked out of place on the same morning”
“What time did you see the Lexus?” Steve asked
“Just after 8”
“I don’t suppose you noticed the REG numbers?”
“Not exactly” she replied “But the Tesla had 38
in it and the Lexus ended with SJC”
“Are you sure?” he asked as he jotted it down
“I’m sure, 38 is my age, and SJC are my initials,
so it stuck”
“Well, that’s a big help” he said and gave her
his card “Give me a call if you think of anything else”
“I will Inspector…Steve” she responded and smiled
“You don’t look it, by the way” he said when he
reached the door
“Excuse me?”
“38” he said and she blushed
When he got back to the car, he phoned DC Ross
Grant and asked him to go up to the Macbeth Stables and interview Clare Macbeth
and get a statement to verify Sarah Cooper’s account and to clarify the
timings, then he headed back to the station.
No comments:
Post a Comment