The Death of Jessica Ripley

by Andrew Barrett

  “I meant,” Troy shouted, “how long are we doing this shit for?” He pointed at the house, jabbing with an irritated finger. “This shit, this scene?”

  That was the last time Eddie would try and share a joke with the miserable little bastard. Yes, he definitely preferred the quiet Troy, but he cut him some slack this time on account of his own possible responsibility for the sulky mood. He also resisted the temptation to slap him round the back of the head.

  Little shit.

  “This ‘shit’ is your fucking job! It’s what you’re paid to do, Troy.”

  Troy glared at him, and almost imperceptibly shook his head.

  Eddie closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Once calm, he said, “Get inside before I pull your petulant face off and feed it to you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Once in the hallway, Eddie closed the door behind them, and near-silence pushed aside the noise. Eddie said, “Nicki did a good job yesterday. She recovered footwear marks from here” —he pointed to the hallway floor— “and the kitchen floor. We’re free to stand wherever we please, but take care; you never know what else we might find.”

  Troy shrugged. “Like what? What else is gonna be on the floor?”

  “Would you like me to punch you on the nose? How the hell should I know? It’s just a general warning to keep your boogie fever under control until we’ve finished.”

  Troy tutted, and walked off.

  Eddie growled and swung a frustrated fist at the spot he’d vacated.

  The sitting room curtains were still closed from their examination last night – trying to shield themselves from interested bystanders. Now it was fine to pull them open again, and when he did, everything that had been so subdued last night came to life and grew a fresh and vibrant layer of colour. Eddie saw blood on the doorframe – something everyone had missed last night as they worked by torchlight and the dull uplighters scattered on each wall.

  He came in close, hoping for fingerprint ridge detail in the blood, but it was just a contact smear. But that in itself was interesting. It meant the killer had left via the dining room and the sitting room, then out into the hallway and finally out of the front door. She didn’t leave the kitchen directly into the hallway and out.

  Why was that? Eddie asked himself.

  Perhaps she wanted to do a quick search for any valuables before she left? Eddie took his time looking at the room, and knew that nothing had been disturbed, and as far as valuables were concerned, he knew Bolton didn’t have any of the laptops or tablets, or expensive phones, or gaming equipment that an intruder would like to take. Bolton had a wall full of books, that was his entertainment; that, and whatever shit he was watching on the TV.

  Eddie turned off the TV, sick of seeing the woman’s face paused halfway through a blink.

  Doc’s valuables were of a different type than the youth of today craved: intellectual. He doubted very much that the attacker had a penchant for first edition Brontës or the complete works of Shakespeare and Wordsworth, or lots of books by some Italian guy whose name he couldn’t pronounce.

  And that was another reason why Eddie thought it was a targeted attack and not some burglar hoping for spoils.

  He smiled. “She left this way because there was a girl out front delivering pizza.”

  “What?” Troy shouted from the kitchen.

  “Nothing.” He could see it. The panic in the killer’s eyes as someone knocked on the front door. He could picture her holding her breath in here by the doorframe as the pizza girl plucked up the courage to enter the house and wander up the hallway where she could see into the kitchen. “That’s when the killer left,” he said.

  Eddie walked through the antique-filled dining room and stood at the entrance to the kitchen, watching Troy work. He had his LED torch out and he was going over the worktop with a squirrel brush and some aluminium powder. A cloud of it hung around him like his bad mood had. Particles of dust sparkled in the torchlight, and Eddie watched the concentration in Troy’s eyes. He liked to see people concentrate on a job.

  He flicked on his own torch and then edged into the kitchen, keeping the unfocused beam pointing straight down onto the floor, and now that the stepping plates were gone, he saw more very faint red stains on the tiles as he approached the breakfast island. Again, they weren’t drops; they were contact smears, and when he took out his magnifying glass and closed right up on them, he expected to see more Nike Cortez. But these had a stippled pattern, like leather glove marks, or like—

  “Latex glove marks up here,” said Troy. “Or nitrile.”

  “Latex,” Eddie said, thinking. “Latex or nitrile here too.”

  “Why was she on the floor?”

  A good question, Eddie thought. And not only that, it suggested that Troy was engaged with the scene. It wasn’t about ticking a row of boxes on a sheet of paper any more; it wasn’t about just finishing this ‘shit’ and moving on. Sure, there were boxes that needed ticking, but no one knew what the questions were yet – this kind of scene work was a blank sheet where the CSI not only ticked the boxes, but created the questions leading to those boxes.

  And that was when the other box presented itself. He almost remarked on it there and then, but no; Eddie wanted to stand off and let Troy sink deeper into the scene to see if the little shit was as good as he thought he was.

  “Unless they’d been involved in a fight? It would explain why the killer was on the floor.” Troy raised his eyebrows. “The stabbing might even have been accidental.”

  Eddie nodded. “What else?”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Troy thought. “We have glove marks. You and Nicki got the footwear marks last night. You took a DNA mini-tape of the front door handle, too—”

  “Oh, you read the report, then?”

  “How about we powder the glove marks on the floor, and try swabbing them for DNA?”

  Eddie folded his arms and thought about it. “Good call. Do it.”

  Troy pulled a yellow marker from the camera bag and stood it with a grey scale beside a stain, just beyond the breakfast island, the furthest of the bloody marks on the floor. “Is there much chance?” He photographed it from a distance – a location shot – followed by several detailed shots.

  “One in five hundred.”

  “How the hell do you know that?” Troy took a new squirrel brush and began powdering the dried stain. He kept the marker and scale in place, and rephotographed it.

  “We used to do it years ago with burglary scenes. You’d powder up the offender’s glove marks and try to get DNA from it. If the offender had rubbed their face or their forehead while they wore the gloves, we hoped to get the DNA from transferred skin cells. Good idea – but lousy in practice. And it cost a fortune.”

  Troy found the glove mark surrounding the red contact stain on the floor, and moistened a plain sterile swab. He worked it into the powdered mark, staying clear of Doc’s blood, hoping to swab only the offender’s cells. “When will you get the results?”

  Eddie stood and arched his back. He wanted a cigarette, and his mouth was dry, but they were on a roll, and he didn’t want to stop the kid now things were going so well. “I can get that swab turned around in five days.” He knew he could get it turned around in two if he paid the premium.

  “I didn’t mean the results from this. I meant the—”

  “Oh, the drugs test. I thought you didn’t want to talk about it?”

  “When?”

  Eddie pulled back the sleeve of the white scene suit and looked at his watch. “Another two or three hours.” He leaned against the island. “Not worried, are you?”

  “Nope. Not in the slightest.”

  “Good.” Beneath the mask, Eddie grinned.

  Once Troy had written out the evidence bag and dropped the swab into it, he asked, “Can we take off the masks now?”

  Eddie shook his head. “Better not. I don’t know if there’ll be a
ny further DNA work here.” He was amazed; this was a different person, as though Troy had rented out his skin for someone decent to live in for the day. Gone were the endless boring snipes about him being younger than anyone else outside of junior school; gone was the gum-chewing swaggering arsehole, and in had stepped someone who did the job with a little more diligence, and someone who didn’t seem interested in challenging Eddie at every chance.

  Troy nodded, and closed the kit box. “There is one other thing I noticed.”

  “Oh?”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Back in the office, Nicki glanced at her watch at the same time as Eddie had glanced at his. Sid looked at her from his desk and smiled. She smiled back, gave a polite nod to go with it, and put her head back down. She clenched her cheeks, wondering whether it was the right thing to do. And then she remembered words her father spoke several years ago, that there was no room for sentiment when it came to career advancement. She could see him now, his hands gently on her shoulders, thumbs circling.

  She hoped it had worked to ease his nerves, because it sure as hell did nothing for hers. In fact it irritated her. “When you get ammunition, use it. That’s what it’s there for.” And when she’d tried to challenge his statement with reason, the thumbs had pressed in just a little bit harder than was really necessary.

  She stood, ready to leave the office, but Sid looked up at her, pinning her to the spot with his stare. His face was like a silent challenge, and Nicki swallowed.

  “Everything alright, Nicki?”

  “Tea?” she asked.

  Sid sat back and folded his arms. “I’m okay, thanks. You go ahead, though.”

  She smiled. “I will, I think, actually.” She felt his eyes all over her as she walked down the full length of the office. How the hell could he know what she was doing?

  “Nicki?”

  She stopped, and turned to him, trying to build a reassuring smile in the time it took her to rotate. But it grew twisted, malformed.

  “You sure you’re okay? You look a bit green.”

  She laughed, one of those polite laughs from the same box as the polite nod. “I’m fine.” She made herself walk slowly out of the office, forgetting all about making tea, trying to keep her walk slow and casual when she really wanted to run.

  She rounded the corridor into the CID office and noticed her hands were sweating. All the people; all looking at her, all judging her. To the right was a row of small individual offices with floor-to-ceiling windows, like a terrace of greenhouses.

  The blinds in one of them moved, and then the door opened.

  She walked towards him.

  * * *

  Eddie stood with his arms folded, willing Troy on.

  Troy faced the patio doors that looked out onto the expansive garden. Next to them was a row of coat hooks on the wall. Here in this Ideal Homes exhibition of a modern kitchen, all glass and chrome, these black cast-iron Victorian things with their elaborate swirls and cascades looked out of place. On the hooks were three or four coats; one a bodywarmer with a million pockets, and next to it, on top of the others, a blue raincoat with orange slashes down the sleeves. Below the hooks was a pair of Wellington boots and an iron bootjack.

  “Over there. It might belong to the housekeeper, that Mrs Watkins. There’s a coat. Small.”

  Beneath the mask, Eddie beamed. “Hey, so there is!”

  Before going to the coat, Eddie cast a focused beam low across the floor and could see nothing of interest; impressions of feet inside socks, something that looked like it could be a pair of slippers, but no Nike Cortez. That was good news because it meant walking over there wouldn’t destroy any evidence, but it was also a conundrum: it meant that Bolton must have hung up the coat himself.

  Did he know his killer?

  Troy stood before it, clamped gloved fingers on the cuffs and the bottom of the coat. His gloves came away damp. “It rained that night, didn’t it?” he said, looking at Eddie. The top of the coat, across the back and the shoulders, was dry; the rainwater had made its way south, and the high ambient temperature inside the house had dried the rest of it, leaving only the lower extremities still damp. “It could be the murderer’s.”

  “Could be. It’s definitely not Bolton’s; far too small. And I doubt Mrs Watkins would have left it. Good spot, Troy. Let’s open it up on some brown paper and see if there’s anything in the pockets, eh?”

  Troy nodded. “I’ll just photograph it first.”

  Inside, Eddie cheered. Now that the bad Troy had gone, Eddie could see that beneath the façade there was actually a diligent examiner. His hopes for him grew, and he stepped back out of the way as Troy took aim and fired off a few shots.

  Once on brown paper, they photographed the coat again – even checked out whether there was a name tag anywhere inside – but they came up with nothing. “Still good for wearer DNA though,” Troy said.

  It came out as a cross between a statement and question, so it showed he was still unsure despite his claims that he was the best examiner in the office – he had certificates! But Eddie gave him the benefit – perhaps it meant that he was stepping aside to let Eddie take that decision? He didn’t know for sure, but Eddie chalked up another plus in the kid’s favour.

  “Okay. Let’s see if there’s anything in the pockets, then.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Sid was leaning back against his desk, feet crossed on the floor, one of them tapping to an angry tune only he heard. His arms were folded and his face looked sour, like he’d bitten into a chocolate bar and discovered it wasn’t chocolate at all.

  The doors opened; when Nicki rounded the bend and saw him, she stopped short.

  “What have you done, Nicki?”

  No polite smile this time. In fact, she bypassed denial and went straight for justification and defence. “Someone needs to bring this office into the current century, Sid.”

  “And that’s your job, is it?”

  The beginnings of a sneer spoiled her prearranged fury. “My job is none of your fucking business. Understand?”

  “I understand that perfectly. But I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  Sid’s own effort at a smile failed. “I don’t do threats, dear,” he said.

  The office door barged open and Eddie and Troy bounded in, sharing a joke as though they were best drinking buddies. Troy clutched an evidence bag and a knife tube. He strode to his desk, oblivious to the atmosphere hanging like a fog in the midst of the office. The temperature was verging on frosty, but he was glowing. “You did great—” Eddie stopped. He looked between Sid and Nicki. “Everything okay?”

  Still looking at Nicki, Sid said, “He does the threats round here.” Sid’s arms dropped; he looked relieved that Eddie was back, but there was still tension in his face. “I need a paracetamol.”

  “What’s up?” Eddie dropped the camera bag on a desk. “Been stealing each other’s nail polish again?”

  “Ask her.”

  Eddie looked at Nicki. She swallowed and took a pace back.

  “Someone going to tell me what the fuck is going on?”

  Nicki stuck her chest out, nose in the air, eyes half closed. “So I know you made Troy have a drugs test today.”

  “Is that right?” Eddie’s face grew serious. “And did you know you’ve now spread confidential information around the fucking office?”

  “What was that?” Troy said, dumping the evidence sacks on his desk.

  “And furthermore,” she continued, “I know that the drugs test was false. It was bogus.”

  Troy joined the loose circle. He looked at Nicki, who stood defiant. “How the hell do you know— how the hell did you know I had a drugs test at all?”

  “I just do.”

  Troy grabbed her arm. “You spied on me?”

  “I was trying… I found out that it was a ploy, actually. To frighten you into quitting drugs, Troy.”

  Eddie slapped
a hand over his face. “You just keep digging that hole deeper, don’t you? Shut up, Nicki. You can’t broadcast private information—”

  “Is it true?” Troy asked Eddie.

  “Is what true?”

  “That it was bogus,” he said, voice only just above a whisper.

  “Well, since you used someone else’s pee it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

  Troy’s eyes widened further, “You were spying on me too?”

  “No, but—”

  Troy took a pace forward and punched him in the stomach. Eddie’s legs buckled and he hit the floor on his knees, clutching his guts.

  Nicki screamed.

  Sid hid his face behind shaking hands.

  Troy shouted, “I was just getting to like you, you bastard!”

  Eddie looked up and coughed. “Good punch, mate.” He struggled to rise, holding on to a desk for support.

  “It was bogus?” Troy looked distraught.

  “So what? It worked, didn’t it? Look how well you performed today. We haven’t had a cross word and you’ve been—”

  “I can’t believe you’d trick me like that.”

  “It was no trick; it was—”

  “It was so bogus, Eddie,” Nicki said.

  “Shut up, you!”

  “There’s more to come,” said Sid, peering around one of his hands.

  Everyone turned to face Nicki.

  She cleared her throat. “I felt compelled to report the matter—”

  “To Weismann,” growled Eddie.

  “To Mr Crawford,” Nicki said. “You left me no choice. Really. The way you run this office is disgraceful, actually.”

  “You slimy back-stabbing bitch!” Sid yelled.

  “Sid,” Eddie said. “She’s not slimy.”

  Eddie took a stride towards her, his eyes screwed into slits. “We may work in a slightly unorthodox way in this office. It makes sure everyone is treated well and fairly; it makes sure that everyone is given the help they need to succeed. Of course,” he said, “there are short cuts. But you’ll find they never fucking work.” He raised his eyebrows. “Never. You’ve broken that delicate mechanism, and now we have what?” He slowly turned, looking at the hurt and betrayed faces of his crew, “Anarchy.”