‘No need, we’ll find out for you. What’s her address?’ Adrian said.

The old man scribbled an address down on a piece of paper and slid it under the glass.

‘And what’s your name?’ Imogen asked, flipping open her notepad ready to write it down.

‘I’m Doctor Marcus Pike, one of the ethics professors here at the university.’

‘OK. We’ll be in touch.’

Outside, Helen Lassiter’s house was quiet. Her car was parked in the driveway, but there were no signs of anyone being inside. Adrian and Imogen walked to the side of the house and looked through the window. There was a dirty coffee mug on the side near the sink – but no Helen Lassiter. Adrian noticed some of the drawers were open in the kitchen, which was odd. People didn’t generally leave several drawers open at a time in their own house. He glanced at the back door; the glass was smashed.

‘Call it in. I think someone’s broken in.’

He found the back door and opened it. Adrian hated walking into properties like this. You never knew what you were going to find and on occasion he had seen things that he wished he could forget, but the memory of them was almost tangible, so horrific that his mind had remembered every detail right down to the taste in his mouth at the time.

He made it up the stairs; the house was silent, too silent. Adrian knew that he was going to find the professor dead before he even entered the bedroom. It was no surprise to him when he saw her lying on the bed, eyes closed. What was surprising though, was her skin. It was a bright cherry red.

Chapter Eighteen

Adrian had just come back in after a smoke when Denise came bounding over. Apparently, Helen Lassiter had died of carbon monoxide poisoning, which is why her body was that colour, diagnosed at the scene, unmistakeable apparently. It wasn’t something Adrian had ever seen before, but it wasn’t something he would forget in a hurry.

‘There’s someone here waiting to speak to you.’

‘Who?’

‘She wouldn’t tell me who she was but refused to speak to anyone else. Asked for you by name.’

‘What was it about? Did she say?’

‘Her husband has gone missing.’

Adrian was far too preoccupied to deal with this at the moment, but the fact that the woman had asked for him by name made him feel like he had to. Even if he just had a quick conversation with her now, he could deal with her case later on, maybe much later on.

‘And she didn’t say how she knows me?’

‘No, but she was adamant that you were the only one she would talk to. I put her in liaison room two.’

‘Cheers.’

He rubbed his head. He hated missing persons cases and in the case of marriages it was more often about making a clean break than anything else. He grabbed his notebook and walked over to liaison room two, wondering where Imogen was. He looked around, but she was conspicuously absent.