Jack-Knifed

by Wonny Lea

  Matt had wandered over to the fireplace, and Alex followed him, suggesting that the detectives look at the contents of the grate, which were now cold and would soon be gathered as evidence to be looked at under a microscope. Martin, with gloved hands, picked up an ornate metal poker lying in the hearth and gently prodded the coals and lifted some fragments of burned paper.

  ‘Careful, boss,’ warned Alex. ‘Looks like those documents are close to disintegrating. The more of them that we can keep together the more likely we are to get a fix on what they are.’

  ‘Sorry, Brains. It looks like there are a few thicker folds of paper on the edge of the coals, and I get the feeling that at least one document is a long piece of paper, maybe something like a birth certificate. Your people can take it all away whenever they’re ready, and I look forward to having them tell me what exactly was being destroyed here.’

  Matt Pryor commented that if the contents of the grate were papers that the killer wanted destroyed, this was one part of the crime that had been botched up, so maybe they were just papers that the victim had wanted to burn. Martin was sceptical.

  ‘If you had papers you wanted to burn, would you chose to do it on a warm early summer evening, and one on which you were expecting to entertain friends? Anyway, doesn’t everyone just shred stuff? No, everything else in this house is meticulously prepared for the expected guests, and it will be the possibly uninvited and unexpected visitors that started this little blaze and may have left us some clue as to the reason for it all.’

  ‘There are no signs of a forced entry either at the back or front, and no broken windows,’ said Matt, who had gained some facts from Sergeant Evans. ‘It would appear that the expected visitors, who are three women, got anxious when they could smell burning in the house and were unable to get any response from their friend Mark, who they assumed was inside. The front door was smashed open by a neighbour, and he and the victim’s friends are next door having their initial statements taken by uniform, and probably trying to get over the shock of it all.’

  Martin continued to stare into the coals and ashes, praying silently that these remains really would turn a key in this investigation, for other than this possible mistake it looked like a well-organised and well-executed plan. The killer, or killers, seemed to have done only what was intended, and Martin speculated that the sequence of events started in the lounge – maybe with Mark being forced to witness the burning of some personal documents and the seemingly ritualistic destruction of his sofa, before the horror of being sacrificed in the kitchen.

  Nowhere was there any sign of a struggle, and Martin mentally pinpointed three areas where intensive work would have to be carried out. There was the area immediately on and around the kitchen island, the fireplace, and the sofa. He checked with Alex that they were on the same wavelength, getting the confirmation that his experience had led him to expect.

  ‘What the hell went on here, guv?’ quizzed Matt. ‘Considering the level of the massacre in the kitchen, you would expect the whole house to be a bloody mess. The only blood smears are in the hall and have apparently come from the boot of PC Mike Thomas, who stepped unknowingly into some blood on the kitchen floor on first entry. This couldn’t have been just one killer, could it? And why didn’t the victim put up a fight?’

  Martin ignored the somewhat rhetorical questions from his sergeant, as he had no answers to give and knew that, at this stage, no answers were expected. He made his way into the hall and up the stairs. All the doors were open, and he made a note to check with Sergeant Evans whether his colleagues had found them open or closed. It would probably be of no consequence, but experience had taught Martin that the devil was in the detail when it came to solving such tortuous crimes, and it was his intention to allow no detail to be overlooked.

  Two doors led to rooms at the front of the house. One room, which was the master bedroom, was decorated with pale green designer wallpaper. The curtains and bedspread didn’t match it, but were deliberately chosen as a contrast, being a deep burgundy colour. The en-suite was dressed with the same deep burgundy tiles and Martin tried to figure the cost of this level of interior design. He had nothing on which to base his calculations, knowing only that Matt’s youngest sister had recently installed a top-of-the-range B&Q bathroom that had cost just over three thousand pounds and wasn’t even in the same league as this.

  The second room was similarly decorated with style and flair, this time in shades of light blue, navy blue, and silver, and a corner of the room was established as a home office. Martin noted the difference between his ‘office’ at the cottage, with its ungainly trailing wires and extension sockets, and this wireless affair with all the latest technology and clean lines. He called to Matt.

  ‘Get Alex to pack up this lot and get it back to Goleudy for the IT boys to get a good look at it. I want to know every key that has ever been pressed and get an in-depth picture of any social networking, or membership to any particular organisations. Building up a profile of Mark Wilson’s character and any strong affiliations may be helpful and we can only hope he has left us some clues somewhere.’

  Matt shouted down the stairs and they heard Alex leave the house and go to the van to collect some boxes for transporting the computer, running the gauntlet of increasingly impatient newsmen and women. When he came back he reminded Martin that the IT boys would not be looking at this box of tricks, but he would certainly put it into the capable hands of Charlie Walsh, and when he had last looked there was nothing boyish about her.

  Charlie, or, more formally, Charlotte, Walsh was an Irish colleen with black hair and green eyes and a shapely upper half that she frequently and shamelessly flaunted as she manoeuvred her motorised wheelchair with the same dexterity she demonstrated on the keyboard. Still only in her early thirties, Charlie had forgotten more about computer technology than Martin and his team would ever know, and he knew they were lucky to have her as she had been headhunted on more than one occasion by the Met.

  Her response to their repeated and quite lucrative invitations had always been the same, as she claimed the importance of her Irish roots, and a feeling of being more at home with her fellow Celts in Wales, meant more than what was arguably a more exciting job in London.

  Martin was relieved to hear Alex coming up with just a bit of his old banter, as this would take the edge off the horror that every member of the team had so far experienced. It was a coping mechanism, and if by the time they all left there was a healthy bit of swearing and black humour it would, he knew, be the difference between screaming nightmares and mere vile dreams for most of the group.

  ‘Yes, I’ll give the whole set-up to Charlie, but her team will have to make a start on it, as I happen to know she is in Ireland this weekend for her sister’s wedding, with a promise to be in on Monday morning, with the best or worst ever hangover – pre-warning us all to keep out of her way.’

  Alex always seemed to know what was happening in Charlie’s life, but there were no rumours of any relationship, and in a place like Goleudy, where it was possible for a flirty wink to be translated into a full-blown affair, it would be the best-kept secret ever.

  The final bedroom was a bit out of character with the rest of the house, being more floral and feminine, and although the furniture and décor was every bit as expensive as elsewhere, there was something a bit tacky about the overall effect. It flashed through Martin’s mind that this could have been planned with a particular person, probably a girl or a woman, in mind, but there was no sign of that person or anyone else ever having used the room.

  The drawers were empty, and in the wardrobe there were just six pink, silk-padded clothes hangers similar to those he had noticed hanging in his aunt’s bedroom when he had moved into her cottage. He half expected to be able to smell mothballs, as the room, although recently decorated and furnished, was giving him the illusion of belonging to a different era, and for some reason he felt a degree of unease that didn’t make a lot of sense.

&
nbsp; The bathroom was straight out of a top-quality magazine but for Martin’s taste more in keeping with the Hilton than a private home, and it was so clean as to appear unused. Martin felt the dark grey sponge and suspected through his gloved hands that it was damp and called to Alex.

  ‘Looks as if someone took a shower earlier on so you may be able to pick up some samples for DNA examination – it will probably only match up with the victim, but we need to pick up on anyone who has been in this house lately, and ideally someone known to the police and on our DNA database! Well, I can dream, can’t I, and as I am never likely to have the good fortune of a killer standing over his victim with a smoking gun, it’s back to our usual round of solicitous searching and the everlasting examination of whatever facts we can muster.’

  Sergeant Evans had come to the foot of the stairs, to confirm that initial statements had been taken from the four people so far involved with the investigation, and was asking if they could be allowed to go – or did DCI Phelps want to interview them tonight?

  Martin overheard the question and moved to the top of the stairs. ‘I will see them all briefly and individually, but only to get a feel of their initial reactions. After that they can go and I will take home their draft statements and look at them later prior to the formal interviews that you can arrange for first thing tomorrow morning.’

  ‘OK, guv,’ replied Sergeant Evans and he walked off to make his colleagues aware of the DCI’s intentions.

  Having come down the stairs, and now standing in the hallway between the kitchen and the lounge, Martin took a final look at the setting of one of the most brutal murders he had ever known. The scene had already changed as the body and its parts had been removed and taken to the incident van, together with what already amounted to hundreds of carefully labelled samples from all corners of the house. Not for the first time, Martin admired the dedication of the SOC team, and called out in a voice that was controlled and strong and deliberately hid some of his own demons.

  ‘What we have all witnessed here is beyond the wildest belief of most people, and once again I want to express my thanks for the amazing way in which you get down to the job and make the life of my lot so much easier. The whole thing is a team effort and together we will get to the bottom of this murder and bring the evil bastards to justice. Thank you.’

  Alex nodded towards Martin as he left the house and was grateful to his colleague for acknowledging the work of the SOC investigators, for although Alex himself was not slow to praise their efforts, there was always something more substantial at being recognised from outside the team.

  Following Sergeant Evans to where the witnesses were waiting, Martin had barely got a foot on the pavement outside Mark’s house before microphones were thrust under his nose, as reporters leant over the police tape and bombarded him with questions.

  ‘They brought out more than one body bag, so is it a multiple murder?’

  ‘Are any of the people who are waiting next door going to be arrested for murder?’

  ‘Come on, Chief Inspector! Tell us how the victim was killed – was it a fight?’

  More questions followed and Martin held up his hands in an attempt to get some semblance of order in to what was little more than an unruly mob, but he knew it was no use fobbing them off and so turned to face the cameras.

  ‘A little quiet, if you please. I will make just one statement and then you may as well all go home, as there is nothing else you will hear officially tonight. Earlier today there was a cruel murder at this house, and all I can say at this time is that the victim is male, but until the next of kin are notified we will not be giving out any further details. We have no reason to suspect that any of the people who were visiting this evening, or the neighbours we will necessarily be questioning, had any part to play in the crime, and for the moment they are simply helping us with our investigations.’

  ‘Check with your offices in the morning and you will be made aware of any press statements and the likelihood of any press conferences or public appeals. That is all for now, and I mean that is all, so don’t push your luck.’

  Martin turned away and walked quickly towards the house next door but not without hearing still more questions shouted at his back. There was no sign of the pack retreating. What part of ‘that is all for now’ didn’t they understand?

  The questions that really worried him related to Mark’s sexuality. Even if this had nothing to do with the crime, Martin knew that the newspapers were likely to turn it into an issue in some way or another.

  What a difference between two houses. The house into which Martin and Matt now walked had hardly been changed since the day it was built, and that was probably more than a hundred years ago. True it now had electricity, the telephone, and a television, but otherwise it was like stepping back in time, although the house was certainly not unloved.

  Complementing the Victorian style of the interior were large pieces of furniture that possibly dated back to the nineteenth century, when there was an international taste for all things Asian when it came to furniture and other objects for decoration in the home. The pieces here were certainly of Turkish origin, and the mellow wood shone out a welcome that had been encouraged by years of careful and dedicated polishing. Sergeant Evans led the two men to the back of the house where in the kitchen, at a banquet-sized table surrounded by numerous high-backed chairs, were three clearly upset women, and a man who literally bounced out of his chair when the kitchen door opened.

  ‘Thank goodness you come, this is terrible night, I tell the policeman but I not tell the ladies, it is too bad … it is too bad.’

  Abdi paced along one side of the kitchen and continued muttering. ‘Too bad, too bad,’ he said constantly, until his wife put her arms around him and pulled his face into the safety of her more-than-ample bosom, and he sobbed like a baby.

  ‘That’s been on the verge of happening for some time,’ murmured PC Cook-Watts, who had been helping with the constant supply of coffee, having completed the initial round of witness statements. ‘He really needs to talk to you, but maybe it would be better if his wife, Aella, helps him to compose himself and you speak to the ladies first.’

  Martin looked across at the couple and agreed that he was unlikely to get any coherent information from Abdi in his current state. Although he felt some sympathy for the man, he reminded himself that at this stage even these witnesses were potential suspects, and he needed to get on with his job.

  ‘We have been using Aella’s sewing room to take the statements, and the ladies know that you will not be going over everything again with them but will just want a few minutes tonight before the formal interviews tomorrow.’ Helen Cook-Watts spoke as she showed the DCI and his sergeant into a surprisingly large room just off the kitchen. They accepted her offer of coffee, and sat down at a table, where all the paraphernalia needed for various types of needlecraft had been moved to one side to make room for the officers.

  Paula Williams was the first to come back into the makeshift interview room. She sat down opposite the two men who noticed her red, swollen eyelids and blotchy face.

  ‘I understand Mark was a good friend of yours, and I am sorry you have lost him under such dreadful circumstances. I am Detective Chief Inspector Phelps and this is Detective Sergeant Pryor, and we are aware that the uniformed officers have taken full statements of your movements this evening and how you came to be here. For now, I am keen to know more about Mark, and in particular your initial thoughts on why this should have happened.’

  Paula did not rush into responding, and seemed to be mentally trawling through the years of knowing Mark, before answering in a voice that was close to a whisper as she fought back her tears.

  ‘I have known Mark since we were pupils at Whitchurch High School, although he didn’t come to the school until quite late on. I know that at the time he was in foster care and until then he had not had a good experience of the social care system. Sandy and Norman were different to other foster
carers he’d had, they looked after him properly and then they adopted him later on.’

  At the thought of Sandy and Norman, tears welled up in Paula’s eyes and spilled over her cheeks. ‘Do they know what has happened to Mark? Oh, please, someone must tell them! But they will be devastated.’

  Martin assured Paula that he would personally be going to see Mark’s adoptive parents within the hour, and Matt Pryor took the address and telephone number from Paula, who knew them off by heart, as the Hardings’ house was a place she frequently visited and was always made welcome in.

  Would she still be welcome there – or would Sandy and Norman think she could have saved Mark if she had taken the trouble to go earlier and help him with the preparations for the evening? Logically, she knew that it was her own conscience that was nagging at that thought – and how earnestly she wished it had nagged her earlier.

  Composing herself to make the rest of her statement, Paula went on to explain how she had remained close friends with Mark when they had left school. And, yes, she knew that Mark was gay, although it was a side of his life about which she knew very little.

  ‘It never was an issue from my point of view, and I didn’t get to meet any of his gay friends. It was as if he kept that aspect of his person separate and that’s the way he wanted it. I do know there had never been anyone serious and that all his relationships – and there weren’t that many – had been casual things, with no heartbreak or regrets when they were over. So I wouldn’t imagine that what has happened here tonight has got anything to do with Mark’s sexuality, although I guess some psychopathic, homophobic maniac could be responsible.’

  The last few words were spat out and Martin rose from his chair, suggesting that it was time for Paula to go home, where perhaps she could talk things through with someone and try to get some rest.

  ‘I live on my own and my flat is within walking distance, so perhaps the fresh air will do me some good.’