Murder most foul

Or 'Moiduh' as Taggart would've said.

I said I didn't make the 4th day of the Test because of unforeseen circumstances - and that was true, because I spoke to Mrs. RS on Sunday morning and then sold my ticket on.

Y'see I'd not been out with my friend Q in over nine years. Nine fucking years. We spoke on the phone every few months but we'd not met in person for half a decade. Q and I met on my first job after university. He's a couple of years older than me, but seeing as I became technical lead on a product called 'Lotus Notes' within 3 months of joining, he became my bitch. If, by bitch, you define that as a valued co-worker you train up to learn valuable skills whilst retaining utter respect for.

I'm trying to reclaim 'bitch' from the nay-sayers.

I moved back to Bristol within the year to start the heady 'career' I've had and Q stayed on for a year or two before splitting off himself. Brilliantly (and coincidentally) I got hired as a contractor for 18 months at Q's then employer so we resurrected our famous 45 minute smoke breaks.

I don't smoke, but I fail to see why I should be discriminated against.

But since 2003, we'd not seen each other. So seeing as I was in the area for cricket I decided to spend the night in Coventry visiting Q.

To explain Coventry to those who have never been there. Imagine Venice, made of concrete, bombed mercilessly by the Nazis for 4 years, and rebuilt in concrete with all its canals filled with used condoms.

Lovely place. Smells like 3 week old wee, but lovely place.

Q and I laid into the beers, went to his local pub where I met people who actually recognised me and had a great night. We even stopped for an Indian Kebab that was a culinary experience. We then laid into the beers.

I decided to call Mrs RS at midnight to see how she was (so, er, yeah, that's 5am my time. Well toasted I was) and brilliantly she'd been out with her girlie friends as well so was equally drunk (she'd had maybe three whole drinks or something - wasted). We had an enlightening and deeply intellectual conversation about kebabs before she decided she wanted one, so left for food. I passed out at this point.

Mrs RS left her basement apartment (it's a 2 storey building plus basement - 2 apartments on each floor) via the lockable door to the basement and walked through the main hallway before exiting the keypad controlled door and leaving the building.

She went for food.

Half an hour later she returned to a street full of flashing lights and cop cars. After establishing that she wasn't some gawper, they told her that they'd had a body reported and had attended the scene to find a dead woman in the building who was 'half upstairs and half downstairs'.

And that's a direct quote from the police at the scene.

The woman didn't live in the building (she was an 'acquaintance' of the recently divorced guy on the first floor).

So either Mrs RS walked past a good chunk of the woman without noticing.

Or the killer was in the building but upstairs.

Or the victim entered the building with the killer in the twenty minute gap.

Or the killer lives in the building.

Still, the rent is dead cheap for that part of New York....