The woman waggles a finger at an open door. ‘I think Liam is in the office. Come through the turnstile and follow the corridor around to the second door. Not the first door, because that’s this one behind me. The second door.’
‘I think I’ve got that,’ Cody says. ‘Thank you.’
They take the prescribed route. When they knock and push open the door to the office – the second door – they find a young man seated behind a desk. He is wearing a white T-shirt, strained to breaking point by his muscles and emphasising his tan. Webley is willing to bet that he’s into surfing, skiing and staring into mirrors.
‘Merseyside Police,’ Cody says, once again holding out proof of his claim. ‘Are you Liam?’
‘Er, yeah. That’s me. Come in.’
As he says this, he stands up and closes the door connecting his office to the reception area. Then he removes his gym bag from one of the chairs so that the detectives can sit down. Webley can’t help noticing that he’s wearing minuscule shorts, and that they’re so tight they should squeak when he walks.
‘Take a seat, guys,’ he says, presumably not referring to his own derriere.
‘Thanks. I’m Detective Sergeant Nathan Cody and this is DC Megan Webley.’
‘Nice to meet you. Is everything okay?’
‘Nothing to worry about. We’re hoping you can help us out with some information.’
‘No probs. Detective Sergeant, eh? Wow. I thought you’d have to be a lot older to get to that position.’
Here we go, Webley thinks. And yet again, their interviewee seems to have eyes only for Cody. She wonders why he has become everyone’s poster boy while she has become so invisible.
‘I’m older than I look,’ Cody says. ‘Runs in my family.’
Liam nods enthusiastically. ‘Believe it or not, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about joining the police. Don’t get me wrong, this job is ace – I like the people, and I get to use all the equipment for free – but it’s not exactly what you’d call exciting, if you know what I mean. Whereas your job…’
Cody smiles. ‘I suppose it has its moments. But there’s a lot of tedious stuff too.’
‘Oh, for sure. Every job has that, right? But you guys are out there, catching criminals, solving cases. That’s pretty damn cool.’
He stares at Cody in admiration. Webley wants to put her fingers down her throat.
‘So anyway,’ she says, ‘the reason we’re here…’
‘Oh. Yeah. Go ahead.’
‘We’d like to ask you about a woman who runs one of your exercise classes. Alexa Selby.’
‘Alexa, yeah. She does Bodcon.’
‘Bodcon?’
‘Body conditioning. It’s kind of an overall fitness and toning programme. Very popular.’
‘Okay. And when did she last do that?’
‘That would’ve been yesterday. I bumped into her on the stairs as she was going in.’ He pauses. ‘Is she all right?’
Webley leaves it to her sergeant to answer.
‘Actually, no,’ says Cody. ‘I’m afraid she’s been killed.’
Liam looks at each of the detectives in disbelief. ‘Killed? Oh, shit. How? An accident?’
‘No. We can’t go into detail right now, but it wasn’t an accident. She was found dead at home earlier today. At the moment we’re just trying to gather as much information as we can about her. How well did you know her?’
‘Not very well at all.’ He breaks off again, clearly finding it difficult to process the information he has been given. ‘Sorry, guys, but if it’s not an accident… are we talking about murder here?’
‘It looks that way.’
‘Shit. I… I don’t— I mean I didn’t really know her. We just said hello, maybe had a brief chat about the weather or whatever. Sometimes we had to discuss admin issues. That was about it. Still terrible news, though.’
‘Any of the other staff here friendly with Alexa?’
‘Not that I know of. I think she just turned up, gave her class and went again.’
‘Did she ever talk to you about her family or friends?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Ever mention her husband?’
Liam shakes his head. ‘I never really got to know anything about her personal life. I mean, she wore a wedding ring, but I never met the guy. I don’t even know his name.’
Webley finds it interesting that he noticed the presence of a wedding ring. She wonders if it’s always one of the first things men look for on an attractive woman.
‘It’s Oliver. Oliver Selby. That doesn’t ring a bell?’
