Echoes of the Past

by Mailer, Deborah

  “What? What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

  Leaning forward across the desk, Crane explained. “When I arrived, just after the Pathologist, I felt fresh air blowing through the house. I understand that we had the front door open, but I noticed the back door to the garden was also open, allowing through a draft.” Jones made to speak, but Crane persisted. “And you’ve just told me that when you entered the house, all the doors and windows were shut in the hall and in the kitchen. That’s why the smell of death was so strong.”

  Pushing back into his chair, recoiling from the force of Crane’s words, Jones thought for a moment. “Shit. I think Tomlinson must have done it then. Opened the door to the garden. He slipped past me to look when I called the Adjutant. But what difference does it make? It didn’t interfere with any evidence surely?”

  Levering himself out of his chair, Crane looked down at Jones. “That’s a matter of opinion, Staff. Think about it. If the door to the garden had been open when Solomon and his wife were having a row and in the heat of the moment he went for her, she would have escaped into the garden. And anyway, the boy wouldn’t have been there.”

  “Well, yes,” agreed Jones. “If you’re having an argument, you tend to send the kids out of the room.”

  “Exactly. So with the house locked down tight, maybe Solomon planned it. Maybe it wasn’t a domestic argument gone wrong as we all thought, but a deliberate, pre-meditated attack on his wife and son. Solomon always meant to kill them and then commit suicide. So put that stupid bastard Tomlinson on report.”

  “Dear God,” whispered Jones, putting his head in his hands as Crane left the office.