by Emmy Ellis
“What the fuck did you do that for?” he asked.
The plastic drifted to settle at Mark’s feet, and he stared at the woman who’d held it. What the hell was going on?
“Bête Noir. That’s my name.” She had a sodding strange voice, part gasp, part rasp.
“Bête Noir? I’ve not heard of you. What are you doing here?”
“Never you mind. Bit of bad luck for you turning up early, eh?”
Mark recognised the new voice, one he’d heard too many times to count, and his guts churned. “You!” he said on a ragged breath.
What was with the hair and the different face? And that stupid name?
“Yeah, it’s me. I’m glad you’re here. Saved me a bit of hassle, you have.”
A knife appeared in his old friend’s hand, bloodstained—what the fuck? Dad?—and Mark gawped in horror as it came towards him in slow motion, unable to process what was happening quickly enough.
It entered his stomach.
“One…”
It pulled out then sliced in again.
“Two…”
Mark wrenched himself out of his stupor at five stabs, concentrating on trying to get up to defend himself, managing to rise to his knees, his hands ineffectual in batting at the mad figure in front of him. A fist connected with his stomach, bringing on such horrendous pain and blood loss he flopped backwards, landing sprawled on his side. More stabs and punches came, into his belly, more blood spurting—it pumped out with the frantic beating of his heart, and Mark swore it stretched the stab wounds wider every time it exited.
“Six, seven, eight…”
His head swam. So many stabs now.
“Twenty-three.”
Then his attacker stopped, scooped up the plastic bundle, and walked through the doorway that led to the corridor behind the shopfront. Mark watched him with blurred vision. His head lightened, his guts on fire, and his strength seeped out of him. He thought of his wife and their baby at home, and that gave him enough energy to get his phone out, fumbling to access the keypad, and call for an ambulance.
The dispatcher fired off questions, and he told her he’d been stabbed and where he was, then words failed him. His mind failed, too, and he couldn’t compute what he was being asked. He dropped the phone and would have pressed his hands to his belly to stop the blood flow if he had enough strength, but it was ebbing away faster now, as were any comprehensible thoughts.
He closed his eyes, vaguely aware of the blood still pulsing from his wounds, and he knew, as sure as he knew his name, that he wasn’t going to make it.
* * * *
He was hacked off at Mark being early, at not being able use his plastic sheeting when he’d offed him. The police wouldn’t know the same person had killed Mark and Den now, for fuck’s sake.
Trust Mark to be the one to mess it all up.
He stormed out of the storeroom and into the yard, stuffing the soiled sheeting into a black bag he’d brought along just for that job. It had Mark’s blood on the outside of the bundle, and that just plain pissed him off. Then he removed his gloves and shoved them and the knife in with the plastic. Taking off his wig and mask, he put them into the backpack, a few streaks of blood clinging to the blonde hair. He turned his hoodie inside out so the red side showed, put it back on, gathered his belongings, and exited the yard. He sauntered down the alley and into the maze of streets beyond the back of the shop, darkness cloaking him, giving him anonymity.
Once he got home, he’d soak the knife in bleach, shampoo the wig, and put his clothes in the machine on a hot wash. Christ, Mark wasn’t supposed to have been killed until tomorrow. The turn of events bugged him.
He shrugged. Did it really matter? No. No, it didn’t.
Chapter Eleven
Helena had decided not to have any alcohol, seeing as Zach had opted for a Diet Coke. She’d sipped hers over the course of an hour, and Zach stood at the bar now, getting another round in. Her dinner had settled heavy in her stomach—serves herself right for choosing a steak and ale pie with chips, peas, and thick gravy—and she leant back in her carver chair, tempted to unbutton her jeans and let her food baby flop out.
Her phone warbled in her jacket pocket, so she tugged it out, hoping it wasn’t work. Unfortunately, it was. Clive’s name showed on the screen, and she wondered why he’d be ringing her. He was a uniform and not someone she dealt with unless it was at a scene.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hi, guv. Sorry to ring you, but I’m at a murder location, and I think this is linked to the other one.”
“What makes you say that?” she asked.
“They’ve been stabbed in the stomach. Father and son, and I’m gutted because I know them both. I went to school with the son, Mark Simons. The other victim is Den Simons.”
“The owner of that little shop?” Helena felt a bit sick. Who the hell would want to kill Den? He was a lovely old fella, and everyone knew him.
“Yes. A call came in from Mark. He said he’d been stabbed, so I went out to have a look. The back door of the shop was unlocked, but the front was secure. I went in and found Mark at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the flat. I checked him for a pulse, and he was deceased, so I went upstairs and stopped at the living room door. Den was dead in his chair. I left the premises and I’m outside in the back yard.”
“Blimey, sorry you had to see that on top of finding Felicity. I’ll be there in a few.”
“All right, guv. I called it in, and SOCO are on the way.”
“Okay. Zach’s with me, so I’ll let him know. Speak in a bit.”
Zach walked over, minus drinks. “Just had a call from the front desk.”
“I’ve had one from Clive. Good job we only had a Coke really, isn’t it.” She could ignore the vodka she’d poured earlier. It had all spilt in the bath anyway when she’d fallen asleep.
He nodded.
“Can you drop me home so I can get my car?”
“Of course.”
In Zach’s, she rang Andy and said she’d be with him inside ten minutes. Zach pulled up outside her house.
“Thanks for a lovely evening,” she said. “Shame it was cut short.”
“It is, but it’s the nature of our jobs. At least in this relationship, we understand the downside of it and won’t give each other any grief.”
“There is that.” She leant across and kissed his cheek, then got out, waving as he drove away. In her vehicle, she made the journey to Andy’s with the victims on her mind. Were the murders related like Clive thought? Just because they’d been stabbed, didn’t mean it had been the same killer.
She arrived at Andy’s, and once he was in the car and had buckled up, she told him what had happened.
“Fucking hell,” he said. “Another person killing straight after Marshall is a bit much to take in. I was just thinking that before you rang.”
“Maybe the Walkers being murdered gave them the courage to do the same thing. It doesn’t take much to set some people off. It’s all everyone has been talking about, and with it being on the news…”
“Hmm.” Andy got a Werther’s out and popped it in his mouth. “Want one?”
“No, thanks. I’ve got a belly full of pie. Couldn’t eat another thing.”
She drove down the street where Den’s was, and a lump in her throat had her swallowing to force it away. It reduced in size a bit but continued to make its presence known. This little shop had been here forever, the place to go and get your treats and whatnot. It was more than a newsagent’s, with the holiday trinkets, rock, and jars of sweets. People flooded there in the summer, buying gifts to take home with them once their holiday had ended. There were other places that were similar, but none had the lovely Den behind the counter, giving you a smile and a bit of a chat.
No shop would ever have him serving people anymore.
Damn it.
She blinked the nostalgia and emotions away and parked behind Clive’s police car, the SOCOs’ van behind
it, two officers in white garb walking from the rear of it and down the alley to get to the back of the shop, carrying their bags.
“Fucking hell,” she said. “This is surreal. I mean, Den…”
“Isn’t it just.” Andy clicked the button to release his seat belt, the Werther’s clacking against his teeth as he shoved it around in his mouth.
They got out, and Helena glanced about for Zach’s car. It was a few vehicles up, and he wasn’t inside it. She led the way to the yard, and Clive stood by the open back door, the spill of light from indoors coming out to bathe one side of him in a white-tinged radiance.
“Are you okay?” she asked, concerned he’d now been the one to find three bodies. That sort of thing could affect you badly.
“Bit shaky. I didn’t expect them to be in such a state. I imagined just one stab.” Clive rubbed his forehead then held out the scene log.
Helena signed it. “So it’s more then.” She handed the log to Andy.
“A fair few.” Clive sighed.
“Might well be linked to Felicity Greaves’ murder, like you thought. We’ll soon know. Zach’s in there, I take it?”
“Yes, guv.” Clive took the log from Andy. “You’ll need to steady your nerves. It isn’t pretty.” He jerked his head at the door.
“Will do.”
She put booties and gloves on, and Andy did the same, Helena wondering why the back door was open and whether whoever it was had come in while the shop had still been trading, hiding out upstairs until Den had finished work.
She walked inside, Andy behind her, and had a nose about. The storeroom looked much like she imagined it should, boxes in stacks, a table and chair at the end with papers, a pen, and a small laptop on it. She shook her head and went out into a corridor, turning and entering the shop. Nothing had been disturbed as far as she could gather, so she asked one of the SOCOs working in there where the stairs were for the flat.
“The door beside the one for the storage room, guv.”
“Thanks.”
She went there and pushed it, momentarily shocked at the sight of a thirtysomething man at the bottom, even though she’d been told he was there. Yes, he’d been stabbed, multiple times, and blood was everywhere, totally different to Felicity’s bedroom. The stairs, the walls, the banister rails, the carpet on the lowest three steps, although oddly, at his feet, there was a clean patch. A SOCO stood beside the body, taking pictures, and he glanced at her, his eyes kind over the top of his face mask.
“Two seconds,” he said, “and I’ll be out of your way. I’ve already done upstairs.”
The stench of blood was horrific, and the pie in Helena’s belly seemed to swirl. She swallowed and looked away from the body to Andy. “I think we need suits on, don’t you?”
They’d get blood on their clothes if they weren’t careful.
He nodded, and they went back to the storeroom, taking an outfit each from the box in the yard. Clive remained quiet while they dressed, staring at his feet, probably seeing the carnage in his mind all over again.
Back at the foot of the stairs, the photographer had gone, and Helena managed to skirt around the body without stepping in too much blood, missing the lowest stairs, and hefting herself up onto the fourth—a bit of a strain on the old thigh muscles. At the top, she took in the sight of SOCO in each room, then walked into the living room where Tom waved from doing a fingerprint sweep on the windowsill. Zach stood in front of Den in his armchair.
She nodded at Tom by way of a greeting. “Oh God.” Emotion swelled inside her at the state of Den. “The poor man.”
“Awful, isn’t it,” Zach said. “Going by the temperature reading I took, he’s been dead around three hours, so about fiveish.”
Helena glanced at the cuckoo clock on the wall. The little doors on the front were open, and the cuckoo glared out at her from inside his cubby hole as if annoyed he couldn’t push them outwards and make a grand entrance on the chime of the hour.
It was eight-fifty now. Another ten minutes, and the bird would pop out.
“Right.” She didn’t know what else to say. Seeing Den like this seemed to have erased all her police training. She told herself to pretend it wasn’t him, and her mind kicked into gear. “What about his son?”
“I did a quick ear temp before coming up here, and he’s a lot later. About eight?”
The idea that they’d turned up so soon after the killer had left chilled her.
“So he possibly arrived here, caught the killer with Den, and got murdered himself—a witness that needed to be eliminated?” She was talking to herself really, not expecting an answer. It helped to get the words out into the open.
“I’ve lived here all my bloody life,” Andy said, moving closer to stand beside her, “and I’ve known Mark ever since I can remember, his dad, too. I can’t think of anyone who’d want to do this to them. It beggars belief.”
“Me neither,” Zach said. “One of the kindest men I know. It seems bloody rotten that I’ll be doing a PM on a man who used to ruffle my hair when I was a kid.”
“Same.” Andy blinked a fair few times.
“Crikey.” Helena let out a long sigh. The image of Den being kind to Zach and Andy when they were little brought on misty eyes syndrome.
“Note the difference?” Zach asked.
Helena tried to get her mind into the now. “What do you mean?”
“Several stab wounds, same as his son, but minimal blood surrounding the chair compared to downstairs.”
“Yes, I’d noted that with the son but hadn’t registered it here. Sorry, I’m not firing on all cylinders at the minute.”
She mentally kicked herself and studied the scene. The blood stopped at the chair arm edges, and only a few drops had dripped onto the floor either side. Castoff had arced up the wall behind Den, on the ceiling, streaking that clock, and a puddle of red sat at his feet, but really, for the level of rage used in the attack, there wasn’t enough blood.
“Same as at Felicity’s,” she said.
“Makes me wonder whether he erected some sort of tent,” Andy said. “But not a tent, just something that stops the blood spreading.”
“Why, though?” Helena pondered. “The killer’s got to have been covered in blood—tent or not, if she’s standing in front of Den here, she’s going to get it on her. To walk out of here with that all over her is bold as fuck.”
“If she left out the back and went down the alley, we have all those houses that’ll need door-to-door enquiries carried out,” Andy said. “I’ll ring for that now, shall I?”
“Please,” she said. “And make sure they do this street and all. Lots of shops with residents living above them. Someone must have seen or heard something.”
Andy left the room, and Helena studied it.
“He didn’t finish his dinner,” she said, her words rising with grief.
A plate of half-eaten fish and chips sat on a tray on the coffee table.
“He was probably disturbed,” Zach said. “Either a knock at the door, or whoever it was breaking in and coming up here. The son doesn’t have any defensive wounds on his hands, neither does Den, so they didn’t try to fight off the killer either in this room or at the bottom of the stairs—and the son was stabbed down there. No blood on the stairs—other than the first three—or the walls going down as far as I saw.”
“So Den gets murdered up here, then the killer goes down and offs the son?” Helena frowned, trying to work out why the murderer had been up here and Mark wasn’t. “Maybe Den was here alone, the killer came, then later, Mark turned up?”
“Possibly.”
She didn’t want to think of Mark tied up in the storeroom, knowing his dad was being stabbed, but she had to consider it. How awful if that had been the case.
“I’ll have to check whether Mark lived here or elsewhere. He could have a wife somewhere. Clive might know.” She gave him a ring and asked.
“Yes, guv. He’s married; not sure what she’s called, th
ough. He’s the manager of Nationwide. Got a little kid, too.”
“Fuck…a kid. Do you know him well enough to have his address?”
“No, sorry.”
“Can you contact the station for me and get the details? I’ll need his wife’s name, too.”
“Okay.”
She cut the call and held her phone by her side, and another rang, off in the distance somewhere.
“Victim’s mobile’s ringing,” someone called from downstairs. “Says Natasha on the screen.”
“Okay, thanks. Don’t answer it,” she shouted.
Her phone jangled, and she swiped the screen. “Yep.”
“Natasha Simons,” Clive said. “Fifty-two Welbeck Avenue.”
“Cheers.” She put her phone in her pocket. “That was the wife ringing him.”
“Christ,” Zach said. “I can’t even begin to imagine having that news brought to my door.”
Andy came back in. “Uniforms are on the way.”
“Okay, well, as this is all so…recent, there’s not much we can glean apart from it undoubtedly being the same killer, so we may as well go and see his wife.”
“Not going to enjoy that,” Andy said.
“Me neither, but it’s got to be done. He’s clearly meant to be home by now, seeing as she rang him. Best we get there quickly. She might be worrying, not that we’re going to be able to alleviate that. We’re just going to make it worse.” Helena gave the room another once-over. Two chairs at the small dining table hadn’t been pushed in properly, but that might not mean anything. A clothes airer leant against them, and that might not mean anything either, but it stuck in her mind as odd.
“Tom, can you have a quick look at those chairs for me, please?”
He left the windowsill and walked over to the small table. “Blood spots on the seats, but only on the front edges. And they’re in a line, as if something was on the seats, partially covering them.”
“Yet there doesn’t seem to be any blood going from Den to the chairs,” she said, studying the carpet.
