Read Online The Stranger You Know by Jane Casey - Free Book Online

observed to Godley, who nodded. He moved past me into the sitting room.
    ‘Let’s start in here. Una will be in soon.’
    The room wasn’t large but the furniture was expensive. The grey velvet upholstery on the two-seater sofa and armchair looked as if no one had ever sat on it. There was a fireplace, with candles sitting in the grate, and the alcoves on either side of the chimneybreast were shelved. They were filled with vases and ornaments rather than the books or DVDs that might have told us something about her personality. The fact that there weren’t any books or discs made me think she worked long hours and didn’t have time for entertainment. The giant grey wicker heart above the sofa made me suspect she was a romantic. The armfuls of cushions arranged on the sofa itself were impossibly feminine and dainty; I couldn’t imagine a man sitting there to watch television. And on another wall, there was a framed poster: the word ‘Beauty’ in elaborate writing. Pin your colours to the mast, I thought. If that’s what matters to you, why not frame it? And what harm was there in any of it? Still, something made me feel I wouldn’t have got on with Miss Melville. The array of photographs on the shelves gave me one reason.
    ‘What is it?’ Godley was watching me instead of looking around, which made me feel like a canary in a mine. ‘You’re frowning.’
    ‘Is this her?’ There were probably thirty pictures on the shelves and the same dark-haired woman appeared in almost all of them.
    ‘I believe so.’
    ‘She must have been massively insecure, then. Who has framed pictures of themselves when they live alone?’ I picked up one which was of a group of girls ready to go out, dressed to the nines. Two of them were talking, their mouths twisted halfway through a word, and one wasn’t even looking at the camera. The dark-haired girl was looking right at the lens with a dazzling smile. ‘And look at this. She’s the only one who looks good in this picture. Why would you choose to frame that?’
    ‘Being insecure isn’t a crime.’
    ‘But it makes you susceptible to flattery. The three women lived alone. They were all heading towards thirty and not in a relationship. That has to be one way he could have got in. Do we know if any of them did online dating?’
    ‘I’ll ask the other SIOs this afternoon.’
    ‘He’s seeing something vulnerable in them. This woman was hyper-feminine and very conscious of how she was perceived. What do you look for in a man if you are like that?’
    ‘Someone who comes across as traditionally masculine,’ Godley suggested. ‘Someone strong.’
    ‘And forceful. Someone who would take control. Sweep you off your feet. Someone confident.’
    ‘Confidence fits in with murdering them in their own home. He’s comfortable in their environment. He takes his time, too.’
    ‘What makes you say that?’ I asked.
    ‘How the bodies are left.’
    I was staring at the only thing that was out of place in the room: a vase half-filled with greenish water and a few bits of leaves. ‘Where are the flowers?’
    ‘I think we’re about to find out.’ Godley checked his watch. ‘Come on, Una. Wind it up.’
    She came through the door as if she’d been waiting for the invitation, rustling importantly in her boiler suit. ‘Sorry. All done.’
    ‘Are we finished in here?’ Godley asked me and I nodded, watching Una Burt scan the room.
    ‘Lead on,’ Godley said to her, and I followed her through the hall, past a small bedroom that was primrose yellow and obviously for guests, past a tiny bathroom where the SOCOs were climbing over each other to collect swabs and empty U-bends, past a kitchen with red tulips in a vase on the table and the washing-up neatly stacked on the draining board. No secrets here – nothing that Anna would have been ashamed for us to see. It reminded me of a flat that had been tidied for viewing, down to the matching tea towels hanging neatly on their rail and the