by Lin Anderson
‘Detective Sergeant?’ He kept his voice low.
‘Sorry, Sir.’ Janice always started with an apology. She knew the moments with his family were precious, so if she had had to call him at home it must be serious.
‘We’ve received a call from Mrs Jones, Melanie’s mother. She found Melanie when she got back from her trip.’
‘Dead?’ said Bill.
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Like Kira?’
‘No. The foetus hasn’t been removed. But there’s a mark on her hands that looks like a daisy.’
‘I’ll be there shortly.’
Bill observed the girl he’d questioned only the day before. She lay on top of the bed, fully clothed, as though she had simply dozed off. There was no evidence of a struggle, no obvious injuries, no blood. In his time on the Force he’d rarely visited death scenes that looked as peaceful as this one.
Sylvia Barnes, the pathologist, was there already. She rose from her position next to the bed.
‘What happened?’ Bill asked her.
She indicated the girl’s eyelids, where tiny haemorrhages spider-marked the pale skin. ‘There are also pressure marks on her chest. Nothing on the neck, so she probably wasn’t strangled.’ She pointed to the large, square pillow that lay alongside. ‘I think she was probably held down and suffocated with the pillow while she slept, but we’ll find out for sure at the post-mortem.’
‘There was no attempt to remove the baby?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘There is this, however.’ She turned Melanie’s right palm outwards, exposing a crude attempt to draw a daisy. ‘Looks like the deaths are linked.’
‘Or someone wants us to think they are,’ he said. ‘What about the timing?’
‘I gather the mother spoke to her late morning, but didn’t get a reply at two p.m. She found the body at six thirty p.m. when she got home, and thought Melanie was sleeping until she touched her hand. The time frame corresponds to the body state. Melanie probably died in the last four to six hours.’
Bill stood for a moment, understanding how Melanie’s mother might have convinced herself that her daughter was asleep. He would have done the same. Yet something happened to a body when life left it. The stillness of death was unique. Mrs Jones may have prayed that her daughter was only sleeping, but Bill suspected she’d realised the truth even before she’d touched her.
Mrs Jones looked like an older version of Melanie. She was slim, pretty and impeccably dressed. Shock had drained her face of colour so that her discreetly applied make-up seemed overdone. She was sitting on the sofa her daughter had used when Bill had interviewed her. A female constable sat alongside, a comforting hand on the woman’s arm. When Bill asked what had happened, Mrs Jones confirmed the story he’d already heard.
‘When I tried to call her the second time, I assumed she was resting. She’s been sleeping a lot lately. I thought she was asleep when I went into the room,’ she faltered. ‘Then I realised there was something odd. She was so still. I touched her hand and it was cold. I called 999. The paramedics were here in minutes, but they said Melanie had been dead for some time.’ Her voice broke.
Bill gave her time to collect herself before asking, ‘Did Melanie tell you I came to see her yesterday?’
She looked surprised. ‘Why did you want to see Melanie?’
‘To ask about her friendship with Kira Reese-Brandon.’
‘Melanie stopped seeing Kira months ago,’ she said sharply.
‘Why?’
‘Kira was a bad influence on Melanie. First the dieting, then the parties.’
‘Tell me about the parties.’
‘They were using houses where someone’s parents were away. It was all Kira’s idea.’
‘Was it Kira’s idea for them all to get pregnant?’
‘It doesn’t matter now, does it? Nothing matters. Melanie’s dead.’
‘Does the name David Murdoch mean anything to you?’
‘No.’
‘Is there anyone you can think of who might have wanted to harm Melanie?’
‘She was never in any trouble until she started going around with Kira.’
32
The house was easy to find. Many of the houses in the area had been converted into expensive flats, but this was one of the few that hadn’t. It had retained the graciousness of a well-built Victorian townhouse. And now it had police tape blocking the entrance.
Chrissy had been in the lab when Rhona had returned from her visit to the mortuary and the Royal Infirmary. It had taken all Rhona’s powers of deception to weave a convincing alibi, but she suspected she’d been saved from an interrogation by Chrissy’s distracted air. Rhona wasn’t sure what was worrying her – some concern over baby Michael, problems with Sam, or maybe even something about Sean that she didn’t want to tell Rhona.
They seemed to have silently agreed on a trade-off: Chrissy would withhold the Spanish Inquisition if Rhona didn’t pry into what was bothering her. In truth, Rhona found this disconcerting. A worried and reticent Chrissy was more distressing than an eager, enquiring one.
When the call came through about Melanie Jones, they decided to both attend the scene. The silence in the car was unusual and uncomfortable. Rhona tried to concentrate on the short drive from the lab and not think about what horror Chrissy was failing to discuss with her. She’d already decided that it did not involve Sam or the baby, since nothing would keep Chrissy from talking about them. Which only left Sean. She suspected something had happened, something Chrissy did not want to reveal.
Rhona set her mind against such musings, reminding herself that she and Sean were over and what he did now was none of her concern. Nothing Chrissy knew would change the situation between them.
She pulled up outside the villa and fetched her forensic bag from the boot. The house was already cordoned off and she’d spotted Bill’s car parked nearby. All she knew was that the body of Melanie Jones had been found by her mother at six thirty p.m. under suspicious circumstances. The girl had been almost full term with a baby, and had almost certainly been a member of the Daisy Chain gang. Rhona hoped she was not about to view something similar to what she’d found in the mirror maze.
Bill met them in the spacious hall. ‘It’s not like before,’ he reassured them.
‘I’m glad about that,’ Chrissy replied fervently.
As Bill led them to the stairs, Rhona caught a glimpse of a middle-aged woman as she passed a sitting room, a female PC in attendance.
Rhona was struck by the quiet order of the bedroom they entered. She’d imagined a room much like her own as a teenager, messy and lived-in, but Melanie’s space was nothing like that. It was pretty and boring, as though an interior decorator had just finished work on it. There was nothing to tell you what kind of teenager Melanie had been. No posters, none of the usual paraphernalia that gave an indication of the character of the room’s inhabitant. Only one item seemed incongruous. On one wall was a dark green mask of a man’s face with an open mouth, framed by bunches of purple grapes.
Melanie lay opposite on a double bed. If you ignored the faint, sweet scent of a body starting the process of decay, you could imagine her asleep. Rhona was immediately struck by how thin the girl’s arms and legs were, only the pregnancy giving a roundness to her form.
‘Roy’s completed the camera work. I’ll leave you to do the rest,’ Bill said.
‘How long have we got?’ Chrissy asked.
‘As long as it takes.’
Rhona concentrated on the body and bed area, Chrissy on the remainder of the room. As they’d climbed the stairs, Bill had told them that in Sylvia’s opinion Melanie had been suffocated. It was clear why. Petechiae, tiny purple and red spots caused by small areas of bleeding under the skin, were obvious on the face, neck and eyes. Nearby lay a continental-style pillow in a white embroidered case – a convenient murder weapon.
Rhona began the usual routine. Head first, then hands. The body was losing its flaccidity as rigor mor
tis set in; brought about by complex post-mortem biochemical changes, it invariably began in the face, jaw and neck before spreading downwards to affect the arms, trunk and legs. Within twelve to eighteen hours, the entire body would become rigid, before the rigor mortis disappeared in the same order as it had appeared, twenty-four to thirty-six hours after death.
The eyes that stared up at her were cloudy. In life, the crystalline structure of the cornea was dependent on hydration, but after death the water of crystallisation was lost and the desiccated eye became opaque.
When she’d swabbed and bagged the head, Rhona began to sample the hands. Under different circumstances, the roughly-drawn daisy might not have been recognisable as such; if Melanie and Kira had been killed by the same person, then their skill at mirror writing didn’t extend to drawing. Either that, or they had been in a hurry.
After swabbing and securing the hands, Rhona set about taping the exposed skin. The patterned top had been raised – she presumed by Sylvia – to expose the hard mound of the foetus and the girl’s pressure-bruised chest. Rhona imagined someone placing a pillow over the face of the sleeping girl, leaning on it to prevent her escaping. Melanie’s sudden awakening. Her realisation that she could no longer draw breath. It wouldn’t have taken much strength to hold her down long enough to smother her.
She left the clothes in place since there were no bloodstains that could be compromised by the body’s removal to the mortuary. Once she’d finished processing Melanie, she bagged the offending pillow. The rest of the bedclothes would have to wait until the body was removed and taken to the mortuary. She took a seat beside the bed and was beginning to write up her notes when Chrissy called her from the bathroom.
‘Come take a look at this.’
The en suite was as neat as the bedroom, decorated all in turquoise with a matching bath towel.
‘Stand at the door,’ Chrissy ordered. ‘Take a look round and tell me what’s missing.’
Rhona did as requested, scanning the room. When she didn’t answer immediately, Chrissy said, ‘Beside the sink.’
Rhona followed her pointing finger to a hook, but Chrissy could wait no longer.
‘The hand towel. Where’s the matching hand towel?’
‘OK . . .’ said Rhona hesitantly.
‘And someone’s recently been sick in the bath.’ Chrissy indicated something she’d pulled from the plug hole that looked like a cube of carrot. ‘I smelt it when I knelt down.’
‘Maybe Melanie suffered from morning sickness.’
‘In my experience, most people, pregnant or not, usually vomit into the toilet, not the bath. Also, whoever it was tried to use this to clear the plughole.’ She waved a wooden back brush at Rhona. ‘Another thing, there are no fingerprints. Not on the taps or the door handles. Melanie might have been a bit obsessive about neatness, but I can’t see her wiping the handles after she used them.’
Rhona had to agree with that. ‘So your theory is?’
‘Someone wiped them with the missing hand towel and took it with them.’
It sounded plausible.
‘I’ll check the toilet seat, then I’m done. Let’s hope he had a piss before he left.’
Eventually Chrissy signalled that she was finished and they headed downstairs together. Mrs Jones had disappeared from the sitting room, probably gone to stay with friends or neighbours while the team took over the house. Cold air met them at the open front door, and Rhona pulled down her mask and breathed it in.
‘Tidiest bedroom I’ve ever been in.’ Chrissy might be neat at work, but she certainly wasn’t at home. ‘I don’t think the girl had anything to do with the décor. The whole place looks like something out of Homes and Gardens.’
‘Like you read Homes and Gardens,’ Rhona laughed.
‘You know what I mean,’ Chrissy said in distaste. ‘Everything matched. Curtains, lampshades, headboard. Even the bloody thingy above the window.’
‘The pelmet,’ Rhona offered.
‘Jesus.’ Chrissy shook her head. ‘The only thing different was green boy.’
‘You mean the mask?’
‘Very sexual. Bunches of grapes, an open mouth. I’m surprised her mother allowed it in the house. Definitely worth a closer look. What about you? Anything interesting?’
‘No yak hair, if that’s what you mean.’
‘And the daisy?’
‘If it was a daisy.’
‘An attempt by someone to make us think it was the same perpetrator when it wasn’t?’
‘Maybe. But the fact that the girls were both pregnant and part of the Daisy Chain gang does suggest a link.’
‘We’re not in the business of suggestion,’ Chrissy said firmly.
‘No, but we are in the business of asking the right questions.’
Chrissy glanced at her watch, a worried look on her face. ‘I’ll have to go. Sam’s on at the club tonight.’
‘Give little Michael a hug from me.’
‘You could always come back and see him,’ Chrissy offered. ‘Sam’s cooking dinner before he goes.’
‘Tempting, but I’d better hang on here until the mortuary van arrives.’
‘See you tomorrow then.’ Chrissy looked a little put out. Either there was something she wanted to discuss, or she had sensed Rhona was hiding something from her.
Rhona spent another hour working on her notes before the mortuary van arrived. Once the body was removed, she began stripping the bed and bagging the items, and when she lifted the pillow below Melanie’s head, she discovered a mobile. It seemed Melanie had taken her phone to bed with her. Rhona flipped it open and checked for any outstanding messages. No texts, but there were two missed calls. One was her mum, probably calling from the train, and the other was from someone called David. Bill had already left the scene, so she phoned him.
‘What time was this call?’
‘Two thirty-five.’
‘After the mum?’
‘Yes.’
‘Give me the number.’
She read it out to him.
‘Thanks. Are you finished over there?’
‘Yes, I’m headed home now.’
‘Anything apart from the mobile?’
‘Chrissy thinks someone vomited in the bath and it looks like the surfaces and door handles have been wiped, possibly with a hand towel that’s been removed.’
‘I’ll check with her mother about the towel.’
Rhona waited until she was in her car and ready to go before contacting Petersson, who picked up on the first ring. Rhona realised she hadn’t rehearsed what to say, although it turned out not to matter.
‘Come round to my place,’ he said.
‘I’ve just finished work. I need to shower and eat.’
‘You can do that here.’
‘What’s up?’
‘You know what’s up,’ he replied. ‘You didn’t find the post-mortem report, did you?’
‘I—’ she began.
‘McNab was alive when he entered the hospital.’
She heard herself say, ‘He died in the operating theatre.’
Petersson snorted in exasperation, then said, ‘I’ll see you shortly.’ He reminded her of the address. ‘I’ll have food ready.’
She ended the call, her hand trembling, then sat in silence. She shouldn’t be thinking about this, torturing herself with some wild fantasy about people coming back from the dead. She wasn’t in a Shakespearean play; in her world, dead people stayed dead. Like the girl she had just processed in that bedroom. She should be thinking about that. She’d told Chrissy their job was to ask the right questions, but her mind wasn’t fully on that job. It was elsewhere, in futile pursuit of the impossible.
Her mobile pinged – an incoming text. As if rebuking her for her wandering thoughts, the message from Bill told her she was needed at the post-mortem, scheduled for nine thirty the following morning.
Petersson’s flat was in a tall, stately Victorian block near the Botanic Gardens. She
took her time getting out of the car and locking it, making a point of not looking up to the second floor window. She knew she was kidding herself, pretending that she could climb back in the car and drive away from Petersson and his wild theories. She had a sudden flash of McNab’s ironic grin. How he would have mocked her, called her Dr MacLeod in a sardonic tone, with a twinkle in his eye.
What if the shoe had been on the other foot? McNab, she knew, would have gone into the jaws of hell for her, just as he had done for Chrissy.
She walked up the short path to the front door and pressed the buzzer.
‘Come on up.’
The door clicked open. The stairwell was lined with maroon and blue tiles in perfect condition, the upper half looking as though it had been newly painted cream. Only the stone stairs betrayed the age of the building, worn down by the countless footsteps of the inhabitants of the century-old building.
Petersson was waiting at the open door. He stood aside to let her enter.
‘First on the right,’ he instructed.
She hesitated. The hallway was a room in itself, and held a dining table that sat eight people.
‘I thought you’d prefer to eat in the kitchen,’ he explained.
She went through into a large room that appeared to serve as both kitchen and study. An alcove in one corner, which would have historically contained a bed for a kitchen servant, was now lined with shelves of books and housed various items of computer equipment including three monitor screens. Two places had been set on a circular table next to the window, and Rhona caught the aroma of something cooking in the oven.
‘You’ve time for a shower before we eat,’ said Petersson. ‘All rooms lead off the hall. I’ve left the door to the bathroom open for you.’
Rhona wanted a shower desperately, if only to wash off the scent of death. She made her way back through the hall, suddenly awkward in someone else’s home and resisting the desire to open the numerous other doors that led from the hall. The bathroom turned out to be more of a wet-room, with blue corner tiles enclosing a many-spouted shower unit and a drain in the tiled floor. The lack of a cubicle made her feel exposed, and she locked the door before stripping off. She ignored the various wall spouts in favour of the rose fitting overhead, and was surprised by the power of the water that cascaded down on her. She found a tube of something that professed to be both shampoo and shower gel. It had a strong astringent smell, obviously male, but she didn’t care. It was better than the lingering aroma of the chemicals associated with forensic work. She applied it liberally all over.
