City of Strangers: A Novel - Softcover

Louise Millar began her journalism career in various music and film magazines and spent seven years at Marie Claire as senior editor and contributing editor. She has written for Mojo, Marie Claire, Red, Psychologies, The Independent, Glamour, and The Guardian, among others. She lives in London with her husband and daughters.

City of Strangers 1

Now, where to start?

Probably the shoes.

They were the style businessmen wore, but scuffed, as if the dead man who wore them had been dancing in dust. The white powder had burrowed into the decorative arcs on the toes, creating lacy caps. Gaps at the heels suggested a poor fit.

Someone else’s shoes.

Grace Scott knelt, careful not to disturb the crime scene, and photographed his feet. The heels were square and stubbed, and sported identical worn half-moons at the edges.

No socks.

Her lens trailed to the shoelaces. Brown, lying mismatched against parched black leather, plastic aglets split or missing, but each loop equal in size. Tied with care.

A gap of ankle, with dark, coarse body hair, then the suit.

She moved her lens upwards.

It was navy, pinstriped and, like the shoes and the yellowed business shirt underneath, poorly fitting, suggesting a previous owner. Thin threads dry-cleaned into submission. A shine that suggested a thousand journeys in traffic jams and meetings in baking-hot rooms, sweat infused with stress hormones, and last night’s pint and takeaway curry. A hint of buttercup paint on one knee. Perhaps a DIY paintbrush picked up late at night by someone too tired to change after work.

Grace moved her camera lens along the dead man’s limbs.

Black gloves. Fingers stiff.

No watch.

No belt.

Light broke into the kitchen. The thunder had subsided, and now a freakishly bright beam blasted between the storm clouds and through the window of the Edinburgh apartment. It lit up one sliver of patchy, lucent skin, visible between the strands of brown hair that masked the face. The hair was luxuriously thick, dried like bracken. A substance was spattered across it: tarry and foul-smelling, like the stain on the pale granite worktop.

Blood.

A milky eye stared through two strands.

Trying to keep her hands steady, Grace focused her lens. No hint in it about what had happened. No suggestion that he knew life was about to end.

She widened her angle, shooting the whole body now in the context of where it had fallen. The head below the sink, the feet protruding into the dining area, the kitchen cupboards framing him like a coffin.

Then, for an even wider perspective, she shot from the kitchen door, catching the eerie light and igniting the puddle of broken glass by the smashed back door.

Then the man’s black shoes poking out from behind a cupboard.

The wedding presents in the corner he had been trying to steal.

To steal.

Grace lowered the camera.

What was she doing?

Tiptoeing across the scene, she unstacked the dining chairs and sat. The only sounds were her breath and rain dripping onto the oversize white floor tiles, creating mud-colored rivulets in the new grout.

Outside was the fire escape he must have climbed. The backyard of the newsagent’s below, and the gate beyond.

The kitchen cupboards were open, as if he’d been looking for food.

They were brand-new cupboards. There had never been any food in them.

That was sad.

She replaced her camera in its bag, checking to make sure she’d caught every angle. He looked like he’d been here for days. A family must be worrying somewhere, hoping for a call.

Undoing the T-shirt she’d tied over her face to fight the acrid smell, she walked to the hall and rang 999.

“Yes . . . Hi. My name’s Grace Scott. I live at 6A Gallon Street by the Crossgate Tower. I’ve just come back from holiday and found a man dead in my kitchen. . . . Yes, lying on the floor . . . No, no idea . . . He looks like he’s been here awhile. . . . Maybe a burglar, the back door is smashed . . .”

Instructions were given. Grace ended the call.

Mac would be at the door any minute, with bags full of shopping from Morrisons that no one would eat.

“Don’t worry,” she said into the empty room. “I’ll stay with you.”