Cambridge Blue by Alison Bruce

absorbing the reality. He knew that was the moment when spontaneous emotional responses often illuminated both the deceased and their nearest and dearest better than bright lights or an inquisition.
    Eventually, they were called in to view the body, and afterwards Goodhew wondered what he’d really learnt from this. Alice stood further away, as if three extra feet of floor space would be enough to leave her detatched. Her spine was poker-straight and her arms were crossed, Morticia-style. The only change the imminent peeling back of the sheet produced was the subtle movement of Alice’s right thumb, which flexed until it was pinching the soft flesh of her upper arm. She fixed her stare somewhere beyond the sheet, still covering Lorna, and resolutely refused to make eye contact with either of the men.
    Richard reacted differently. At first, he seemed unable to stand still and kept rubbing his palms against his thighs, but when he nodded that he was ready for the sheet to be lifted, he drew in one deep breath, then managed to stop fidgeting.
    His eyes bulged, as if the conflict between not wanting to look and having a duty to, was threatening to make them explode. He swallowed, but didn’t look away from her as he spoke. ‘It doesn’t really look like Lorna,’ he said.
    Goodhew looked at Lorna too. ‘But it is?’
    ‘I can touch her, can’t I? It is all right?’
    ‘Of course.’
    Richard ran two fingertips across the top of her cheek, as if wiping away a tear.
    ‘We had plans,’ he said.
    ‘What kind of plans?’
    Richard didn’t answer, but instead turned to face his sister. ‘We had plans, Alice.’
    ‘I know,’ she whispered. He reached out to her and she wrapped him in a tight embrace. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured.
    And the whole time, Goodhew never saw her look anywhere apart from the blank wall on the opposite side of the room. He didn’t ask about the plans; sometime later would do for that.
    Goodhew hadn’t waited for another instruction from the station; instead, he’d just cleared off to Lorna’s flat. He walked there; the late-afternoon traffic was already thickening, and driving would save him no time. But, more than that, he wanted to lose himself in Cambridge for a few minutes, to snatch a breath of fresh air and remind himself how the city outside the laboratory really smelt. He aimed to step into her flat with a clear set of senses, and thus a chance of snatching a last metaphorical glimpse of her.
    The sun was out this afternoon and he realized that it was the first time since seeing Lorna’s body on Midsummer Common that he’d been aware of anything unconnected with her. He could reach her flat with a brisk ten-minute walk along the edge of the pedestrianized shopping streets. As he passed the Cambridge News kiosk on the corner of Sidney Street and Petty Cury, the billboard announced ‘Latest on Midsummer Common Murder’. People walked along with the late edition under their arms or protruding from their bags. Soon her name would be announced, and shortly after that the whole city would be on first-name terms with her.
    A few minutes later, he turned from the busy shops in Bridge Street, down Rolfe Place and towards Rolfe Street beyond. No one followed and, ahead of him, the pavements were empty. He could see two marked cars parked in the middle of an atypically empty row of parking spaces. Meanwhile, a lone uniformed officer stood in a doorway. Goodhew knew that every activity would be closely watched from one neighbouring house or another, but he was glad that her home hadn’t yet descended into a general gawping ground.
    It was the type of street where the terraces had originally been functionally unglamorous, but now existed in a new incarnation of desirable and fashionable city living. Few had not been ‘modernized’, the term which currently implied adding period features alongside state-of-the-art gadgetry.
    Lorna’s flat appeared to have once served as the living