Ilona sighed as she got to her office door. Normally she sighed because of the stairs she had to climb to get to it because the lift was out of order again but today she sighed because a delivery had been dumped right outside her door. Literally, so she had to push boxes out of the way to get the key in the lock. Why it was so difficult for them to push the boxes against a perfectly good wall not two feet to the right was beyond her.

Ilona pulled the delivery docket off one of the offending boxes as she made her way through the narrow path she had given herself. Her first call of the day would be to Gary the building maintenance and gofer guy. Enclosed in the boxes was the stationary order for the whole floor. It needed to be stored at the other end of the floor to where she was. Pushing her door open she swore, there was another delivery waiting inside. A body….

The body of a man lay on the floor to her office. Ilona looked across the body to the telephone on her desk. Not wanting to step over the body to get to it she retraced her steps back out the office, closing the door on the horrible scene, pulling her mobile phone from her purse. For the second time that morning, she swore. The reception in the building was hopeless and instead of being able to place a call to the police from her own phone, she checked every office until she found a door that was not locked. By then she was nearly at the other end of the building. Ilona explained what she had found, also telling the police she was not about to stay in the building until they arrived. If they wanted to talk to her, she would be in the café across the street.

Once in the café Ilona ordered a strong coffee to try to steady her nerves. As the barista gave her back her change, he noticed she was shaking. “You all right Miss Jaymen, your hands are shaking?”

Ilona looked at him a little dazed. “Have you ever seen a dead body Jimmy?”

Jimmy shook his head a little stunned.

“I think I just did.”

Before he could reply, the sound of approaching sirens got their attention. Ilona went to sit at a window table, some morbid curiosity compelling her to see what would happen. What happened no one expected.

Ilona mistook the noise as the rumble of thunder, until glass and debris began to fall from the sky onto the street and unsuspecting people below, including the newly arrived police. When half an office desk landed just outside the café Ilona jumped spilling her coffee but strangely enough did not feel obligated to move. Not until she felt someone grab her by the arm and pull her to her feet. It was Jimmy. “I think we will be safer at the back of the café don’t you.”

Ilona allowed herself to be pulled closer to the serving counter where most of the other patrons had gathered waiting to make sure the danger had passed.

It felt surreal to Ilona, nothing was damaged. The café was intact as dust puffed under the café door but all outside was silent. For a split second it felt like the world had stopped, no one moved, no one breathed, then as if shaken from a trance police began to take control, assessing the damage to property and people. The action pulled Ilona away from her safe post like a moth to a flame, she had to see more and found herself pulling the café door open not hearing the pleas from Jimmy to stay inside.

The office desk was now a splintered mess on the footpath, papers scattered all over the street, one police car had been partially crushed by a falling metal filing cabinet and Ilona watched as police and civilians tried to free the two officers still trapped in their car; thankfully alive.

More sirens could be heard in the distance, no doubt the paramedics, fire department, and police rescue.

Ilona looked up to see a gaping hole in the side of the building in which she worked and it was then that her legs turned to jelly and she began to collapse. From inside the café Jimmy had seen her sway knowing he was too far away to help her he ran anyway. Someone else had seen her begin to collapse and had rushed to her aid, catching her just before she fell to the ground.

  “Wow there…..I got you.”

Ilona looked into his dark green eyes and concerned face wondering why this strange man was holding on to her when she saw Jimmy’s equally concerned face over his shoulder. “I can take her inside if you like.” Green Eyes shot a frowned look at Jimmy. “It’s okay she’s a local, works over there.” Jimmy pointed to the damaged building, her names Ilona, Ilona Jaymen.”

This time as Green Eyes looked back at her it was a look Ilona could not pick. “You’re Ilona Jaymen?”

Ilona nodded her head as she tried to stand with the help of Green Eyes while Jimmy hovered protectively. “I’m Detective Dolling. We need to talk but……” He looked to the chaos in the street. “Are you sure you are alright?”

Ilona found her voice. “Yes, I guess seeing my office with a hole in the wall was a little unnerving.”

All three looked back up at the building but it was Jimmy who spoke. “I’m sure it wasn’t your office exactly Miss Jaymen.”

Ilona was already beginning to shake her head. “Oh it was mine alright. See…. if you count twelve windows up against that pipe and then go across three.” As they all counted Ilona pointed and they followed her finger. It was her office.

Detective Dolling looked at her again and Jimmy swore. “Just as well you came back down for a coffee then.”

Ilona sighed as she gave the detective her full attention. “I’m sorry detective, I am alright. Another one of Jimmy’s fine coffees and things will be better. Will I need to stick around?”

Detective Dolling looked up and down the street. “For a while. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

He nodded and walked back into the commotion while Ilona and Jimmy returned to the café.

The explosion had happened early in the morning and with the exception of the dead body in her office there had been no one else on the affected floor. The answer that Ilona gave several police officers as they came looking for eyewitnesses. Like Ilona there had been others who had arrived at work early but on different floors and although shaken were uninjured. It was ironic to find out that the only people injured where those heading to the café for an early morning caffeine hit. Two businessmen that Ilona only knew to nod at in the lift had sustained cuts and bruises but no major trauma. Though one was making enough noise about his ruined suit, you think it had been Armani. Her thoughts drifted back to the body in her office: Ilona was sure the dead man would have been very happy to be alive and wearing an off the rack suit with a few rips in it rather than being dead wearing an expensive suit. Ilona had no idea if the dead man’s suit was Armani but she did know it was expensive. Her father had been an executive; his preference had been for Pierre Cardin.

The noise of the café broke through her thoughts. It had become crowded and Jimmy had dispensed with charging people for their drinks, after all, it was an emergency. Ilona looked from her empty cup to the throng of people at the counter waiting to be served and smiled at the idea forming.

She walked through the crowd but did not stop at the counter, instead kept walked to the serving side giving Jimmy a bit of a shock in the middle of serving a customer. Ilona smiled sweetly at him. “Don’t panic Jimmy. I didn’t always work in an office. You got three machines here we may as well fire them all up. What do you say?”

Before he could protest he watched in amazement as Ilona did just that and proceeded to make his customers coffee as if she had been doing it all her life.

Ilona served his customer with a smile and all Jimmy could do was sigh. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Sure, keep me busy and stop me from drinking to much java juice myself.”

The physical activity had the desired effect and Ilona gave no more thought to the body in her office until Detective Dolling stood at the counter ready to order. As soon as she recognised him, he saw the tension return to her face. It was a look he had seen many times before. Occupational hazard. This time he tried to make light of it. “Moonlighting?”

Ilona tried to give him a smile. “Worked my way through university as a barista.”

Detective Dolling nodded. “Well you must know what you are doing, everyone seems happy.”

“I think that has more to do with the fact that the coffee is free rather than my skills.”

Jimmy piped up. “You can work here anytime.”

Ilona smiled and asked Detective Dolling what he wanted to drink.

“Double shot flat white thanks.”

Jimmy relied. “I got it. I guess he would like to talk to you now.”

Detective Dolling nodded again. “Yeah.” Looking around the café he thought he was going to have to go back outside to get some privacy when Jimmy offered them the office at the back. “Thank you.”

“I’ll bring your coffee back when it’s done.”

Ilona and Detective Dolling remained silent until they were in the small, sparsely furnished office. There was a desk, which contained a phone and computer, two chairs, and a filing cabinet. Detective Dolling offered Ilona the guests chair and he sat in Jimmy’s. “Think he is going for the minimalist look?”

Ilona smiled a little but did not speak still nervous as to what questions he was going to ask her and if she could give him any answers.

“So Miss Jaymen.”

“Just call me Ilona.”

Detective Dolling dipped his head slightly and continued. “Do you have any idea why there was a body in your office?”

Ilona shook her head.

“Can you remember if the door was locked when you arrived this morning?”

“Definitely locked, I had to use my keys.” Ilona saw the doubtful expression cross is face. “It was locked Detective Dolling. I locked it myself last night and unlocked it again this morning.”

Detective Dolling was about to apologise as he could see that Ilona thought he did not believe her when Jimmy arrived with the coffee. He placed one in front of Detective Dolling and handed another to Ilona. “Decaf.” Ilona gave Jimmy a sweet smile of thanks before he left, grateful for the distraction.

Detective Dolling took a sip of his own drink. “I apologise, I meant no disrespect. I do believe you. Can you tell me exactly what you found when you got here this morning?”

“Apart from delivery boxes stacked in front of my door and a body in my office things were pretty much the same as any other day.” Ilona took a sip of her coffee before she said anything she would regret later as her reply had been acerbic.

Detective Dolling caught the sharp tone and wondered if it was the delivery boxes or the body that had upset Ilona. “I’m sorry this must be hard for you. The questions can wait. I can arrange to interview you at the police station later if you need more time.”

Ilona shook her head. “No, better get it done now while it is still fresh.” She sighed. “So what is the next question?”

Detective Dolling was beginning to warm to her; it was not very often he could conduct an interview in such a situation with someone who could keep his or her wits about them, and she was right, the longer they waited the more the answers could change. “I don’t suppose you know what was in the boxes, how many?”

Ilona put her coffee cup on the table and dug into her jacket pocket. “I can do better than that.” She handed Detective Dolling a piece of paper. “It’s the delivery docket I tore off one of the boxes this morning.”

He smiled as he took a small notebook out of his own pocket and jotted down some information before taking an envelope from Jimmy’s desk and putting the docket inside.

Ilona swore. “Damn. I guess now you are going to want my fingerprints if that is evidence right?”

“I don’t know if it is relevant at the moment but it is a possibility. Would you be agreeable if we need to take your prints?”

“Sure. I don’t suppose they have figured out a way to do it that doesn’t include being messy?”

Detective Dolling laughed. “Sorry, at least not in my station.” Instantly he moved the conversation on. “Do you remember anything about the body in your office?”

His laughter had put Ilona at ease and it was not until she was detailing what she had seen that she realised what she was doing and faltered. Detective Dolling encouraged her to keep going. “Do you remember anything about his features?”

“No, he was laying face down, I really didn’t stop to take a good look at him, at his face but he was Caucasian, dark brown hair. The suit was expensive and his shoes were well looked after but had been worn a lot.” Ilona saw the officer’s puzzled look. “The soles, you could tell by the soles of his shoes. He was tall, well he looked tall laying there on the floor.” Ilona sighed. “Sorry I am not being much help.”

“No you are doing just fine.” Detective Dolling asked Ilona a few more questions before looking at his watch and finished off his coffee. “I guess that will do for the day. I will get someone from my office to call you if we need you to come in, probably tomorrow or the day after.”

Ilona stood. “Okay. I guess I should get back to what is left of my office.”

“If you are okay you might as well go home, they won’t be letting anyone in the building just yet.” Detective Dolling had an afterthought. “Maybe I should get you taken to the hospital, get checked out?”

Ilona shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”

With that, they both left Jimmy’s office and returned to the café. Detective Dolling thanked Jimmy for the coffee and headed back outside while Ilona stared after him. “Something wrong Miss Jeyman?”

“Why did he ask me to describe a body they already have?”

“Maybe it was too badly injured in the explosion.”

Ilona was already shaking her head. “No, they would check it for ID if that was the case.”

“It might not have had any.”

Ilona smiled at Jimmy. “Yeah probably right. I’m headed home Jimmy not much I can do around here. See ya.”

Jimmy smiled watching her leave. For her part Ilona could not shake the feeling that she was missing something. Something important.

Detective Dolling talked to a few more people including the owner of the building who had arrived after hearing about the incident on the local radio station. Several of the floors in the building were leased by individual office space with each floor offering admin and secretarial services like any other business. The rent on each office was low and the owner earned his money via the administration services he provided. It turned out that all the rooms on the same floor as Ilona were leased to a variety of businesses and people including a psychologist, financial adviser, a broker and Ilona. The floor above and below were the same. The owner could think of no reason anyone would want to hurt Ilona, his money was on the financial adviser on the floor below whom he thought to be a little creepy. When asked if he could think of anyone who would be out to hurt him by leaving a dead body then damaging his building the owner laughed. “If someone wanted to do that I would have thought they would target a place that would really cause me some financial concern. I own at least six buildings in town worth much more than this one. And before you get any thoughts about insurance jobs the answer is no.” The owner gave Detective Dolling his card with permission to go fishing through all of his business dealings with his blessings. “I don’t have anything to hide and I really would like to get to the bottom of this as well.” He looked up to the damaged building. “I have tenants that will need to be taken care of while repairs are going on.”

Back at his own desk, Detective Dolling sifted through his notes. It would be some time before the coroner could give him any answers or he would be allowed back into the building but one thing he already knew; the man had been alive before the explosion so he came to the conclusion that who ever had killed him was trying to cover up something more than a body. Leaning back into his chair, sighing he let random thoughts race through his mind. If any of his fellow detectives realised this was how he got a handle on his cases they would probably have locked him up a long time ago but it worked for him. Some how if he let ideas and information and his thoughts dance with each other in the end it would lead him down the right path. The chime of his mobile phone shot him back into reality. “Dolling here.”

Ken Dolling thanked Pete dropping his phone on the desk and once again leaning back into his chair this time his face darkened by a frown. What would Alex Winters be involved in that would get him killed? Ken Dolling’s features softened as his thoughts went back to his colleague Pete. When he had first joined the coroner’s office Ken had thought he would have to work hard to gain his trust and replace his source of information. Jackie, the last assistant had been more than willing to help him in any way she could on a case, forwarding relevant bits of information to him as fast as she could. Twelve months ago, she had taken a promotion to Corner and moved to Perth. Thankfully Pete and Ken had hit it off right away, a boon for Ken when he was working a case. Pete had an innate insight into the kinds of things that Ken would require. Like the information about Winters. Ken Dolling’s thoughts settled back on the dead man; Ilona had been right, he would have been wearing an expensive suit but it would have been one of Winters and Warhope’s top line. It would have been one of his own. However, why was Alex Winters inside Ilona’s office? Was he supposed to be dead before the explosion? Why cover it up? What was the connection? Was there one?” Officer Ken Dolling set his thoughts in motion once more while he booted up his computer to do some research.

As much as she did not want to admit it, the morning’s events had shaken her up quite a bit. Ilona’s home was in a quiet street about thirty minutes from her office. She could have moved closer but had bought the house for its location and the back garden. A place where she spent many hours relaxing, recuperating. A place where she could let the stress of her day evaporate. However this day it was not to be and although it was just after lunch; instead of  spending a pleasant afternoon tending to her plants she decided that after a long shower she would take some sleeping pills and go to bed, hopefully waking to a new day.

Many hours later Ilona woke with a start disoriented for a moment, wondering what had woken her. Feeling groggy from the pills, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and checked the bedside clock. It was a little past two am. Sighing she threw her legs over the side of the bed where she sat for a few moments deciding whether to go to the bathroom or head to the kitchen for a drink, when every hair on the back of her neck stood on end and her body was instantly covered with goose bumps as she saw a shadow pass by her bedroom window. The window was on the side of the house, the only access from the back or front yard. Regaining her senses Ilona ran to the front of the house and peered through the gap between the edge of the curtain and the window. The street was empty, that part she could see, but she wondered if she had been too late. Her house was three from the corner. If someone had been lurking could they have had time to disappear? On top of the day she just had, it was the last thing she need. Her stomach agreed with her and Ilona ran back down the hall to the bathroom and promptly threw up. From under the front window of the house a dark figure appeared. He had been hunched down out of sight, hearing Ilona’s little shout as he had passed her window he had weighed up his options knowing he maybe seen if he made a run for the other street.  Her flight to the back of the house had given him the chance to leave. Once around the corner he got into the passenger seat of a waiting car, the driver wanting answers. “So?”

By the time she was showered, dressed and on her third cup of coffee it was only just eight am, still too early to call her clients and with no office to go to she found herself back in the front room, her home office. Ilona e mailed those clients she could, text others and then sent an e-mail off to the owner of the building asking whether she needed to find somewhere else to lease. As she was about to switch off her e-mail she got a reply from the owner. Ilona had to smile; the poor man must have been up all night as his answer came in the way of the address of another building he owned in a much better part of town. He apologised that the office was a little smaller than the one she now occupied but she could use it until the other building was repaired. She sent a thank you e-mail telling him that she would have a look at the office sometime that day.

Heading back down to the kitchen for her fourth cup of coffee Ilona decided no time like the present. Upon leaving the house, she did something she had never done before. Checked every door and window to make sure they were locked.

Detective Ken Dolling was at his desk early sifting through information that had made its way to him overnight. No fingerprints on the delivery docket but Ilona’s that was strange in itself. Although the delivery looked genuine, the preliminary forensic finding told him it was not. All it contained was copy paper. Nothing else on the docket could be accounted for. It was still early days and the forensic team had a lot of damaged office supplies and equipment to sift through.

Detective Dolling opened several more e-mailed files but none from his friend in the coroner’s office. As he contemplated what to do next his computer chimed with an incoming e-mail, it was from the building owner and he had supplied him with all the names and contact details of everyone in the building, not just those on Ilona’s floor. Like Ilona, he decided no time like the present to get started on the interviews. Running his eyes down the list, he smiled when he got to Jaymen I, I.J.E Specialised Recruitment. As he kept reading the list that knot in his stomach began to twist. He looked from the list back to Ilona’s name and back again. Could it be that simple? On the floor directly below Ilona’s office was a company by the name of I.I.E. Financial Investment Brokers. Detective Dolling slumped back in his chair. “No way was it that easy.” The interviews would have to wait; Detective Dolling had a little bit more digging to do.

Ilona smiled as she wandered around her temporary office. She had been told it was smaller but everything else was ideal right down to the view from the window over to City Park. She wondered exactly how much the lease was and then smiled again to herself. Probably the owner’s whole reason for giving it to her. Hoping she would stay after the repairs to her own office had concluded.

On her way to see the office she had been polite to the receptionist at the end of the hall, now with a purpose Ilona went back to talk to her. She was bright and bubbly, very proficient and by the way she handled the incoming phone calls and talked to Ilona able to multi task. Ilona found out her name was Rachel. That she had been working on this particular floor for four years but had been with the company since she finished Business College. That she had worked in Ilona’s building before she had leased the office. That she spoke three languages other than English and had a wicked sense of humour. She also told Ilona how much the actual lease on the office was and her heart sunk, it was just too much. Rachel told her that if she worked on the boss he would drop the price a little. Ilona thanked Rachel for all her information and asked her to let her boss know she would take the office…. for now.

At times Detective Dolling did not like the fact that his office, the Coroners Court, the morgue and the Forensic Division were so closely situated. It gave him the feeling he could never escape from his work, even with a walk down the street. That whole part of the city had a certain feel to it, you may not know what it was, but everyone felt it. However, on days like this when he had some time to spare the fact that they were so close was a bonus. First, he checked in on his friend Pete to see if there was any more news about Alex Winters. Nothing new. Then he headed over to forensics to see what was going on with the evidence from the scene of the explosion. He inquired at the front desk as to where he would find what he was looking for and continued quietly down the hall. 

Once he was almost at the end, he stopped at the entrance to a room that took his thoughts back to his school days and the times he spent in the lab. He could almost smell the Bunsen burners as he watched a man hunched over something on the table that had his full attention he had not noticed the Detective. “Hey there Speedy?”

Ilona sat a little straighter in her chair, took another deep breath, and hoped that she could get through all his questions without breaking down again. “Intimate about two years now but I have known Lex; Alex for about three when he came to me to find a new two I.C.” She paused and looked out the window and Detective Dolling thought she had finished but Ilona began to speak again before she turned her head to look back at him. “He’s not…There is, was more to him than what people perceive Detective.” Ilona had no more strength left to keep the tears at bay and let them flow silently down her face. Her lover was gone. Not just gone but killed and dumped in her office. Through her pain, she began to wonder if there really had been a case of mistaken identity or if someone was trying to send her a message.