Today's Reading
'So I cocked up,' Atherton said, looking out of the window. Most of Shepherd's Bush consisted of Victorian terraced housing of various sizes and degrees of poshness, but in the area known as Wendell Park, there was this little 1930s pocket of semis with the typical bay-window-and-gable-with-fake-beams. 'Look at it! More mock Tudor than Blackadder,' he said.
'It's sound, decent housing,' Slider said. 'Nothing wrong with it. What's the address?'
'Acacia Avenue, number 15.'
'Acacia Avenue!' Slider marvelled.
'Betjeman-esque irony.'
'Except that the streets on either side are Laburnum and Lilac, so it might just be flowering tree names.'
'I like my explanation better.'
Wendell Park took its name from the eponymous small green space, an area of grassy lawn with winding paths and benches, some big old trees, a fringe of shrubbery and a few flower beds. It was one of those hidden treasures, the 'lungs' that made London more pleasant to live in, and was much valued by the locals. The streets around the park were quiet, just far enough from the main road for the traffic to be a distant hum; the houses were well-kept, and the parked cars to either side were those of modestly prosperous people, not a rust bucket in sight. Built before the war, none of the houses had a garage, but so far blessedly few had dug up their front gardens for hard standing. It was—well, there was no other word for it—nice.
'It's not right,' Slider said. 'You shouldn't have a murder in a place like this.'
'Aren't we always told suburbia is an unstable cauldron of repressed and seething emotions?' Atherton said.
'Are we? But this is hardly suburbia. Shepherd's Bush is still inner London.' Atherton's eyes and thumbs were busy with his mobile. 'It's like living with a fifteen-year-old,' Slider said testily. 'Put it away, for God's sake.'
'Just clearing the deck, given we're going to be busy for days,' Atherton said, holstering the phone in his pocket like a hot shootin' iron. 'This is it—left here.'
The departing ambulance passed them as they turned in, and the driver lifted a comradely hand. They acquired the reversion of his space, luckily, as the residents-only parking was already full with the usual circus: the original squad car, the Department Sprinter, the SOC van, wheels belonging to the photographer and the SOC chief, and an elderly powder-blue Toyota which he recognized as that of Dr Gupta, presumably the police doctor on call.
PC Renker was keeping the log at the side gate. Number 15 was a semi, adjoining number 17, and with no garage there was only a three-foot gap between the house and the boundary fence. There was a tall, stout wooden gate which gave access to the back garden and was standing open. Number 13 had a similar arrangement except that its gate was of metal bars. There was a three-foot-high wall between the front garden and the street, topped with privet hedge, and a curving path to the front door with a patch of lawn, neatly cut. Slider noted that the wall-and-hedge combination screened the front door from the road and the houses opposite, which was a nuisance.
These days, doorbell cams could be a useful resource.
'Victim's name is Rhianne Morgan, guv,' Renker reported. He pronounced it Ree-ann and spelled it for them. 'Just eighteen. Dad discovered her this afternoon around half past four. He's David Arthur Morgan, age forty-nine.
Unfortunately, he called the ambulance first, so there wasn't much crime scene to preserve by the time I got here. Luckily, one of the paramedics decided something was off and called it in. DS Jenrich took the para's statement.'
DC Fathom joined them. 'Body's in the kitchen at the back, guv,' he said. 'Safe route's through here.' He gestured to the side gate.
'Was it open when you arrived here?' Slider asked Renker.
'Yes, guv. The paras went in that way. They said it was open when they arrived. I don't know if it's normally closed.'
The garden was about thirty feet long and surrounded on all sides by a seven-foot fence and laid entirely to lawn. The Morgans were obviously not gardeners. At the back of the house was a concrete patio, over which SOC had already erected a tent. On it stood a foldable metal-and-canvas lounger. Next to that was a plastic picnic tumbler containing a twisty plastic straw, a number of glossy magazines and a pair of kitchen scissors.
...
