The Stranger by Mark Ayre (ebook reader wifi .txt) 📕

She wondered if Sanderson would hold out on her again. This time, he played it straight.

"Pretty much word for word."

"Great," said Abbie. "Now for where we diverge. As specified already, Eddie was worried I worked for those who wished his brother ill. I don't. This suspicion was renewed with gusto when we found the dead Danny. Like I said, Ed accused me of killing his brother. I’m sure he repeated the accusation to you on the record. Still, neither you nor he really believes I’m the assassin.”

Sanderson raised his eyebrows. “Do we not?”

“No. You don’t. I’m sure when you questioned Eddie, he confessed it would have been almost impossible for me to have got out of bed without him knowing, let alone to have snuck out of the house, stolen his car, driven to the hotel, killed Danny, returned, parked the car, snuck back into the house, and back into bed all without him having a clue. That right?"

Sanderson made no comment.

“If I had done,” Abbie continued. “Would I not also have pinched the hotel key? I know Eddie left that with the house keys, which I would have needed to get back in after committing the murder, so why would I take one and not the other?”

This piqued Sanderson’s interest.

“What makes you think the killer didn’t have a key?” he asked. “There was no sign of a break in.”

Abbie hesitated. Maybe she had said too much. But she had been sitting in the cell examining the evidence, and she always was a showoff. Anyway, now she had hinted at her suspicions, she had to follow through.”

“Firstly,” she said. “If the killer had a key, they would have listened at the door to ensure Danny was asleep, then snuck in and killed him while he slept.”

“Maybe they did,” said Sanderson. “Maybe when the killer stabbed Danny, he rolled off the bed down the side?”

“You know that isn’t the case.”

“How?”

“No blood on the sheets. No blood on the duvet. Plus, the covers were ruffled on the right side of the bed, not the left. If Danny had been forced off the bed, down the left side, you’d see signs of the struggle in the duvet.”

“Unless the killer remade the bed.”

“And washed the sheets? Bit of a risk with a dead body a couple of feet away, don’t you think?”

“I do think,” said Sanderson. “So if the killer didn’t sneak or break-in, you believe—“

“The same as you,” said Abbie. “The killer knocked. Danny let them in.”

“So how did he end up on the left side of the bed? Pretty much as far from the front door as he could get?”

Abbie put her hands on the table, drummed her fingers. “You know all this. Why do you need me to repeat it?”

“I’m interested to see if we have the same opinion.”

Abbie took a breath. It was probably not wise to continue, but she had to go on now.

“There was a spot of blood on the carpet right through the front door,” said Abbie. “A couple more by the chair at the desk and another by the curtains towards the side of the bed where Danny had died.”

“Which indicates?”

“When he opened the door, the killer stabbed him but didn’t remove the knife. The killer shoved Danny back across the room with the knife still inside him. Probably in the belly. The knife would have kept a lot of the blood in the body, the T-shirt and jeans would have soaked up most of the rest. That would explain why only a couple of drops ended up on the floor by the door, the chair, the wall. Once they reached the wall, however, the killer would have turned Danny, shoved him to the ground, lifted the knife, and repeatedly stabbed him. Hence, that’s where you find most of the blood, while there’s none on the sheets.”

Sanderson smiled. Abbie couldn’t tell if the smile said he was impressed with her reasoning and observation skills or if he believed she was giving him evidence that she was the guilty party. Abbie could only hope that the creaking sofa bed saved the day.

“If the killer knocked on the door,” said Sanderson, “then stabbed Danny the moment he opened, that might have been you, no?”

“Possibly,” said Abbie. “But Danny was agitated and afraid. I think much more likely he would have gone to the door and asked who was there. He didn’t like me. My guess would be he would only open the door for someone he wanted to see.”

“They’d also have to know where he was.”

Abbie finally managed to hold her tongue on some of her acquired knowledge. She didn’t mind Sanderson knowing she had lifted Danny’s jacket and thrown it on the bed. It would be far too suspicious to tell him she had had the presence of mind to pat it down and note there was no phone in the pocket.

“I would suggest,” she said, “either someone was following Danny or, more likely, he trusted someone he shouldn’t have. After Eddie and I left, he got in touch with them, told them where he was, and opened the door when they arrived. Regretting that decision was probably the last thing he did.”

The police would have searched Danny. If they hadn’t found a phone on his person or elsewhere in the room, they would have had to draw the same conclusion as Abbie: that Danny had contacted his killer, and his killer had pilfered his phone before fleeing the scene of the crime.

If this was the case, that was information Sanderson didn’t intend to divulge to Abbie.

“There is another way Danny’s killer might have known where he was,” said Sanderson.

Abbie had been expecting this. After all, Eddie had raised the possibility back in the hotel room.

“That I told the killer,” said Abbie.

Sanderson nodded.

“It would still need to be someone he trusted that I told,” she said.

“Not necessarily. You are merely hypothesising that Danny would only open the door