4

But when I awoke the next day, I felt Sandra Burton's naked body pressed up against mine. I didn't remember her coming back or sliding into bed next to me, but I felt comfort in the fact that she was there.

When she woke, she didn't seem embarrassed, and when I finally got out of bed, I found her downstairs examining the bag.

She looked up at me smiling and then asked whether I had given the bag the once over.

"Indeed, I have," I reply, "And the longer I looked at it, the more it looked like a murder weapon."

"Nobody would stand a chance once they were locked in this type of bag," Sandra said, and I smiled grimly.

"As I see it," I continued, "either Tina Davis was exceptionally demented, or she someone murdered her."

"I can tell you how demented she was," Sandra replied. "I've just returned from Cheltenham."

I nodded, and the DCI continued, "I went there to meet Jenny Quance. She was Tina Davis's landlady, and she's a gorgeous lady. We spent about two hours together late yesterday afternoon."

"How did she take the news about Tina?"

"She's heartbroken. You can see she cared about the young woman. She met her about ten or eleven years ago when she was just 20, and I suppose she could have been like a daughter, or even a granddaughter, to her."

"What else did you learn?"

"Some exciting things. Jenny Quance told me that in the ten years Tina lived under her roof, she had no visitors, male or female. She kept to herself and lived very quietly. Jenny showed me the flat. It was small and spartan, and it looked as if she had just made it up for her return—charming, simple digs. How do you think you live? Well! You should see where she lived!"

"Go on?" I pressed.

"Tina Davis had told her he was looking forward to coming back to Cheltenham after her year in London and that she'd be living in the flat again starting September 3."

"Is that date be significant?"

"Maybe, but as for this bag and the question of accident or murder, here's the kicker Jenny Quance also told me she used to do Tina's washing and hang it on the line. Then, when her clothes were dry, she would fold them and put them away in her drawers. This service went on for ten years, and in that time, she never saw anything unpleasant, no porn, or no bondage gear."

"Just as you'd expect," I interjected. "For if a single young woman had such lurid secrets to hide, would she allow her landlady to wash her clothes, let alone put them away? Surely a woman with living a double life and a few pounds to spend would live somewhere else than in the home of a motherly type who would come into her flat when she was away and open all the drawers!"

"Exactly!" Sandra said. "Which means ... which means ..."

"Which means we need to take a closer look at the flat in Pimlico where the police found the body?"

"Ah, yes, 36 Suffolk Street. What do we know about it, Quintus?"

"The newspapers were more or less evenly divided between those who said it was an MI6 safe house and those who said the corporation owned it WIC based on an island in the Bahamas whose CEO is a former FSB agent from Russia."

"How ironic," Sandra exclaimed.

"It's a cold war throwback. When MI6 brought defectors to London, they could put them up in a safe house whose name meant home to their guests. Clever, no? And if anyone inquired who owned the property, the trail would lead to an island far away and a company owned by a Russian. Who would ever guess the owner was British intelligence?"

"You think so, Quintus?"

"Yes, I do, Sandra! When MI6 gets a new woman from GCHQ or elsewhere, they need a place for her to live where they can keep him safe and where they can keep her under observation! So, what could be simpler than offering Tina a flat rent-free in a safe house within walking distance from Vauxhall Cross?"

"Brian Flynn said the government paid Tina's rent!"

"Exactly, Sandra. And keep her under observation, or should I say microscope?"

"What do you mean by microscope?" She asked.

"It's a safe house, Sandra. What does that mean? Typically, there would be a concealed doorway so people could come and go without being seen. Every flat is protected so nobody can eavesdrop on what was going on, essential for cross-examinations, let us say. It would also have all the usual safety measures: bullet-proof windowpanes, toughened doors, probably with a biometric security device, full-time auditory and video observation, and a direct line to Vauxhall Cross."

"One of the police reports mentioned the direct line," Sandra interjected, "and was never used."

"That may be a crucial detail," I said. "We may never know what might turn out to be important. But, on the other hand, it might be just another diversion, like the non-existent porn."

"And what do you make of that, shit?" Sandra asked. "Is it just gutter-style reporting or profit-motive drove to cheap sensationalism and run amok? Or is it something more sinister?"

"You've read the news reports," I told her. "I can't say I found everything ever published about this case, but I do believe we have a representative sample. What struck you about the coverage?"

"It was all so lurid," Sandra commented, "but aside from that, it's been so scattered and unfocused as to be virtually meaningless!"

"I'm not so sure, Sandra," I replied, "In a case of bloody death like a stabbing, especially one with multiple wounds, an observant investigator can learn a great deal from the splatter, the way blood gets splattered around."

But on this occasion, there is no blood. No wounds or marks on the body at all, so Brian Flynn told us."

"Of course, there wasn't. But I think we can find meaning in the way the press splatter their coverage."

"I'm not sure I understand what you are getting at."

"If we collate the reports chronologically, allowing for the delay it takes for news to spread, we find a captivating summary."

"How?" Sandra pressed.

"The first reports contained unbelievable lies about the body, and that was when we read that the killer had stabbed Tina Davis and had mutilated her body. The media hinted that a jealous lover had killed her. At the same time, the idea that her death was the result of a bizarre sex game gone wrong started to do the rounds." I lingered for an instant before progressing. "Then came the wave of a sex scandal. There were reports that she had contacts at male escort agencies, kept bondage equipment at her flat. The police took the unusual step of denying this information."

"But still, the shit about bizarre sex kept coming," Sandra interjected.

"Next, it was who-done-it, and they gave us a marvellous gathering of suspects that even Agatha Christie would have been proud to have created. The Chinese, or the Russians, or Muslim terrorists, or a violent Irish Republican group. The pattern in the timing is one of the keys, Sandra. Also worth remembering is the continuous undercurrent of bizarre sex, especially since the police themselves have denied the most lurid allegations."

"Meaning?" Sandra quizzed.

"That's one feature of the splatter. Now, look at the earliest news reports which claimed someone found bizarre sex-related objects at Tina's flat. They all had the same line, but some perhaps even most, also had exceptional or complete details, to stimulate their readers in ways their opponents could not."

"I see."

"To take the most obvious example, the Sun, under the headline 'Murdered spook, hired male prostitutes and gigolos', provided extraordinary, though incorrect, evidence about the scene of the crime that was not obtainable in another place. Other papers contained other distinctive details, most of which the police themselves refuted. So how did this all come about?" I continued. "Were all these reporters making things up? Or were they being fed disinformation from a central source?"

"Like whom?"

"Why is this story in the newspapers at all, Sandra? There are editors at every major news desk who would bin any report, short of the second coming of Jesus, at the mere reference to the Official Secrets Act. One phone call to each paper would have made this entire story disappear, and we should always bear that in mind."

"In terms of my knife-wound analogy," I continued, "we must ask Why is there blood here but not there? but also, Why are we finding any blood at all?"

"So, the phrase safe house should be seen as a metaphor?" Sandra asked. "So, you are saying MI6 should have been able to protect their man and his family from all these shocking media reports?"

"If they hadn't wanted all this rubbish in the papers, it wouldn't have been there."

"Unless I misunderstand you," Sandra said, "this could be one of the deepest, darkest cases I've ever worked on!"

I heard more excitement in her voice than fear.

"We haven't solved it yet," I replied, "and perhaps we never will. But it is certainly deep and very dark, I will give you that!"