A Victim's Diary

5

Alistair was somewhat glad that Ruby's family seemed to be rather small. There were only her parents that were immediate family. They had already gotten the news that her daughter had been found dead, of course, and that news was still very fresh, so they both seemed to be rather upset, especially her mother. They both looked rather young, considering their actual ages, which Alistair had on file, of course, but which he asked them either way, just to confirm things with them. There were some typical questions that were just procedure and the answers to them weren't really that important.

Christine Daniels was a 47-year-old woman who seemed to have done a lot to look younger. Her hair was styled perfectly and dyed platinum blonde, her nails were manicured, and her skin looked almost flawless, but Alistair could also see that it was covered in makeup. She was wearing a lot of jewellery and very modern clothes. She seemed to be rather fit and healthy for her age, although she had a small belly that was starting to show just a little. She seemed to be quite insecure about it, which was strange because it really wasn't that noticeable, and Alistair couldn't imagine that anyone cared.

Her husband, Greg Daniels, was already 60, but it wasn't very noticeable. He had a charming smile and while his hair was grey, it was still full. His skin was lightly tanned, and he seemed to be doing some sort of regular exercise as well. Both of them looked well put together and like they cared about their appearances. It would be interesting to find out whether that was all they cared about or not.

According to the records they had gotten married when Christine had just turned 19 and was already five months pregnant. Greg was 32 at the time, which was quite the age difference. Alistair wasn't sure how to feel about that, but those were different times or so he thought. It still seemed pretty odd to him. Either way, there was nothing illegal happening, so he tried not be judgmental in any way.

He needed information from them, after all. Anything he could get, because so far he didn't really have much to go on. He needed the name of her best friend, whether she was seeing anyone, whether she had been acting different lately... but asking all of this of a couple who had just lost their daughter seemed cruel. But it was necessary, otherwise there was little chance of finding who had murdered her.

The CCTV tapes were still under review from what Alistair had heard and there weren't any results from the lab yet, which was a bit unusual (they were generally very quick with this kind of stuff, but who knew what was going on there). So really, the only thing that they had was the family, the diary and her workplace.

Still, he felt bad asking questions about this when her mother was still sobbing into a tissue and her father seemed to be bearing the news stoically. He hated having to ask all the standard questions first to which he already knew the answers, but they were designed to put them at ease, to see how they reacted, how they generally did with innocuous questions, so it was easier to assess them when he got to the important questions. Of course, body language wasn't anywhere near enough to make someone a suspect, but it could hint at a direction that should be investigated more among other things.

Either way, everything seemed to be fine when it came to those questions. Alistair didn't notice anything weird in the way they acted which likely ruled them out as suspects. Still, he had to ask all the questions. He had a feeling that there was something off about them – not that they had anything to do with the murder, but that there might be something else. But so far, it was just a hunch.

"Now these are again some more standard questions, so if you could try and answer them as precisely as possible... Where were you on Saturday night between 1 and 5 in the morning?" he wanted to know.

"Well, where do you think we were? At home, of course! We're not young anymore, we go to sleep every day around eleven at the latest. Isn't that right, Chrissie?" Greg told him. Christine nodded absentmindedly.