The landlord had tried calling twice that morning.
No answer.
By the afternoon he had sent two messages and an email about the rent, which was now a week overdue. Gary Hargreaves had never been late before. Not once in the three years he had lived in the house.
That, more than anything, was what made the silence feel wrong.
At half past three the landlord let himself in with his spare key.
“Mr Hargreaves?” he called from the doorway.
The house smelled stale, as though the windows had been closed for days.
He stepped into the small front room.
The computer screen was still glowing faintly in the dim light.
Gary Hargreaves sat in the chair beside the desk, leaning slightly to one side, his head tilted as if he had simply fallen asleep there.
The landlord stood very still for a moment.
Then he quietly backed out of the room and reached for his phone.
By the time the police arrived the street had returned to its ordinary late-afternoon quiet.
Sergeant Patel stood in the narrow bedroom while Constable Rees made notes near the doorway.
“Body was discovered by the landlord,” Rees said. “Came looking for overdue rent.”
Patel nodded.
Gary Hargreaves remained seated in the chair by the desk.
The position alone told most of the story.
Patel glanced briefly at the small cluster of empty blister packs lying beside the keyboard.
Risperidone.
“Looks like an overdose,” he said.
Rees wrote it down.
“Nothing suspicious?”
Patel shook his head.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
They continued the slow, methodical process that followed: photographs, notes, small observations about the room and the objects within it.
Eventually Rees turned his attention to the computer.
“What was he doing?” he said.
The browser window was still open.
A YouTube channel filled the screen.
A man in his forties stood beside a river in the banner image.
“Frank Calder,” Rees read.
He scrolled through the page.
Hundreds of short videos appeared below.
“Swimming… archery… walking about in the hills,” he said. “Looks like that’s all this bloke does.”
Patel gave a mild shrug.
“Some people film everything.”
“Not many watching.”
“Apparently not.”
Rees clicked on one of the videos.
A man—presumably Frank—set a camera down beside a swimming pool and slipped into the water.
Rees watched for a few seconds.
“Bit dull,” he said.
Patel had picked up a bank statement from the desk.
He glanced down the list of transactions.
“Looks like he had some sort of voice service subscription,” he said.
Rees looked over.
“What kind?”
“AI companion calls,” Patel said. “Monthly charge.”
Rees nodded slowly.
“That explain the phone activity?”
“Probably.”
Patel set the statement back beside the keyboard.
Rees returned his attention to the computer screen and scrolled down through the channel again.
Then, almost absent-mindedly, he refreshed the page.
A new video appeared at the top of the list.
Uploaded that morning.
The thumbnail showed the same man standing on a narrow trail somewhere high above a town.
The title read:
Walk in the Hills
Rees glanced at it briefly.
Then he pushed the chair back and stood.
“I think we’re done here,” he said.
Patel gave the room one last look.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“Pretty much.”