One door opens

The door is opened by a PC. Holder and Jones nod to him.

The hall is small so the PC has to squeeze against the wall to let the detectives pass. The hall is painted deep red and has oak coloured flooring on the ground. Holder can't tell whether it is laminate, some other fake or real. If it is real, it must have been imported. The idea that the Edwardian builder would ever have considered lavising oak on a house like this is laughable. Holder walks in front of Jones. She is trying to get a mood for the place.

All detectives are nosy and all detectives love looking around people's houses.

She walks down the hallway. There are two and a half rooms downstairs; a living room, a dining room and a kitchen area. She starts with the living room first.

There is a real fire and a fake painting above it. She looks in the grate. It is nearly clean; there are some fragements of burnt paper which must have fallen through. She picks up one fragment, it has "exceptional circumstance we must be forced" but then the words tail off into ash and then nothingless. Unsure, she puts the fragment back and picks up another "tell him believe me but if he gets proof he gets". The font looks likes senoe. She puts that back too. There are some bank statements and junk mail stacked neatly next to the kindling and coal. Evidently the Smiths preferred to burn their paper rather than to trust it to the blue recycling bin. Holder doesn't blame them.

In the room is a big cream sofa which is sagging in the middle. It looks comfortable and slept on. There is a coffee table next to it, with a single mug and a single wine glass on. There is an inch or so of brackish cold black coffee in the coffee mug. It is an Ikea mug, Holder recognises it. There is a centimetre of stained tanin coloured red wine in the wine glass. Its just a wine glass, Holder recognises that, too.

Opposite the fire is the wall with the fire. On one side, above the logs are some shelves. Sunlight is streaming onto the books as if it is illuminating. Jones is in the doorway. Holder ignores him. She takes the one and two thirds steps over to the shelves. They are almost full of neatly stacked pretentious wank. Irvine Welsh (she hates him), Alex Garland (one hit wonder), the usual shit for tossers who think they're educated. Some DVDs of films they don't even bother to hype anymore and some CDs depecting the deline and departure of something; Acid hose collections, verve, urban chillout, classic fm 100 greatest arias.

The tv remote control is on top of the tv. Before they invented plasma, it would have been state of the art.

"BBC 4" she says.

She clicks the red standby button of the controler. The controller is long and thin. The tv warms up, slowly.

"BBC 1" says Jones.

Real Rescue is on. Jones smiles, but inside so that she can only guess the smile is there.

"You were thinking he'd be too pretentious right, and that he wouldn't watch tv in the morning. But if he was worried, he'd be watching the regional news in case it said anything about a body. I bet his laptop is on MEN too."

"Perhaps" she says "Or perhaps he was watching "Case Histories" last night, after all that is a dramatisation of a book. Look, there it is, she says, pointing to the bookcase. He probably sat there all superior when they changed a bit from the book.

In the dining room is a largeish ikea table. The type than can expand. On it is an empty vase and a shut laptop There are more books in here too.

The laptop is plugged in, Holder lifts the lid. Windows 7 Home Ultimate asks her for a password. Hopefully she types in "Smith" then an empty return. She can feel Jones looking at her. She tries "St Cuthbert Road" and then just cuthbert and the welcome screen disappears. She sees that IE is open with two tabs, bbc news for Manchester and MEN. She shuts the lid again. The room is boring and the kitchen is clean. They head upstairs. Three bedrooms, one tiny is full of storage. The backroom has a desk, some filing cabinets and an old IKEA sofa bed. Home office stroke spare bed. The bathroom is bloody from where he slashed his wrists. Judging from the patterns, he did it sitting on the bog. Most of them do that. She sees blood on the toilet roll and blood on the toilet duck. There are blood on her body shop body washes and blood on his tesco finest shaving foam and moisturiser. Blood on the floor and blood on the ceiling. A hot tap is running. Fuck 'em, Holder is going to leave it but Jones switches it off. Checking they have no blood on their soles they walk the two and a half steps across the landing to the main room. A white ikea bed, two white wardrobes and two brown bedside tables. Two lamps, two glasses of water, one radio.

"what do you think" asks Jones

"Dunno, lets go speak to him" says Holder