Death in the Sunshine (Retired Detectives Club, #1)(34)

Shifting her gaze to the pool, she wonders if there’s any chance of her taking a viable sample from the small patches of water left puddled on the pool’s floor. Her first instinct is it’s not enough, but she decides to give it a try.

She strides around to the pool ladder. It’s getting darker by the minute. The sun’s light is orange and red, like a bloodstain across the sky. The birds, so noisy earlier, have fallen silent on their perches up in the trees. Lizzie knows she needs to hurry. Soon she won’t be able to see a thing.

Using the ladder she climbs down into the basin of the pool. It feels weird to step on to the bottom, now waterless and barren. She takes slow steps, scanning the matt, blue-painted surface for a big enough sample.

It seems fruitless, though. The floor of the pool has some imperfections where water has puddled in tiny amounts. She keeps looking. Keeps moving across the basin. She’s almost at the furthest point from the ladder when she sees a slightly bigger puddle, maybe a couple of inches across. It’s a long shot, but it looks like it’ll be enough to get a swab.

Lizzie glances up at the sky. The sun is sinking down below the horizon and the light has almost gone. At least the fading light means whoever was on the top of the hill won’t be able to watch her so easily, but if she’s going to finish this she needs to work faster. Opening her messenger bag, she removes the water swab kit she brought from home. They’d bought the kits online so they could periodically test the hot tub – Philip having heard how bad the things are for harbouring germs and bacteria. She can get a sample on the swab and test it once she’s home.

Crouching down, she removes the swab from the narrow plastic container and presses it against the puddled water. It soaks up most of the water, and when she’s got it damp enough, she pushes it back into the container and screws on the lid.

It’s something, slightly better than nothing. But even if the swab works, whether it will show her anything of use is doubtful. Chances are the amount of chemicals used to keep the water clean will skew the data and she might not be able to get an accurate read on the ratio of water to blood anyway. And that’s assuming she can find her old kit, and if she still has the testing equipment she needs.

Lizzie shakes her head. It’s a whole lot of ifs. She knows that.

Still she packs the sample container into her bag and decides to keep looking. Taking her iPhone from the zipped section of the messenger bag, she switches on the torch app and uses the light to give the pool a final look. She’s almost done when she spots it – a flash of something shiny in the far corner of the basin.

Hurrying over, she sees that there’s a small filter in this corner of the pool. It’s hidden by a slightly raised cover painted the same shade of blue as the pool floor, with just a tiny gap for the water to run through. Lizzie frowns. She’s not sure what it is yet – just that it’s something silver and it doesn’t look like it should be in the filter. If it’s something connected to the murder it’s bad that the cops and CSIs didn’t find it. They should have pulled out all the pool filters as standard procedure – they’re an obvious place to check for anything small that could have been dropped. That they haven’t checked is another sign that the police department isn’t giving this crime its full attention.

Kneeling down on the floor of the pool, Lizzie removes a ziplock baggie from her satchel and a pair of tweezers. She opens the ziplock, and then uses the tweezers to try and lever the shiny thing from the filter. It’s stuck pretty firm, and it takes a few attempts for her to waggle it free.

Her breath catches in her throat as she sees what it is. The hairclip is made of silver and diamanté, but it’s not what it’s made of that’s making her heart beat faster; it’s the symbols they make: a row of four dollar signs connected together.

Lizzie focuses the beam of her phone torch at the hairclip with the dollar signs on it and thinks about how the young woman was found – floating in the middle of this pool, surrounded by thousands of dollar bills. There has to be a connection between her and the hairclip, surely. It can’t be a coincidence.

She seals the hairclip into the ziplock and then puts everything aside from her phone into the messenger bag. Hoisting it over her head, she makes sure it’s fastened, then strides back across the pool basin to the ladder. It’s tougher climbing back up, especially one-handed as she holds the phone in the other, the torch beam focused on the rungs of the ladder.

Back on the patio, she brushes herself down. It’s time to go.

A bird in the trees nearby squawks, making her jump. There’s the frantic beating of wings as the roosting birds take flight. Their cries are loud, urgent. Something has scared them.

Lizzie clutches the messenger bag to her body. It’s dark now. No moon, no stars. And utterly silent now the birds have fled.

Then she hears the crack of a dried stick, and the rustle of leaves. It’s coming from the direction of the trees, the same direction she needs to go in to exit – the only way in or out of the pool area.

Her mouth goes dry.

Whatever caused the birds to take flight, it won’t have been Moira. She’s not coming back here – they agreed to meet at Philip and Lizzie’s house once they were done. And there’s no reason anyone else should be here.

Heart pounding, Lizzie thinks about the slim blond man who’d been spying on them in the garden earlier. She wonders again if he’s the person Moira saw up on the hill watching through binoculars. Could he have avoided Moira and come down to the pool to see what she was doing? It’s possible. Very possible. He didn’t look super-strong, but could Lizzie fight him off if he’s out there, ready to attack? She’s really not sure.