Darkest Night

by Jenny O'Brien

  Reaching out a hand, she patted his knee briefly. ‘When this case is over, Owen, I’ll cover for you so that you can make an extra-long weekend of it.’

  ‘You know I’ll do the same if you ever manage to get that love life of yours sorted,’ he replied with a laugh.

  ‘Ha, that will be the day. So, where to next?’ she said, neatly changing the subject. The very last thing she was willing to discuss was her lack of anything bordering a romantic entanglement.

  ‘The West Shore, across from the play-area.’ He shot her a look. ‘Sherlock isn’t able to make it, but he asked me to pass on a message.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘He wants you to head up this one, Gaby. Well done. It must be a good omen for your interview.’

  She watched Owen turn left onto Gloddaeth Avenue, her eyes sliding to the distant mountains framing the West Shore. If she knew Sherlock, he’d have his reasons for choosing her over Owen but now wasn’t the time to puzzle it out. The only hope was that she was up to it. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone else but those few short months in Swansea had caused her to question her abilities. If she could miss most, if not all, of the clues during the previous case, wasn’t it possible that she could do the same again?

  Instead of replying all she said was, ‘You were saying about the murder?’

  ‘Yes, looks like an open and shut case, so not something you’ll be able to sink your teeth into. The only thing we don’t appear to have is the murder weapon. The key suspect, a Christine de Bertrand, must have hidden it. Early thoughts are that it’s some kind of kitchen knife. The pathologist said he’d meet us there so we should know more shortly.’

  She bit her lip hard, the taste of blood leaving a metallic taste in her mouth. ‘Make my day and tell me that Rusty Mulholland is on his hols or, even better – that he’s fallen off a cliff?’

  It would be a kindness to say that Gaby had a difficult relationship with the red-haired Irish pathologist. She had no idea why he’d taken an instant dislike to her but he could barely look her in the eye without a curl of his mouth or a snarky comment from his lips.

  ‘Ha, no such luck, sweetheart,’ Owen said, pulling up behind the CSI van and switching off the engine. ‘I really don’t get what gives between you two?’

  ‘Nothing gives, Owen, and it’s not likely to. Ever. That man is a scourge and the less I see of him the better.’

  Gaby compressed her lips, her attention now on the red-brick building ahead with a bright yellow door flanked by a pair of pyramid-shaped topiary bushes, not that she knew the first thing about gardening.

  ‘Well, there’s obviously something up, he’s as nice as pie to everyone else.’ Bates unclicked his seatbelt, urging her to hurry. ‘The sooner we can get the body bagged and tagged and the suspect interviewed, the sooner I can sign off.’

  Gaby raised her eyebrows but said nothing. There was little point. With no family nearby she knew she’d be press-ganged into giving up her weekend. There was always a huge amount of extra work generated on a case like this. Interviews, witness statements, paperwork galore – the list was endless. But in this instance, she didn’t mind. As the two most senior DCs in the unit, it was always going to be either her or Owen and, as he had a toddler and another on the way, she was the obvious choice.

  Walking into the middle of the scene of a crime always had her pulse racing and her heart jerking in her chest. It wasn’t that she was nervous, far from it. In a strange sort of way, it was the feeling of excitement building. They had a golden hour, that first sixty minutes, to push aside any preconceived ideas and focus on the facts. Securing the crime scene was vital but it was more than that. The first impression of the location. The first impression of the main suspects. Their first words before lawyers turned up to slam the window of opportunity in their faces.

  She walked beside Bates to the police van and, reaching out a hand, took the clipboard from the officer standing watch, scrawling her name, rank, date and time in the allocated columns before handing it to Owen. ‘You said it was a cut and dried case?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. A modern-day love story gone wrong. All we need to do is find the murder weapon and it’s straight to court to bang her up for the twenty-first century equivalent of life – so ten years then.’

  She pulled a wry smile at his joke although it was far from funny. ‘A modern-day love story? I don’t get it?’

  ‘You know what, Gaby, at the tender age of thirty-five I feel I’m too old for this game,’ he said, patting his pockets for his phone. ‘The world has passed me by on a steam train. Between you and me, if things don’t change, I’m going to have a serious think about leaving the force.’

  ‘Ha, that would be impossible, I would have thought. You love the job nearly as much as I do. It’s coppers like us, grassroot ones determined to avoid those managerial ivory towers, that keep the streets safe. Somehow, I can’t see you becoming a PI or security guard and what else are we trained for? And anyway, what would I do without my partner?’ she added, grabbing a white suit from the pile and shaking it out.

  ‘You’d do fine,’ he said, shoving his black lace-ups into the blue overshoes provided, before pulling up the hood to his paper suit and tying a double knot under his chin. ‘Now not a word to anyone about what I’ve said, even to Amy Potter.’

  ‘Okay, although as family liaison officer, Amy would be the very last person to share a confidence.’

  ‘Yes, well. I’m going to concentrate on solving this little puzzle before I decide. It shouldn’t be too difficult.’ He pulled on an extra-large pair of disposable gloves and adjusted his mask before following her up the short flight of steps and into the dark, narrow hall, saying a brief hello to PC Diane Carbone, who was standing guard beside the front door.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because our suspect murdered her girlfriend in cold blood.’

  Gaby had a thing about bedlinen. She didn’t mind scrimping and saving on other aspects of her life, but Egyptian cotton sheets were a must. She had a neat stack of carefully ironed, pure white linen in her tiny airing cupboard at the top of the stairs and, unlike almost anyone she knew, she changed her sheets twice a week. Her mother thought it an extravagance with half the world starving and the other half happy to put up with bobbly brushed nylon, but she didn’t care. She looked forward to Mondays and Fridays for the simple pleasure of slipping into her freshly made bed.

  The bed in front of her must, at one time, have resembled hers. There were still tell-tale signs in the neat hospital corners and lace-edged pillowcases. The owner had taken pride in this room, Gaby thought, her gaze now resting on the scatter cushions in tasteful shades of cranberry and sand to match the throw, which had slipped to the floor in a heap. But all resemblance ended with the sight of the dark-haired woman splayed across the sheets.

  Standing at the end of the bed, her hands clasped behind her, Gaby looked down at the naked body, the skin now that distinctive waxy pallor she always thought synonymous with the dead. While part of her grieved for such a young life lost, the other part, the clinically detached one, tried to work out which major artery the blade must have nicked to produce so much blood, thankfully mainly contained within the duvet.

  ‘Hope you’re keeping those hands glued behind your back, Detective Darin. Don’t want to corrupt the scene now, do we?’

  Turning her head, she caught the eye of the pathologist and frowned. Rusty Mulholland. It was a good job that murders in North Wales were a rarity, Gaby reminded herself, curling her fists. Over the last month or so, they’d drawn an uneasy truce mainly because she’d gone out of her way to avoid any of the places he usually hung out. It was when she bumped into him at the station that it became more difficult.

  She tilted her chin to look him in the eye, something made difficult by his six-two frame.

  ‘As if, Rusty.’ She refused to call him anything other than the nickname the rest of the team called him in deference to his hair. ‘Anything you can tel
l me?’ she continued, her calm demeanour unchanged despite his narrowing gaze. She was getting used to masking her expression when he was around.

  ‘What, apart from the fact that we have a dead body? No, not a thing. You should know by now, Detective, that’s not how it goes, or haven’t you worked with us long enough yet?’

  She ignored the sarcasm. She’d have liked to have ignored him completely but the last time she’d tried he’d been even more acerbic. Whatever she said, she couldn’t win. He didn’t like her and there didn’t seem to be a thing she could do about it.

  Casting a final look at the body, she was pleased to note one of the constables taking photographs from every conceivable angle. There’d also be a rough sketch of the crime scene in addition to detailed measurements of the room. Rusty, for all his bad manners and abruptness, was good at his job. She’d already clocked that he’d bagged the woman’s hands to minimise the risk of both contamination and the loss of any forensic evidence from what was one of the most important parts of a body following a crime. The fingernails were an oasis of DNA debris and within an hour of arriving back at the lab, he’d have arranged for the victim’s to be clipped and scraped.

  Wandering out of the room, she headed along the hall, flicking a curious eye at the pictures adorning the walls. Modern art wasn’t her thing, not that she had either the time or the money to fritter away on non-essentials like food. She frowned. If truth be told, modern art confused her. If she had the money, she’d like to start a collection of local scenes in and around Rhos-on-Sea, a place she was learning to call home following the recent purchase of her cottage. But that was only a pipe dream – her rundown house took most of her salary and B&Q took the rest.

  A technician, dressed head to toe in white plastic overalls, diverted her attention from the walls to the kitchen and the sight of DC Bates talking to what was presumably the key suspect. She was pleased that DCI Sherlock had decided to leave it to them. While good at his job and one of the best chiefs she’d worked under, he’d be the first to admit that the day-to-day job of crime-solving was best left to his detectives. His skills lay in managing both budgets and staff.

  Gaby paused on the threshold, examining the scene at her leisure. There was no hurry in the way she let her gaze roam around the room before finally landing on the woman sitting on one of the four Bentwood chairs that circled the table. First impressions were important to a copper, and she knew that she’d replay these few seconds time and again in the privacy of her mind, remembering the pale-as-milk redhead, wrapped up in what appeared to be a dressing gown and little else.

  She looked somewhere in her early thirties with flowing russet curls that owed little to artifice. Apart from the hair, which was bloody amazing, she also looked ordinary. Somebody you wouldn’t throw a second glance at if you came across her in the street. But then again, murderers didn’t tend to shout out about their crimes and Gaby would bet her last pound that this suspect would be the same. No. She was innocent until proven guilty, something Gaby sometimes had difficulty remembering.

  ‘This interview has been suspended at 09.25,’ Owen said, interrupting her thoughts and she watched in surprise as he switched off the mini voice recorder before gesturing for her to follow him back into the hall. ‘I thought I’d do the preliminaries and read her her rights, but all she’s done for the last five minutes is stare into space. It’s as if she’s in a trance. She hasn’t even confirmed her name or demanded to speak to a solicitor.’

  ‘She’s probably in delayed shock. It’s a pretty gruesome scene in there.’

  ‘And one she’s made herself so she should be used to it by now,’ he said, with a grunt. ‘I know she’s within her rights to remain silent, but this is ridiculous.’

  ‘Now, now, Owen, that’s unlike you. You don’t need me to tell you that we can’t assume guilt. Don’t go making assumptions that we can’t question until Rusty has worked his special kind of magic.’

  ‘Ha, I didn’t know you cared,’ Rusty said, from somewhere over her left shoulder. ‘And after all this time, too.’ His sneer matched Owen’s like a couple of bookends in a bad mood. ‘While you’re here passing the time of day, I thought I’d let you know I’ve arranged to take her back to the lab. Early indications are a single stab wound to the chest with the possibility of a nicked aorta. If she hadn’t been cocooned in the duvet, I’m guessing the splatter would have hit the ceiling.’ He looked at Owen. ‘I’ll have the report on your desk first thing Monday.’

  Gaby squared her shoulders, determined not to let him see how much his cavalier attitude affected her. ‘That would be on my desk, Dr Mulholland.’

  ‘Would it now?’ he said, opening his eyes wide. ‘They’ve decided to let you off the reins, have they? Well, good luck with that.’

  Gaby pulled a face at his retreating back. She hated altercations of any sort but that didn’t mean she was going to let him continue to walk all over her. She promised herself there and then that the next time he was rude, she’d tell him exactly what she thought of him.

  ‘I suppose we should get Amy down here ASAP if de Bertrand isn’t prepared to talk to us.’ Gaby dragged her phone out of her pocket to search for the number of the family liaison officer only to pause at the sound of her name.

  ‘Oh, I nearly forgot, Detective Constable Darin,’ Rusty said, stomping back up the stairs. ‘I think you might need these.’ He put his hand in his pocket and withdrew a small velvet-covered box, laying it out in the centre of his palm.

  Gaby looked from the box and back to his face, for once lost for words. On the one hand he’d told her not to touch anything and on the other … ‘I do hope you think it was worth disturbing the crime scene before we’ve lifted any fingerprints because I certainly don’t. Of all the stupid, cockamamie—’

  He stiffened, his back rigid, his mouth a thin hard line of disapproval. ‘What sort of word is cockamamie? And anyway, I think you’ll find that it’s against her human rights to deny her access to them. I could be wrong, but then again I am only a doctor as well as a pathologist.’ He handed her the case before heading back the way he’d come.

  ‘He really doesn’t like you, does he?’ Owen said on a laugh.

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time a man hasn’t …’ Gaby’s voice petered out at the sight of the hearing aids nestling in the bottom of the box.

  Chapter 3

  Christine

  Saturday 9 May, 1.10 p.m. Llandudno Police Station

  They hadn’t let her out of their sight despite the clock above the door stretching past one. The male detective, whatever his name, had barely allowed her to get dressed before escorting her into the waiting car and taking her back to the station. There was lots Christine could say to him if she could be bothered. Just because she was hearing-impaired was no excuse to shout. Shouting raised decibels but distorted clarity. It also increased stress levels to the extent that all she wanted to do was shout back, something she was pretty sure wouldn’t be appreciated under current circumstances. So, she’d worked on her breathing, trying to calm down. Being angry wouldn’t help, just as aggravating the police would make it worse. Something had happened between the time she’d crawled between the sheets and climbed out of bed and she’d need all her smarts to figure out exactly what.

  The room they’d taken her to was small, about half the size of her kitchen and filled with a table and stackable plastic chairs. There was nothing to focus on apart from a female police officer leaning against the wall with her arms folded across her chest and a look of boredom on her face.

  Shifting slightly, Christine finally forced herself to relive the scene back in her bedroom, something she’d pushed into the corner of her mind while they’d clipped her nails and swabbed her skin. They’d even taken her dressing gown for analysis although what they thought they might find was another thing. Shuffling back in her chair, she hitched up her jeans. They’d taken her belt and her watch, although how she was expected to take her own life with her trusty
Seiko was a question she was yet to ask. She’d been photographed and fingerprinted, something that had drummed home more than anything else that she was a suspect in an horrendous crime. And the awful truth? She didn’t have a clue how to make them believe that she was innocent.

  As a child, she’d hated the sight of blood. When all her friends were watching Buffy, she’d be the one hurrying out of the room at the squeamish parts. So much blood in her lovely bed. It almost felt as if someone had let Jackson Pollock into her bedroom with a jumbo tin of red Dulux. All Nikki’s blood. She felt sick at the thought of what had happened to her. While not her favourite person, Christine had always felt responsible somehow for how Nikki’s life had gone pear-shaped. If it hadn’t been for Paul … No. She blinked away the thought, forcing her mind to turn back to more practical issues – the past was a place she was determined not to visit. The very first thing she was going to do when they let her go was put the apartment on the market. There was no way she could ever live there again. She’d probably have to go back at some point to collect her things but until then, she’d need to think of somewhere else to stay.

  Her mind was a complete blank. She couldn’t ask her parents. They were the very last people she could ask. She could no more ask them to put her up than she could tell them that she’d been taken into custody. She grimaced, a picture of her ageing mum and dad floating before her. A shock like that had to be managed but, as an only child, there was no one she could ask to knock on their door for a cuppa and a chat before informing them that … what? Their darling daughter was currently being detained at the local nick. Oh, they hadn’t charged her or anything, far from it, but she’d watched more than her fair share of Midsomer Murders to know the score. They were waiting for a solicitor to be assigned before the interrogation began in earnest.

  The question of who to tell about her situation hovered. It had to be someone she could trust and, moreover, someone who would be prepared to tell her parents. The desk sergeant had demanded the name of someone they could call on her behalf but who? Kelly, the girlfriend she’d met up with last night, was always an option but her parents had never met her … She frowned. That only left the head at the special needs school where she worked, but she liked Jessica Kinney too much to land this on her doorstep.