The Aura by Carrie Bedford Page B

few times, coming and going but, as I said, we were away this weekend.” He paused, frowned, straightened the cuffs on his shirt.
    “Good.” Clarke scribbled something down in his notebook. “I’ll need you to give detailed descriptions of the man and we will draw up an identikit picture.”
    “There’s a photo of the boyfriend in Rebecca’s room,” I said. “His name is Edward.”
    “You’ve met him?” Clarke asked.
    “No, Rebecca just told me his name.”
    “Do you have a second name, any idea where he works?” Clarke asked.
    “Nothing on the second name, but she said he works in technology and travels a lot. Can I go get the photo?”
    Clarke spoke to Wilson. “Please go with Miss Benedict.”
    I followed the police officer back into the apartment and down the hallway. When we entered the room, he gave me a pair of latex gloves. “Put these on, please,” he said. I noticed that he was already wearing some.
    I picked up the photo of Rebecca and the dark-haired young man with his arm around her shoulders, looked at it briefly and turned it face down in my hands. It was too painful to see the picture of my friend, alive and smiling. After following Wilson back up the hall, I held the picture out for Inspector Clarke to see. Clarke gestured for me to show it to Nick.
    “This is the boyfriend?” he asked.
    “No, it’s not,” said Nick. “The boyfriend is taller and older. This is Rebecca’s brother.”
    “Her brother?” I exclaimed. “But she told me her only relatives were her parents.”
    “Her only living relatives, maybe,” said Nick. “Her brother – I think his name was Andrew – was killed in a climbing accident about two years ago, not long after I moved in here. She was heartbroken. That’s the first time I looked after Caspian for her, when she went home for the funeral. She was gone for a week or so.”
    I swallowed down the hurt I felt that Rebecca hadn’t chosen to share this with me. But then, I reflected, I hadn’t told Rebecca about Toby, hadn’t really even talked much about my mother’s death. Funny how you could spend time with someone and not say anything very meaningful.
    Clarke cleared his throat to get our attention. “Is there anything else that you think might be helpful for me to know at this point?” he asked.
    I hesitated. I should tell him about the missing toiletries in the cabinet, but that meant admitting that I’d been poking around. He looked at me closely. “You’re really pale. Are you okay?”
    Not really. I felt exhausted and sad, but I said I was all right. Against my better judgment, I told him about seeing the aftershave and shaving cream a week ago, and then noticing they weren’t there any longer.
    Clarke winced. “You used the bathroom this evening?”
    “I was being sick,” I said, and he nodded.
    “Understandable,” he said as he wrote something in his notebook. “We’ll need you to come to the station for fingerprints. And you too, please, Mr. Carpenter.”
    “Do you think Rebecca was murdered?” asked Nick. He was as pale as I felt.
    Clarke shook his head. “I don’t think anything yet.” He looked up from his notebook. “Were the lights on when you arrived?”
    “No,” said Nick. “We turned them all on. That means it was probably daylight when she died, doesn’t it?”
    “How long has she been dead?” I asked.
    “I’ll know more when the medical examiner has finished,” Clarke said. “Meanwhile, is there anything else that you can tell me?”
    “I was supposed to be looking out for her.”
    I didn’t realize I’d even said the words out loud until Clarke cocked his head to one side. “Looking out for her? Had she indicated that she felt she was in danger? Was she depressed? Or sick?”
    I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks and neck, and I touched my throat nervously. I couldn’t tell him about the aura.
    “No, nothing like that,” I said, which was the truth.
    The silence stretched out between us, Clarke