Behind Closed Doors by Michael Donovan Page A

the windscreen. Going somewhere fast. Looked like she’d not started so early on the lubrication today. Unless I was luckier than I knew.
    Decision time. It would be good to see where Jean was going but the opportunity of an empty house was too good to pass. Empty if Larry Slater or Rebecca were not there, of course. I got back onto the tarmac and continued up the lane. I turned into the Slaters’ driveway and parked outside their front door. Slater’s Lexus was missing and Jean hadn’t looked like she was popping out for the paper. I might have an hour or two.
    I rang the door bell. Better safe, et cetera.
    No answer.
    I reached into the Frogeye’s boot and grabbed a couple of tools that help with house calls. I slipped them under my jacket and walked along the front of the building. The villa was abutted by white stuccoed walls hiding the gardens but I found an access gate unlocked beside the garage and went through.
    The grounds were a half acre of impeccable gardens that suggested regular staff. I hoped that today was their day off. I went round the back and found a conservatory that added nothing to the Spanish architecture. An add-on at the stage of needing either major refurbishment or demolition. Its main feature was a door that didn’t need any tools other than hand pressure to ease the lock’s tongue out of the frame. I went inside and walked along the back of the main house. Three doors opened into the building. Two were secure. The third was the kitchen door and was unlocked. If they’d put an ENTRANCE sign up they’d save a burglar’s time. The house was alarmed but something told me that Jean Slater hadn’t stopped to set the panel. I took a chance and stepped into the kitchen.
    The place stayed silent. I walked through to an alcove at the back of the hall and confirmed that the alarm was disabled. I listened again. Still silence. I took the nearer staircase onto the gallery. The gallery served two doors on each side of the house. I started clockwise from the east. The first two doors opened onto lifeless guest rooms. I moved on to the front of the house. Both front rooms had been knocked into one master bedroom the size of a tennis court with walk-in dressers and a double-sized ensuite. Jean and Larry’s room. The room was just-vacated untidy. Bed unmade. Walk-in closets open. Lid askew on a laundry basket. It looked like Jean was not a neat freak. I guessed that she had a domestic, although there had been no sign of work going on when I was here on Tuesday. I did a skim search, pulled drawers on the off chance that there might be something significant. Found nothing. If the Slaters had anything to hide it would not be here. I continued my walk, checked two more guest rooms on the west side and finally arrived at the rear of the house. The first door opened into a bright and untidy bedroom crowded with soft furnishings and wall posters. Rebecca’s room.
    Two rooms knocked into one again. The ultimate teenage den. Six full-height windows looked out over the gardens and illuminated walls decorated in cheerful pastels that matched the curtains and bedspread. The bed was made up but in a half-hearted way. Clothes and shoes were scattered about the room but I didn’t get the impression that the girl had been around in the last few days. If Rebecca had been gone a week then the domestic was moving slow.
    A teak desk had a clutter of student stuff: notebooks, scrap paper, card files with work assignments. No computer – Rebecca probably carried her laptop around. I looked through the loose stuff and found nothing.
    I checked out shelves loaded with more clutter – books, boxes of tissues, cuddly toys, a rack of CDs already made obsolescent by the iPod on the desk. I sifted through a teak chest of drawers full of girl’s designer stuff, turned everything, corner to corner, in forty-five minutes. Nothing amongst her paperwork or clothes, nothing under