Chapter 6 chapter Five

All the houses in Thornton Hall are large, and therefore seem lonely, even those relatively small bungalows, either standing quietly in the large gardens of style, or mysteriously extending a huge courtyard behind.The hedges along the road were neatly trimmed and neatly contoured. Looking out the car window, Morrow thought the distribution of these houses was incredible.In the outer area, there are tall Victorian villas, but the central area is built in the style of the 1970s, with pitched roofs and large picture windows.She wondered if the village had ever been bombed during the war. The driver made a sharp left turn and drove down a boulevard towards the scene of the accident.The houses away from the main road are even newer, beige brick mansions imitating the style of those old villas, the difference is that these new houses have double garages, double glazed windows, and everything is doubled.

The boulevard splits off into two lanes at the end, one of which is brand new, marked with a yellow V-shaped sign, leading down the hill to a modern ranch-style mansion, and the one up is paved with gravel and asphalt. The finished, jagged, led to a crumbling gray country house. "I don't understand this place," she said. "Where's the store? Why would you put such a nice house down the hill, under that old run-down house?" "That was the original manor property," the driver said softly. "Manor?" Moreau sat up forward. The driver seemed suddenly squirmed, and his voice was so slurred that Morrow had to strain his ears to listen.

"Well, this one, the one we're going to, is the tallest and oldest one here. See how the old and new ones are arranged? Does the older one get farther away? All the land once belonged to This house. They've been selling the estates bit by bit, first the furthest ones, then closer, and closer, and finally these great houses that are the closest." Mo Luo looked down at the mansion below and understood what the driver meant. The process of the village's growth and change emerged in her mind, and she felt a sense of excitement that the strange fantasy became reality. "How did you know?"

The driver was reluctant to show his cards, "I just... have watched many construction programs on TV." The ramp up was very steep, and when the car climbed up, they all stretched their necks. Moreau couldn't wait to go up quickly and feel the traces of time again.She judged from the driver's summary that this lane was not the original lane, because it was impossible for a horse or a buggy to climb such a steep ramp.This is a new driveway built after the real driveway was sold to the villa below.For the first time, Moreau took a good look at the driver.She was a new recruit, but she was a little older, in her thirties, and she behaved a little stiffly, like the kind of person who just took off her military uniform.She was pretty, with a dark complexion and a sort of beautiful Persian face, but she was in fact English.

Moreau didn't press her.At the top of the hill, the asphalt and gravel turned into pure gravel, and the car slowed down.They went around the front of the house and saw Detective Harris standing anxiously next to two police cars and a forensics van. The front was of pleasant symmetry, built of gray stone, with small, solid windows, and a short flight of six steps leading up to the house's wide green front door. "What kind of style is this?" The driver glanced up. "Georgia." "How do you judge?" She frowned and looked at the house.She knew the answer, and Moreau could see it, and understand why she didn't want to answer it.An extensive knowledge of the art of architecture doesn't make her any more popular at restaurants.Being a woman, an older woman, and being English, it was enough to put a distance between her and the others.She needs a sense of belonging, and she wants to refer to her colleagues as "we" rather than "them."

The woman's face was a little red, "Well, well, everything here looks square, and the windows are pitifully small. Have you seen the three windows on the second floor?" Moro raised his head and saw the second floor There are three small sash windows at equal distances along the wall. "That's typical Georgian, but late Georgian." She pointed to the green door in the square porch above the six steps. "That's Georgian too, you see it in Bath and Dublin." door. Do you see those oval rooms in the back?" "where?" "The middle rooms at the back of the house are all semicircular, and that's Georgian too. There, that extension," she pointed to the annexe on one side of the house, which was built of the same stone, but The windows are tall and long, in groups of three, "that's neoclassical, later, Victorian."

Moreau looked at her, her suit was too expensive for someone of her class, "Where the hell are you from?" "The Surrey of England." "what are you doing there?" "My partner got a job there and I have my own business, doing electronics." Moreau grunted that they were dangerously close to a pleasant conversation.She didn't know if the so-called "partner" referred specifically to "lesbian couples" or a common term for partners in Surrey.She doesn't look masculine, but gay women aren't all masculine these days. She impressed Moreau, "Good job. Ambitious?"

She looked at Moreau, nodding firmly, with a cautious gaze behind her glasses.Now no one admits to being ambitious. "Good. When you're promoted above them, they'll say it's because you're a woman. You're smart, and that's not good for you, so be a bird, be an Englishman, and—you Understood, right?" The driver pretended not to understand what Mo Luo didn't say, but at the moment when she pulled the handbrake, an uncontrollable smile overflowed from the corner of her mouth.They sat in the car and watched Harris approach.His skin was typical of a Scotsman, pale with a bluish tint, and he could be seen as Scottish even without the tartan, with small eyes, black hair, and a ridiculously small mouth, barely reaching the nostrils. width.

"Listen," Morrow whispered seeing Harris approaching, "I won't tell anyone what you said about ambition." "Thank you, Inspector," she said quickly. "Because you're smart, so you know, low-key, and, um," Morrow suddenly realized how short time was, and soon she would be an irrelevant person, and she wanted to help, but there was no substance Sexual things can be given, "I will take your point of view as my own and pass it on to others." She meant it as a silly joke, but the driver thanked her again, their voices mingling. They opened the car door and stepped out almost at the same time.The presence of Harris relieved Morrow that they could finally end their conversation.

"Yeah," Harris frowned at the driver, "go door-to-door, asking specifically: What have you seen? Know anyone here? And have they been here recently. We need to know if there is anything Stuff stolen, Wilder will take you." The driver nodded and walked over to Detective Wilder, who was strolling by the police car. "Who is she?" Moreau asked after the woman came out of hearing range. Harris glanced at him and said, "Detective Tamsin Leonard." "Smart?" Harris snorted noncommittally.The remuneration of police detectives has increased a lot since the last round of salary increases, and they can get overtime pay every time they work overtime.This is a disastrous decision.These detectives now make more money than detectives, and they don't have to work days on end until the case is over.Pointing out that someone should be promoted is now tantamount to betrayal, and smart people hide behind jackasses.Bannerman's rudeness made these people deliberately hide their edge. The more low-key they are, the more dignity they can gain in the group, as if doing their job well is helping Bannerman, a stupid ass.They are in a state of war.Moreau felt she was watching a habit evolve into a culture.

Morrow looked up at the roof of this Georgia house, pretending to scrutinize the exterior, glad to have an excuse to straighten his back. "Ever in?" she asked. Harris nodded uncomfortably, "Yeah." "How?" she asked. "It's bad?" "It's a mess." He replied calmly. "When did it happen?" "Within 24 hours, probably last night." Morrow saw that the roof tiles were densely packed together, and the arrangement was not very neat.Some dead leaves poked out from the gutters around the roof.Along the side of the house, a sewage purification pond can be seen in its entirety, supported by rusty metal pillars that seem to be falling down.In the far corner, above a window, is a small hexagonal yellow box that encapsulates the siren, but the plastic has tarnished after being exposed to the sun, and the blue lettering on it is blurred. "It's the kind of house that's expensive and expensive to maintain, isn't it?" Harris nodded to the notebook in his hand, "How was your funeral?" "It's not my family." "Of course, I know—" "It belongs to my aunt." She had to lie.She had already said that her father was dead, that his death was a lie she was not prepared to admit, and that cutting off ties to the notorious McGrath family was a relief.Claiming her father was dead when he was alive gave her a sense of triumph, made her feel as though she had killed him. "Yeah," Harris said, "I don't remember." "But that's okay." "That's good." She looked up again.The house must have once been someone's favorite: the apple trees in the front garden were full of fruit because no one picked them, and many overripe apples had fallen to the overgrown lawn, slowly rotting.The soil in the flower beds has been turned over, but nothing has been replanted. She was feeling down, and the situation made her think about Danny and John, and the fragility of the family, and how easy it was to turn it all into a pile of rubbish, even though everything was still in the same place. . "Where is the cash?" Harris looked at her, the small "O" mouth that looked like a kiss that hadn't been blown yet. "In the kitchen," he raised an eyebrow, "more than we thought, it was euros." "High face value?" "500 yuan a piece." They looked at the house in front of them and smiled. A 500-euro note, usually meant for money laundering, often drug money, is the most valuable of today's trusted currencies and requires far less storage space than a hundred-dollar note. "How much?" "God, I don't know, hundreds of thousands?" He grinned, "You can see for yourself." "Is anyone there?" "Yes, Gabby, he's glad to be sitting there." Morrow felt interested in the house. "She has so much money but doesn't spend it? Maybe someone else's? She might not know where the money is." Harris shrugged. "It's possible, but not likely. Wait, wait until you see where the money is." If it's drug money, it probably involves a gang, a big international operation.They can run a beautiful case and get paid extra. "It's well organized, anyway, because it's not loose cash with bank ties on it." "Do you know anything about this area?" He shook his head, "I've only been here for an hour or so, and I can't see a single ghost on the street except manual laborers and gardeners." "Inspector?" Leonard, who was standing with Wilder, hurried over, "The inspector called and said your cell phone was turned off, so I called him," she turned and pointed at her De, standing a hundred yards away with his work phone in his hand, looked like a ghost, he was so smart that he didn't come over to deliver the message himself, "I want to talk to you." "now?" Harris coughed mockingly. Leonard didn't understand what happened, "Really?" she said uncertainly. "Say you can't find me," Moreau asked Harris, turning abruptly. "So, what's going on?" "Female, 24 years old, her mother died here recently." "That's her...?" Moreau said, pointing to a steel ramp that leaned against the front steps. "Yes, her mother is in a wheelchair." "Are paramedics coming in and out of here?" Harris checked the notes. "24-hour care. Found some accounts in living room." "Is it expensive?" "God, yes, seeing those things makes me want to save up for paracetamol for my mother." "Maybe the money is for that?" "So, wouldn't you just keep the money in the bank? If that's all right." From the corner of their eyes, they saw that Leonard had quietly walked away. "Look up the nursing facility that's being used, find out who's in and out, who has the keys, etc." They watched Leonard walk up to Wilder and say "I can't find her" to him.Wilder handed her the phone, and Morrow was pleased to see Leonard stepping back with his hands up. "The sewage goes downhill," Harris said cheerfully. Moreau couldn't help laughing, "So, the name of the victim?" "Sarah Errol." Harris' face was slightly pale. "You look uncomfortable, Harris." "Ah..." He looked up at the green gate on the steps, retracted his neck, and looked down at her stomach, "I don't know..." Moreau gave him a reproachful look. "For God's sake, don't." Harris wondered if she would be fine after seeing the murder scene.She thought, the situation inside must be really bad, you know Harris has always been hard-hearted. Morrow looked up at the open door on the steps. A crime-scene officer in a white uniform was kneeling in to check the lock, but the inner room was dark. "Who found her?" "Her lawyer had made an appointment to meet her at the office to discuss the details of the property following her mother's death, and she didn't go, so he came over..." Not quite right. "Is that enough to make him feel ominous? To make him take a trip?" "Obviously very inappropriate. But she was always punctual and always showed up where she said she was going and the paperwork was important so he came to her and found it. He's still in there." The police have been here for nearly an hour.Not only was Morrow late because of the funeral, she had to drive her car back to the police station before she could come, because officers were not allowed to use private cars to handle cases in case they were followed. "Still here? Take him to the Bureau. Why is he still here?" Harris took a deep breath, "The intruder came in from behind. We are collecting evidence for forensic medicine there, but we are also trying to prevent him from returning to the corpse. He can't move for the time being, so he is trapped." He said Clearing his throat, "Everyone calls her 'beautiful legs'." "Who?" "Sarah Errol." "What happened to her leg?" "No, it's a pity that the face," he sighed, "is a mess." Moreau snorted dissatisfied.It is extremely unfair to the deceased to call the victim an inhumane nickname within an hour of the investigation.It's so hard to get these men to show concern and compassion for the dead.There was only one thing worse than a violent death, she thought, and that was a humiliating and violent death.The quality of surveys also suffers when no one really cares. But there must be something pitiful about it: Harris' face was pale and sad, his eyes searching the gravel, as if something was missing that worried him. Moro turned his head away and whispered softly: "What, is it sexual assault?" Harris paused for breath, feeling a little afraid.She hates sex murder, and everyone hates sex murder, not just out of sympathy for victims, but because sex crimes are so destructive socially and personally, and take them into a horribly dark corner of their own brains, Make them doubt and fear, and what they doubt and fear is not always someone else. "No," he finally said, his tone uncertain, "apparently not. There was no sexual assault, although she was beautiful and slender. We should use sexual assault as a possible motive, maybe," Harris took a deep breath He took a breath, turned his head towards the house, raised his eyebrows suspiciously, "I'm not joking, it's terrible, boss." She was suddenly very angry. "You've been saying it sucks, Harris, and yes, you've managed to get over it." He bowed his head and smiled, "Yes." She patted his arm with the back of her hand. "Speaking of brutal bragging rights, you should do movie trailers." They headed for the steps, Moreau feigning uncontrollable anger, Harris smiling and not worrying about her. Anger is her trump card, an emotion that can help her restrain or sweep away her grief.Stay angry and keep your distance.Everyone was worried about her when she was working because she was pregnant.She could feel herself disappearing from the eyes of her superiors, becoming an invisible person, dying in their eyes.They make ridiculous insinuations that pregnancy might make her forgetful, moody, and incompetent.And the fact that pregnancy sharpened her mind and brought her into real life.She never wanted it to end.She knows her fear is partly due to the sudden death of her son, but as a police officer she has spent time in the intensive care unit where she was sent to protect a newborn awaiting adoption after its mother tried to puncture herself To deal with this little thing, they were afraid that the woman would run out of the ward and attack the newborn again. When Morrow was there a nurse had told her about the twin statistics.Now she spends every moment of her life seriously, enjoying every minute and every second as much as possible, savoring every feeling in her internal organs, the taste of food, the depth of sleep, and the warm peristalsis in her body. Live in the moment more sensitively now. Together they walked up the steps to the house, observing the ground for clues.The steps and railings have been covered with mottled moss, a cast iron boot wipe has rotted and embedded in the bottom step, and there is a stone lion on each side, the nose and ears have been eroded by the years, leaving only a little stump. The gate at the top of the steps was green, heavy and strong.A forensics officer is kneeling there, scraping debris from the brass lock.The intruder didn't come in here, but police had to prove no other means of entry were used.A recent home invasion failed because a dodgy fortification created plausible speculation that another group might have resorted to a second method of entry.Orders come from above: because hairs and fibers are everywhere in the hall, they have to use limited resources to prove a negative point. Harris followed her, and as she climbed the last step, she stumbled, and she felt his palm lightly brushing her back.She was only four months pregnant, but she had already grown in size, and every little movement of the twins would make her weightless.She turned her head and gave him a smile, and he sneered too. The shallow porch beyond the gate had a black stone floor beside an old oak bench and above it a row of coat hooks with nothing on them but a gray wool coat.This is not an ordinary coat, with round lapels, tight at the waist, and a well-drapped hem, very chic, and the gold lettering on the red label is just visible.Hanging from a nail in the jamb of the porch was a basin of holy water, containing a small semicircular sponge, dried and yellowed. "The Pope's house?" she finished, regretting at once that she had chosen her words too abruptly. Harris shrugged, "Maybe." She really shouldn't have said that, she was sure her wording was offensive, "That's unusual, isn't it? I always thought you couldn't be a rich man with a lot of land and be a Catholic...they couldn't Hereditary Lands..." Harris shrugged. "Maybe they were converts?" Moreau expected to see a row of Wellington boots in the hallway, but to his surprise a pair of elegant black velvet high heels were casually discarded on the floor, one standing on the other side.The shoes were new, with hardly any scratches on the scarlet soles.Next to it lay a brand new carry-on suitcase, immaculately clean, with the green and white British Airways luggage tag still hanging from the handle.She walked over, looked down, from New York to Glasgow International Airport, the date was yesterday, the name was Errol.The suitcase was too small for a piece of luggage to New York. Morrow pointed to the handle and said, "It's just a suitcase, but she checked it. Why?" "Very heavy?" "Maybe. Does she have any other bags?" "It hasn't been found yet." Morrow pointed to the box and said, "Put this in there. I'm going to open it. Call the USCIS. Her visa form will have the hotel and time she stayed there." Harris scribbled down her instructions in a notebook. "How much do we know about her so far?" "Not much. The next of kin on the passport is her mother, who is deceased. We found her National Insurance number, but it doesn't look like she's ever worked." "It's probably true, she's probably living off the family money." "Still paying income tax, will you? Interest or something?" "I don't know. Is it possible that she has worked abroad? Or married? Has another name?" He shrugged. Moreau looked into the darkened hall. "The cash in the kitchen is probably her inheritance, hidden there to avoid taxes." "In the form of new 500-euro notes?" "Yeah, that's right." They walked in, talking and thinking, Harris making shorthand notes in a notebook.She thought again about how it was a shame Harris didn't pursue the promotion.For Harris, it is not only because of money, but also because of people.He hates Bannerman.She noticed that Harris would back off whenever Bannerman's name was mentioned, and that colleagues would look at Harris every time Bannerman delivered a routine humiliating speech to someone on his staff.She hopes to leave the department when the time comes. Through an inner door one entered the imposing reception hall, windowless, with two wide oak doors, one leading to a large, empty living room with faded blue velvet wallpaper, the other Leads to a dilapidated library.On the right-hand wall there is a large flat arch leading to the staircase. Waist-high wood paneling and brown wallpaper flecked with gold accentuate the house's darkness.All the light comes from an open archway on the right, leading to the Victorian annexe.The brown wallpaper on the left side of the hall has formed a bright orange pattern slanting down due to the sunlight: it seems like a pale graffiti left on the wall by time. The black and white tile floor was dented and covered with dirt.Oddly, like the porch, the reception hall is also free of furniture and decorations.She could see some places where the tiles were relatively light and the wallpaper darker, and she could tell that furniture and pictures had once been placed in these places, but had just been removed.She pointed to these places. "Stolen?" Harris asked. Morrow looked at a piece of bright wallpaper that was 6 feet high, and thought that a huge wardrobe must have been placed here for a long time. "If that is the case, they need a super big truck." In the passage leading to the stairwell, something caught Moreau's attention, a red cell phone leaning against the wall; Lie comfortably on your side.She stopped and looked at it, which was no match for the velvet heels in the hall. "What's that? Her mother's phone?" "That," Harris laughed, "that's a taser disguised as a telephone, and it emits 900,000 volts of power." "Where did the murderer fall?" He shrugged, "It's not sure what the murderer left behind, or hers. This kind of thing can be bought in the United States." He nodded back to the suitcase, "From the passport, she often goes to the United States, almost every month once." Moreau was taken aback, "Where does the money come from?" "She doesn't appear to have been anywhere else." The Taser may have been left behind by the killer.Crime scene traceable items are sometimes concealed, falling under car seats, slipping under heavy furniture, falling into the inside of a settee, or simply left out of plain sight.Most people double-check the room when they leave it, but some alert criminals sometimes remember to take the cigarette butts and forget about their car parked outside. She took a few steps back and looked around the hall again. The "mobile phone" still caught her eyes, which was very obvious.It seems unlikely that the murderer accidentally dropped it on the ground and didn't see it when he exited; he could see it just by looking back, and there was nothing in the hall to leave this thing alone. "I thought it might be hers, have there been threats or break-ins lately?" "I'll find out." Moreau filed the thing away, aware of the eerie calm he projected whenever he found an incongruity.She ruminates on these questions in the shower, rubbing baby oil on her stomach at night, and dodging calls from a psychologist evaluating her rapist nephew.When others are looking forward to a football game, a concert, or a night of drunken carnival, she is looking forward to a warm future. Moreau walked towards the archway leading to the neoclassical annexe.There is a large bright room here, just walking from the dark reception hall, the brightness is a little dazzling. The forensics team was still working on the scene, and she could see their shadows moving on the walls and hear the crisp sound of paper being crumpled from around the corner. As she led Harris toward the body, she could feel him deliberately staying in her blind spot, preparing himself to see the crime scene he had seen again. It was another large empty room, the wallpaper a creamy yellow with age, veined with blue, and the red birds dotted on it had faded to an almost invisible pink.At the corner, there is a stair lift chair, made of white plastic, folded flat and resting on the handrail at the bottom of the wide wooden stairwell. It is very new and clean. There is a remote control on the handrail, which can be used at any time. "Be careful..." Harris, who was following her, whispered. She was about to turn when she saw a woman's feet, far apart, with scarlet nail polish.Moreau turned her body slightly to see the complete scene, and she was startled.She had anticipated nausea, she was prepared for it, but she was powerless and unprepared for the suffocating horror. The woman was running down the stairs, hurrying, perhaps holding on to the banister.She must have fallen backwards, and the killer killed her right where she fell.Her legs were splayed out at the knees, and her private parts were glaringly bare like a blooming orchid.The neck is still intact and the rest of the body is clearly untouched.Very nice body, long legs, brown, sun-kissed thighs. But worst of all, in Morrow's view, the dead body was clearly not placed in this way: her feet were staggered, where Sarah Errol fell, where she died, abandoned here.The murderer didn't look at her, thinking how to humiliate her, to put her in an undignified situation.They left her in a nonchalant way.Her vulnerability was unbearable.Moreau now understands the nonchalant joke about her legs: it was only a matter of time before the officers despised Sarah Errol, as if she chose to be found, because the real situation was so pathetic up. She walks over, takes a breath, and tries to look at the injury, but ends up looking at the banister of the stairs: the delicate pillars, the warm dark wood, and the forensic workers on the stairs are soaking in the blood that has solidified on the stairs Extract fiber.They wore white uniforms and carried tool boxes, white plastic tote bags littered on the steps. Moreau tried again to move her eyes to the dead body, but her eyes couldn't bear to linger. She turned her face away and looked at the window above the stairs, then a greyhound painting on the wall, and finally A bloody footprint on the side stairs. It's natural, she knows, when the damage reaches this tragic level, nothing can hold your gaze, the human map has no beginning, it takes a lot of willpower to force your eyes to stay there, it takes ruthless determination to guide yourself. She remembered a crime scene photo.A helicopter crashed on a hillside in the Western Archipelago. The front of the helicopter had been cut away so that the pilot's body could be seen when the image was projected onto a film screen at the Police Academy. The pilot sat upright, his right hand still resting comfortably on the on the gas pedal.She remembers her confusion as she looked at the face: bright red but not bloody, no eyes, no lips but the teeth were still there, the nose impossibly short.She remembered how her eyes wandered over the photographs, until she suddenly saw Munch's famous painting hanging like a deflated balloon next to the pilot whose face had been chipped away by the spinning blades. Moreau took a deep breath and forced his eyes to fall on the feet of the deceased, out of respect for the woman and as an example.The edge of one of her ears had come off and drooped over her shoulder, forming a fleshy comma, flecked with pink. It's actually easier to go back to the police station and look at the photos, and it's often more effective for looking for patterns or traces, but the officers in the lobby are watching her, and they'll see her scrutinizing the woman, telling each other, the tone That's it, no bullshit, no hysteria, just look at it and say what you see. The effort to face the victim made her breathing shallow, her heart rate slow, and her blood stop flowing.She stood so still that the twins in her womb mistook their mother's fear for sleep and began somersaulting dangerously. She looked at a blunt tearing wound in the dead man's skin and felt the fetus in her womb celebrating the chaos, dancing a slow, graceful ballet.The torn piece of flesh suddenly trembled, and Moreau instinctively took a step back, thinking that the thing was still alive. She looked up to see a ghostly crime scene officer standing at the top of the stairs, his face blurred.A door at the head of the stairs had been opened, and the light was turned on the body. Starting with a nervous snicker, someone in the hall laughs, she looks around, everyone in the hall suddenly laughs, embarrassment is released in laughter, a normalized expression of shock and disgust , a burst of heartfelt emotion.Laughter swirled in the hall, snaked up the stairs, and penetrated the oppressive silence of the old house. Moreau gave a reproachful "hush," "Calm down, for God's sake!"