By Frampton Jones

Chris died after falling from a roof. It is, on the whole, a rather simple and uncomplicated death – Chris was on the roof alone, there were witnesses on the ground, a misplaced foot, a slip, a brief plummet, and that was that.  It’s rare that anyone gets such a good, quick and simple death, and it is something to admire and envy.

Or at least, that is how it first seemed.

As I interviewed the witnesses, I noticed mixed reports about how Chris came to be on the roof in the first place. “Chris acted like there was something else up there, but we couldn’t see anything,” Petunia Chevin told me.

There was nothing odd or peculiar to be found inside the house. This struck me as unusual. How does a person have a home free from all traces of the sinister, occult and dangerous? How had this been achieved?

Chris’s neighbour, Mrs Beaten said, “Chris always had the lights out at a decent hour. Always got up early in the morning. Always had spotless laundry on the line. Never buried anything in the garden in the middle of the night. I kept watching, but I never saw anything untoward, and that troubles me.”

On examining the body, Doc Willoughby pronounced that Chris had clearly been dead for at least a week and had probably drowned. I saw the starfish in Chris’s ear. I do not know what to think of this.