‘But I’ve got staff that are finishing their shifts,’ Maura Birch said, wringing her hands. As the manager of Cedars she had let them into the CCTV room as Kim had repeated her instruction that no one was to leave.

‘We can’t physically restrain them,’ Kim said as the word ‘unfortunately’ flew through her head. ‘But we will want to speak to every member of staff, so they can either wait or come down to the station.’

‘Okay, I’ll pass that on,’ she said, scurrying away.

‘New building, old system,’ Bryant moaned as he pressed the button to rewind the VHS tape; meaning at best they were only going to get snatched time-lapse images. She hadn’t seen such an antiquated system in years. Most CCTV systems recorded straight to hard drive and could be copied to disc within seconds.

Maura Birch had already confirmed that Phyllis Mansell had gone into the garden at 12 p.m. and had been found at 1.15 when she hadn’t come back in for lunch.

She had also confirmed that the CCTV coverage outside was limited.

‘Is that it?’ Kim asked.

‘Yep, just the one fixed camera pointing at the patio area closest to the back door.’

‘Our Maura wasn’t joking when she said it was limited,’ Kim observed. ‘But at least we get to see who came out the door,’ she said.

Bryant nodded as he tweaked the timing.

‘There she is,’ he said, hitting the pause button.

There was something eerie about watching the figure on the screen and knowing that right this minute that same body was being placed into Keats’s van.

Bryant pressed play. They got three further snatches of her before she went out of view.

‘Looked perfectly healthy, guv,’ Bryant observed.

‘Oh yeah,’ Kim said, concentrating on the screen. Why would anyone want to hurt the woman? Apparently, she was friendly, helpful, popular and good with the staff.

And why would any staff member do such a thing knowing full well there was a camera right there? More importantly, what the hell did this have to do with the murder of Gordon Cordell?

‘We’re not going to find anything,’ she said.

‘Jesus, guv, we’re only ten minutes in.’

‘There are no cameras in the bedrooms, bathrooms, and shower room, so why would someone do it out here where they have to pass a fixed camera?’

‘People forget about cameras, guv. They see through them. And what if it wasn’t staff? What if it was a visitor? They wouldn’t know there was a camera right there.’

‘But why, Bryant?’ she asked in frustration ‘Why would anyone want to kill her?’

‘Well, we gotta watch the tape until—’

‘You watch,’ she said, standing up. ‘I want to look at something else.’

Kim headed out of the CCTV room. She saw the collection of staff congregating around the reception with cardigans and handbags. She narrowly avoided the daggers being thrown in her direction as she stepped back out into the garden and a stream of hazard tape.

‘Hey, Mitch,’ she said as the techie came towards her.

‘This connected to the doctor?’ he asked, doubtfully.

She shrugged. ‘Keats found blue fibres on her lips and called me to take a look. Not seeing any connection yet but I wanna check something.’

‘Need any help?’ he asked.

‘No, but I’ll shout if I do.’

He nodded and headed back to the crime scene.

She strode to the west side of the garden. A gate was padlocked with a fire escape on the other side. The gate was seven feet high and not easy to climb. Kim ruled it out as an access point.

Adjoining the gate was a stump wall which was less than a foot away from the next property, an equipment hire shop specialising in garden tools. Kim had noted that their customer parking area was directly on the other side of that wall. Also ruled out as someone standing on a car roof to scale a wall wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.

She walked the length of the brick boundary looking for any weakness or irregularities.

The hire shop stretched beyond the end of the garden wall, so there was definitely no access point on the west side.

She knew that the east side of the garden was flanked by road, so anyone climbing a wall would have been noticed within seconds. That left only the back wall.

Conifers and shrubs lined the wall that stretched about seventy metres, and there was nothing available to stand on.

‘Hey, Mitch, got a sec?’ she called.

‘Yep, wassup?’ he asked, pushing his face mask on to his head.

She looked to the wall. ‘I kinda need to get up there.’

His eyes widened. ‘You want me to lift?…’

‘Do I look like a bloody ballerina?’ she asked, shaking her head. ‘Cup your hands.’

He looked relieved as he followed her instruction.

She put her left foot into his hand and pushed up with her right while grabbing hold of a tree branch for support.

A sharp pain shot through her left leg as she used her other hand to grab the top of the wall.

‘Hold me steady,’ she called down.

‘Got you,’ he replied. ‘It’s like tossing a caber,’ he said as she put both hands on to the wall and heaved herself forward so her stomach was over the top of the wall, her upper half hanging forward and her behind sticking up in the air.

‘Jeez, the things you see when you haven’t got your gun,’ Bryant said from behind her.

‘Hold me steady,’ she barked to her colleague. His hands closed around her ankles so she shuffled further forward to get a better look.

The entire rear of the property was a patch of waste land. An area of concrete slab was surrounded by clutches of tall grass. Around the outside was a bike race track with a couple of cones marking out the route. A single bench looked on, telling Kim she was looking at an old park area.

‘Shit,’ she said, realising someone could very easily have remained unnoticed back here.

‘Hold tight,’ Kim said as she moved forward a little further to look along the base of the wall. Her gaze passed over weeds and tall grass until it reached an upside-down milk crate that had flattened the grass around it. Recently.

‘Ah, damn it,’ she called. ‘Mitch, are you still here?’

She couldn’t ask Bryant to loosen her ankles and go take a look.

‘Oh yeah, I ain’t missing this floor show,’ he said.

‘About halfway along the wall, right by the yellow conifer, see it?’ she asked.

‘Hang on, just heading towards,’ he called.

‘Take your bloody time’ she called as the brick dug deeper into her stomach and her leg throbbed with pain.

‘Okay, marking it now,’ he said.

Logic told her the killer had used the milk crate and the conifer to get over the wall and back again. Who knew what he’d left behind. If it was there, Mitch would find it.

‘Okay, Bryant, now you gotta help me down.’

‘Err… guv, that’s a request too far, I’m afraid. There’s no way I’m touching your…’

‘Fine, I’ll just stay up here until my arse drops off and you can help me, shall I?’ she asked, shimmying herself backwards.

‘It’s just… well…’

Over the course of their working relationship she had seen him touch dead bodies riddled with maggots and bacteria. She’d seen him assist Keats with moving a young man covered in his own vomit and yet he sounded positively traumatised at the prospect of touching her behind.

‘Get out of the way and I’ll jump down,’ she snapped, trying to brace her left leg for impact.

‘No, no, it’s okay. I can do this,’ he said as though he was trying to psyche himself up to jump the space between two skyscrapers.

‘Today would be good,’ she growled.

‘Okay, okay,’ he said, putting his hands on her upper buttocks and easing her down.

‘Thanks, buddy,’ she said, sarcastically as she brushed the brick dust and gravel from her hands.

‘You were right about the tape,’ he said.

‘So, we know how he got in but we don’t know why,’ she said, heading back towards the building.

She stopped walking and turned to her colleague.

‘You know what’s weird?’

‘Many things today,’ he said, looking back to the wall. ‘But what in particular?’

‘It wasn’t robbery; she was still wearing her jewellery. It wasn’t even violent but it was personal. She was the target. He came in, killed her and left. Even though she was in her twilight years she was fit, healthy, outgoing and popular, yet he came into the garden, quietly snuffed out her life and left again. What kind of person would do that and—’

‘And you want to know why,’ Bryant interrupted.

‘Yeah but more than that. How did he know exactly where she’d be at exactly what time?’

Bryant shrugged and continued walking.

She followed him into the building and approached a nervous-looking Maura Birch.

‘Okay, let ’em go,’ she said, nodding towards the staff members eager to be on their way, dead resident or not.

Kim pulled Maura away from the other staff members.

‘Miss Birch, forensics will need the area kept clear. Another team will be arriving to take statements and continue with the investigation. They’ll need access to your staff, possibly the residents and it might be worth you starting to think of any reason, anything at all, to explain why someone would want to hurt Phyllis Mansell.’

Her skittering eyes widened. ‘There’s no one that disliked the woman, officer, at worst she got told to shut up now and again. She was a bit of a bragger, you see,’ the woman whispered.

‘About herself?’ Kim asked.

‘Oh no, that wouldn’t have been so bad. It was always about her daughter and sometimes she’d go on about it a bit.’

‘And her daughter is?’

‘Her name is Nat Mansell. She’s a nurse, a surgical nurse, at Russells Hall Hospital.’