Jack-Knifed

by Wonny Lea

  Paula remembered that only a couple of days earlier Mark had told her about some legends associated with the lily of the valley, also known as Our Lady’s Tears. The story he liked best was that ‘Our Lady’ referred to the Virgin Mary, and that Mary’s tears had turned to lily of the valley when she cried at the crucifixion of Jesus. Typical of Mark that he not only looked after the plants and flowers in his garden, but also learned everything about them, from their botanical names to the folklore and legends linked to them.

  They had automatically closed the gate behind them, but now they both jumped as the gate swung open again, and Anne turned into the garden, looking a bit red in the face and slightly out of breath.

  ‘Hi, guys,’ she said, and Paula wished she wouldn’t call them guys, knowing that it was an expression that particularly annoyed Mark. But she said nothing, just smiled.

  ‘Are you late, too?’ continued Anne. ‘I thought I was late and you would have all started without me, so why aren’t you inside? I can smell the baking even over the scent of the flowers.’

  It was then that Paula realised that the smell of the delicacies Mark was preparing for them was no longer making her mouth water, more making her eyes water and her nose wrinkle up at the smell of burning.

  ‘I’ve been here once already’ said Suzanne. ‘I couldn’t get an answer and now I’m getting a bad feeling that something could be wrong. It’s just not like Mark to keep us hanging around, he usually can’t wait to show off his cooking.’

  Paula rang the doorbell and a muted orchestral version of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ echoed in the house, causing Anne to suppress a spontaneous giggle. ‘Well, that is one present from his adopted family that Mark would like to bin,’ she commented but stopped short of any further opinions as she could see that her two friends were now looking seriously worried.

  All three girls began shouting through the letterbox and banging on the door, and it was becoming more obvious that something was wrong as the pink glow of the tealights in the hall was becoming mixed with a haze of pale grey smoke. The smell of burning was becoming more pungent.

  Paula went around to the side entrance, but as always the door was locked. She looked through the window that normally enabled a view of the kitchen. The haze in here was thicker, but there was no sign of any fire and Paula assumed that whatever was in the oven was by now burned to a cinder. She wondered why the smoke alarms had not gone off. And, more importantly, where the hell was Mark?

  She went back to the front of the house, where Anne and Suzanne were now hammering hell for leather on the door and calling to Mark through the letterbox, but with no luck, and now a neighbour had come through the gate and was asking what all the noise was about. The neighbour, Abdi, a short Turkish man in his mid-fifties, was someone with whom Mark swapped recipes, and whose wife ran an internet café on Albany Road. Quickly assessing the situation, and without hesitation, Abdi ran back to his house, returning within seconds armed with a lump hammer. He told the girls to stand back as he hurled the hammer, with all his weight behind it, at the lock on the front door.

  Abdi was no lightweight, and the lock gave way immediately. The wood splintered along the whole length of the door as he kicked it open, and he told the girls to wait as he went inside. The smell of burning was now overwhelming, but fortunately there were still no flames showing, and the first thing Abdi did was to rush to the kitchen to turn the oven off.

  His next action was instinctive – but a mistake. As he opened the door of the oven, he was met by a wall of smoke and heat that made him choke and sent him reeling backwards.

  The biggest shock was yet to come as Abdi almost tripped over a large object on the kitchen floor and rubbed his watering eyes to see what was lying there. Abdi would never to his dying day forget the horror of what he saw, and his legs almost gave way, causing him to hang on to the side of the kitchen island and knock two dishes to the floor, creating a dramatic crash.

  The girls were unable to contain themselves. Covering their mouths and noses, they came towards the kitchen to see what was going on. Somehow Abdi managed to get a grip of the situation and blocked their view turning them around and back towards the front door.

  ‘What’s happened? You have to tell us what has happened’ shouted Suzanne. ‘Where is Mark and why can’t we go in? Has Mark hurt himself or what? For Christ’s sake, Abdi, you are really scaring me now, what the hell is it?’

  Abdi stood against the wall of the hall, where the wallpaper had been torn off in his assault on the front door, and struggled to get his words out. ‘There is terrible accident,’ he said. ‘Mark … Mark, he is dead and we have to send for police – we must get police.’ He looked at the girls and then spoke to himself in his native Turkish, as if this reversion to something familiar and comforting would change the awfulness of what he had witnessed.

  Paula felt sick and struggled not to cry, but managed to use her phone and dial 999, asking Abdi if they needed an ambulance, and maybe a doctor to confirm that Mark was actually dead. The look on Abdi’s face told Paula that there was no doubt about the fact that Mark was dead, but she was not to know until later the full horror of what Abdi had seen in that smoke-filled hell of Mark’s kitchen.

  The three girls and Abdi stood in the front garden, all trying to get to grips with what was happening. For some reason she could not rationalise, Suzanne picked an armful of the long-stemmed bluebells and placed them on the front porch, only then realising that they were past their best, with some of the blooms looking befittingly dead.

  All Paula could think about was who was going to tell Norman and Sandy about Mark. How would they cope with the loss of Mark who, although not their biological son, was the apple of their eye, and their joint focus in life for nearly thirty years?

  Anne stood at the gate and was the first to see the flashing blue lights, which were confusing at first as they seemed to be coming in more than one direction, but that was because two separate squad cars were approaching the house.

  Already people were crossing the road to see what was happening, but the first officer that got out of one of the police cars told two middle-aged women to move on quickly before approaching Abdi who broke away from the girls and walked towards Sergeant John Evans.

  Sergeant Evans was a man in his late fifties and conveyed an air of experience and calm. Close on his heels was PC Helen Cook-Watts, a twenty-something who looked far too young and attractive to be going into what Abdi knew to be a scene of macabre devastation.

  Sgt Evans was not one to rush into any situation. He listened with an increasing sense of disbelief at what Abdi was telling him and after getting an idea of what they were facing he checked with his colleague Helen that she was OK, before stepping into the hall and then moving towards the kitchen. Forewarned is forearmed apparently but even with his thirty years of experience Sgt Evans had never witnessed anything like this and he noticed the colour drain from Helen’s face as she too took in the carnage confronting them in that previously well-ordered kitchen.

  The two officers who had arrived in the second squad car had not spoken to Abdi, and were expecting something in the nature of a routine domestic disturbance that may have got out of hand. They were not prepared for something that was normally the substance of nightmares and horror movies. Because the first two officers had come to an abrupt halt on entering the kitchen, the others had to move to one side and as the third officer, PC Mike Thomas, slipped forward slightly his eyes went down to the floor and he saw the cause of the problem. The tip of his boot had edged into a pool of slightly congealed blood and the blood had come from an arm. But that’s all it was – an arm – not attached to a body. And alongside it was a leg …

  The whole kitchen looked like a slaughterhouse, with severed arms and legs lying in no particular order on the grey quarry-tiled floor. A torso with the head still attached was actually on the central island, alongside some lovingly prepared hors d’oeuvres and a bowl of pink punch in which were floating s
ome tiny strawberries.

  The atmosphere in the kitchen was something that would have been unpleasantly familiar to Mark as, yet again, the sound of silence was deafening. Sergeant Evans was the first to act, and told his colleagues to step back and not touch anything as it was obvious this situation was well outside their remit. The CID would be needed, together with Scene of Crime Officers and the whole entourage that accompanied any investigations into such brutal crimes.

  Retreating from the kitchen with the other officers, Mike realised that he had left a small trace of blood on the carpet, which would need to be reported to the SOC team. They had already been alerted by Sergeant Evans, who had learned that it would be Detective Chief Inspector Phelps heading up the investigation – a fact he accepted with gratitude. Martin Phelps was not one of the fast-tracked senior CID officers that uniformed staff loved to hate, but an officer who had come up through the ranks, was streetwise, and was personally aware of the difficulties and the frequent sheer drudgery of routine police work.

  The officers had been asked to carefully check the rest of the house while waiting for the Scene of Crime specialists, and they did this in pairs, with Constable Thomas and his mate taking the upstairs and Sgt Evans and PC Cook-Watts checking out the lounge. All the officers were geared up for the worst after what they had witnessed in the kitchen, but the devastation observed in the lounge was simply bizarre, and it took the two officers a few minutes to work out the cause of it.

  The room resembled one of those glass balls that you shake and cause artificial snow to fall on a scene below, and even as they looked small wisps of ‘snow’ moved about the room. Of course, it wasn’t really snow, and soon it became obvious that the particles floating around the room had come from the sofa. They decided against going into the room, as they could see that the sofa had been slashed over and over, as if someone had gone berserk with a Stanley knife, and what looked like soft coffee-coloured leather was in bits. It didn’t seem possible that so many soft, white particles could have been contained in one, albeit large, sofa, and in a strange way it was almost more unbelievable than the gruesome mayhem in the kitchen.

  From the doorway they could also see that the coals in the fireplace had recently been lit, and even as they looked the underlying coke and sticks collapsed, causing a thin wisp of smoke to rise but not doing enough to rekindle a flame.

  ‘Not the sort of evening for lighting a fire. Although someone should burn in the fires of hell for the evil done here on such a beautiful day. And in such an obviously loved home’ That was the first thing a shocked PC Cook-Watts had uttered since entering the house.

  Her colleague and self-appointed protector looked at her and not for the first time wondered why someone as bright and attractive as Helen, who was the same age as his daughter Angela could possibly have chosen a career that would soon strip her of any illusions she may have about the human race. Sgt Evans outwardly shuddered at the thought of his Angela being forced to look at the abomination that Helen had witnessed this evening. He remembered some of the horrors that he had seen as a young PC, knowing that each one had the potential of irredeemably changing your personality. He hoped that Helen would not get too hard and embittered, as he had seen others become over the years.

  Nothing had been found upstairs, other than three beautifully furnished bedrooms and a bathroom that Constable Thomas said he would ‘die for,’ before hastily retracting his words as he realised that the owner probably was dead and in pieces in the kitchen. With nothing more to be done in the house the officers made their way back to the front porch and to the garden, where Paula and Suzanne were now openly crying and a hysterical Anne was being consoled by Abdi.

  Routine police work kicked in and the officers were surprised at how easily they went about getting the basic details and accounts from those present. Sgt Evans agreed that they should all go to Abdi’s house with the other officers while he and Constable Cook-Watts waited for the SOC team. There were by now a sizable number of onlookers, and John Evans vented some of his emotions on these ghouls, suggesting they move on sharpish, or move into the back of his police car.

  What were these people doing hanging about on a beautiful early summer evening, waiting and seemingly wanting to see what horror human beings, in a so-called civil society, could do to one another? They would have been the cheerleaders in another time, when Christians were put in the arena with the lions or when public hangings were a regular spectacle.

  His tone in dealing with the intrusive public left no room for doubt in the minds of the onlookers, and in moments the front of the house was cleared, except for one man on the opposite side of the road who looked suspiciously like a journalist. Surely the press weren’t here even before SOC – it was in fact less than ten minutes after any police presence had arrived. He had asked himself many times over the years how they got to know so quickly, and had tonight come up with the same answer as before, wondering not if, but who, it was within his organisation had boosted his or her monthly pay cheque by a quick phone call to a contact in the media.

  A familiar large white van turned the corner, and as Sgt Evans raised his arm to indicate his presence and confirm the location of the crime it pulled into the side of the kerb. The nearside wheel drove over a half-empty can of Coke with a surprisingly loud pop and squirted the remains of the sticky brown fluid onto the pavement.

  A tall, well-built man in his late thirties got out of the driver’s seat, pulling open a plastic packet containing the familiar white suit that was the uniform of his trade and would be mandatory for anyone now entering Mark’s home. He handed three similar packets to Sgt Evans, who would make it his responsibility to ensure that no one got past him without first covering their street clothes and so avoiding contamination of the crime scene.

  ‘What have you found for us this time?’ questioned Alex Griffiths, his shaven head gleaming in the evening sun. ‘Don’t you know it’s a Saturday night and I was within minutes of heading for a hot date and sampling the swinging, sexy nightlife of this vibrant city? The message we got made us all wish we had chosen another profession – is it really that bad?’

  ‘You wouldn’t want to pass this one to anyone else’ replied Sgt Evans. ‘I expect you know that DCI Phelps has been appointed to head up the investigation, so it will be what the uniformed staff call the ‘A Team,’ and heaven knows this case is going to need it.’

  Alex Griffiths, one of the most respected Scene of Crime Officers in South Wales, had a reputation for a thorough and systematic approach. This, accompanied by an uncommon insight into criminal behaviour, had in the past been a key factor leading to the prosecution and conviction of some seriously hard felons. What a different animal was Alex Griffiths when heading up SOC investigations, compared to the flamboyant and party-loving creature known to his friends as ‘Brains’. The origin of the nickname was a bit vague and yes, Alex could be described as an intellectual, although he was curiously keen to hide the fact. He had taken to shaving his head long before it had become a fashionable thing to do and so his brains were almost on display. However, the more likely origin of his tag was that the first three letters of his name spelled ‘ale,’ and given that the famous beer in Cardiff was Brains’ bitter, Griffiths had become ‘Brains’!

  Four other members of the SOC team had got out of the van, three men and one woman all now clad in their space suits. They followed Alex and Sgt Evans towards Mark’s front door.

  As they walked down the path, Evans told the team that whatever information they had been given, it was unlikely to prepare them for what awaited them in the kitchen. ‘Yes, it really is that bad,’ he said in response to Alex’s earlier question. Sgt Evans explained as they got nearer that the damage to the front door had not been done by a possible intruder, but by a concerned neighbour, and was about to offer more of an explanation when another car pulled up outside and they all turned to see Professor Dafydd Moore getting out of his newly acquired cream-coloured Lexus. Dafydd Moore
was what any person would have sketched if asked to draw a picture of a professor, from his half-moon glasses to his longish, untidy hair and haphazard dress code. He was also a total misery, and Alex Griffiths grimaced at the thought of spending the next few hours, and having to work for the duration of this case, with Cardiff’s least-loved (but to be fair, most brilliant) pathologist. The group waited for Prof. Moore, to reach them and after a brief acknowledgement Sgt Evans once again tried to prepare a colleague for what he thought would be a shocking sight.

  ‘Seen it all before, so shall we just get on with the job,’ was all the thanks he got from the Professor, but the response was fairly typical of him and so came as no surprise to anyone.

  Still, it was useful that Alex and Prof. Moore were going to be entering the house together, and would be able to get a fuller picture of the information surrounding the crime, before the arrival of DCI Phelps and his team. Sgt Evans remained at the front door and watched the officers outside securing the crime scene with the familiar blue and white police tape, ensuring that no one would now get past him unless they were germane to the investigation.

  No matter how many years of experience police officers may have, there still has to be an innate revulsion when seeing a fellow human being not just recently killed, but brutally slaughtered in his own home. Alex remembered that one of his old trainers had once said that any officer who is not affected by a scene of unspeakable violence had better look to drawing his or her pension and getting out of the service immediately. Years of training had taught Alex to stand back and use his eyes first, and to make contemporaneous notes, jotting down thoughts, no matter how trivial, that might at some later point help with piecing together what was in essence a complex jigsaw.