Need You Dead

25 Thursday 21 April

Guy Batchelor continued his assessment of the crime scene, reminded all the time of Roy Grace’s words.

Assume nothing. Believe no one. Check everything.

Clear the ground under your feet.

Every contact leaves a trace.

Think the unthinkable.

The unthinkable.

A beautiful woman lay dead in a bathtub just a few feet away. From the marks round her neck it seemed someone had tried to strangle her. A hairdryer in the tub.

Think the unthinkable.

Had the husband killed her? Too obvious.

How had the hairdryer ended up in the bath?

Think the unthinkable.

If not the husband, who? Could she have hated someone so much she’d made it look as if someone had tried to strangle her, then committed suicide?

Unthinkable?

The fury of a woman scorned?

A history of being abused by her husband, dead in a secret bolthole. Had Belling done it or, perhaps, had he been fitted up?