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die?’
    â€˜Well, it hasn’t been confirmed officially, but Mrs O’Grady says she was murdered.’
    â€˜Oh no! Do you think she’s right? You know she likes a good bit of gossip. She could be stretching the truth.’ I could feel a sense of panic starting to rise in my stomach. ‘Shit! Do you know where it happened?’ Mrs Jones was shooting me daggers. My voice had risen well above the acceptable murmur that she expected from those entering her hallowed domain.
    â€˜It’s OK, Cass, the police have had Stuart Lane taped off all morning. It happened there.’
    I sighed with relief. That was a place I didn’t need to visit any time soon.
    â€˜Tell me the rest over lunch, Mum, I’m starving and if we don’t stop talking soon, Mrs Jones is going to burst a blood vessel.’

CHAPTER
    5
    By 10 AM the police knew who the victim was: Janet Hodgson, twenty-seven years old, a bookkeeper employed by a local farm machinery business that had a showroom and offices on Jewel Bay’s Main Street.
    They’d been hard at it, talking to her co-workers, the owners of the business and neighbouring businesses; pretty much anyone who could help them piece together a life that so far seemed unremarkable. They knew that she was last seen in her office at 9 PM the previous night when the cleaner left. They knew she had no family: her parents were both dead, and there were no siblings. There was no partner that anyone knew of. She was well liked but didn’t seem to have any really close friends.
    She was in the habit of working late at least once or twice a week to take advantage of the peace and quiet. She usually parked her car on the street running parallel to Main Street because it didn’t have the same two-hour parking restrictions. The quickest way for her to get to her car was to cut down Stuart Lane. It probably hadn’t even occurred to her that the shortcut might be dangerous.
    Ed joined Phil, who’d just finished talking to a group of wide-eyed sales and office staff. ‘Hey, how about we grab a bite? I could eat a damned horse.’
    â€˜Yep, sounds like an idea. We can compare notes at the same time.’
    They headed for the only café that was open, ordered bacon and egg sandwiches to go, and retreated to the warmth of their car.
    â€˜So basically we don’t know shit,’ mumbled Phil through a mouthful. ‘We don’t know her habits, we don’t know of anyone who was close to her who can tell us where she went, who she spent time with outside work — nothing.’
    Ed sighed. He felt like he was standing at the bottom of a steep slope wondering if he had the energy to get to the top. All he wanted to do was find a comfortable spot, stretch out and let oblivion take over. He yawned.
    â€˜Come on, buck up, we’d better go check out her car and apartment before you nod off. Maybe by the time we get back to the station the lab work will be in — let’s hope he’s a sloppy prick.’
    Janet’s car was still parked on the street from the day before. It was a late-model red Ford hatchback. They peered through the windows. It was reasonably clean, no rubbish piled up in the footwells.
    â€˜Let’s have a look shall we?’ Phil said, snapping on some gloves. She jimmied open the door.
    â€˜Man, I hope you never decide to turn to a life of crime,’ Ed said.
    They rummaged through the glove box and carefully checked for any papers. There was a handful of receipts, a card for a local hairdresser and the service history for the car but nothing else. The only other paraphernalia was a hairbrush, a couple of pens, registration papers, some food wrappers and a street directory.
    Phil looked at Ed and shrugged. ‘Hopefully we find a diary or something useful in her apartment that will tell us more about this woman than her favourite hairdresser.’
    â€˜Hey, don’t knock hairdressers,