The Murder House

by Simon Beaufort

  ‘A Wright?’ I asked stupidly, taking the paper shoe-covers and gloves she handed me.

  ‘Contaminating the crime scene,’ she elaborated. I smiled, because she expected me to.

  I put the elasticized covers over my feet and donned gloves that were too big. I can’t tell you how difficult it was to walk through the door, but I did it, even though my heart was hammering so hard I thought it would explode. Once I was in, though, I found myself relaxing a little. It was so different from the last time I’d been there – now it was light, full of people and business-like voices – that it almost seemed like another place. It occurred to me that leaving a fingerprint here and there might not be a bad idea – it would be assumed that I’d ‘done a Wright’, and any other trace evidence they found from me would be discounted. I decided to consider it. After all, I was going to be there all day.

  Davis went down the hall to the kitchen where the SOCOs were packing up. I could hear them speaking quietly, as though out of respect for the dead. Fortunately, I knew the dead wasn’t still there. He was at the mortuary, being pared open with the pathologist’s knives. When would they discover it was James, and not the Albanian academic? I anticipated it would not be long now.

  I didn’t follow Davis to the kitchen, but stopped at the sitting room and took a couple of steps inside. Yes, there was the nasty beige carpet, and the scruffy sofas and chairs. And there on the floor was the fluff that James had been picking up when I’d hit him. I looked around, seeking signs that a man had died there. There was nothing, not even an indentation in the carpet or a stain from the saliva that had dripped from James’ mouth. There was no rock either, although I wasn’t sure whether or not this was a good thing.

  When I’d hit James – as far as I could recall – there was a soggy crack, like an egg dropping on a stone floor, only heavier, deeper and louder. Perhaps an ostrich egg might make the right kind of noise, with its thicker shell and greater contents. But there hadn’t been any blood, because my blow hadn’t split James’ skin. Wright had claimed there’d been blood everywhere. What was right: his observations or my memories?

  I rubbed my pounding head. And how had the body gone from the sitting room into the kitchen? Had I done that, in the moments immediately after the murder, when I’d been dazed and frightened? And had I then blotted it from my mind? Had I rolled the body in plastic, intending to return later and get rid of it? If so, my fingerprints would be all over it.

  I looked at the mantelpiece, which was grey, white and silver from fingerprint dust. The rocks were still there, sitting in a line, and a police photographer was taking snaps of them. I noticed an ominous gap where one was obviously missing.

  ‘In here, Helen.’

  Davis was calling. I reluctantly left the sitting room and made my way to what everyone thought was the scene of the real crime. My legs felt as heavy as lead, and I could smell the stench of decay, even though the body had gone. It hung in the air, like mist, penetrating and polluting everything. I could taste it, feel it scorching my nostrils. I knew it would be seared into my memory forever.

  When I reached the kitchen I remembered the characterless little room with its white chip-board cupboards and its cheap yellow vinyl. There was a small table at one end, with two folding chairs, and the sink was under the window. On the floor near the sink was a long, dark stain, which was a blackish-plum colour, yellow-gold at the edges. It didn’t look like blood. Was that what Wright had seen? Had it come from James’ shattered head? Or had it oozed from his ears or his mouth as he was moved? I looked closer. It looked sticky, and was set at the edges, like blood mixed with lemonade and left to dry. There were clots of something dark in the middle.

  ‘Bodies leak after death,’ explained a SOCO, mistaking my horrified perusal for professional interest. ‘Tissues, like the brain, begin to liquefy and gasses cause the intestines to swell. It’s like a volcano, with pressure building up, and it’s got to come out somewhere, so it does – through various orifices, which I’m sure you don’t need me to list.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed fervently. ‘So, it’s not blood?’

  ‘The blow that killed him didn’t break the skin, so there wasn’t any blood for us to find, more’s the pity.’

  ‘Is it?’ I asked nervously.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ The man was enjoying sharing the secrets of his horrible trade. ‘When a victim is hit and the wound bleeds, you get what we call splatter marks. These droplets – which can sometimes be very fine, and other times a real fountain – make distinctive patterns when they land, so we can tell where a victim was killed, how hard he was hit and even the order the blows came in. But we can’t do that here.’ He sounded disappointed.

  ‘What can you tell?’ I asked, trying to sound coolly professional.

  ‘It’s hard to say at this stage.’ The SOCO began to pack small bottles into a bag. ‘There are fingerprints all over the place, but that’s to be expected in a kitchen. We’ll run them all through the computer to see how many belonged to Kovac … to the victim, and see what we’re left with. Since this house is rented to lots of people for short periods, eliminating them and identifying a culprit is going to be a nightmare.’

  ‘What else, besides fingerprints?’ I asked numbly. There was no point trying to contaminate the scene if all the relevant surfaces had already been dusted.

  ‘We’ve found fibres from what will probably turn out to be clothes. We’ve got cutlery, glasses and cups to test for saliva – DNA, you know. We’ve taken swabs from every available surface. You name it, we’ve done it. With a murder, we can’t be too careful.’

  ‘True,’ agreed Davis, who had been listening as she looked around the room. ‘And you lot can do wonders with it all these days. We’re placing a good deal of hope on what you find.’

  ‘We’ll do our best,’ said the SOCO proudly. ‘It’s not easy to commit murder in the twenty-first century, you know. We can now solve crimes that would have been impossible a decade ago.’ He gave me a conspiratorial grin. ‘We’ll get this bastard. I don’t have any doubts on that score.’

  I felt as though I was about to do a Wright.

  A post mortem was never a pleasant thing to witness, and one on a body that should have been buried or cremated days before was worse than most. Evans chewed gum in an attempt to combat the stench, but Oakley had visions of molecules of corruption drifting in the air and becoming caught in it. The notion of anything from the corpse entering his mouth was something he didn’t like to dwell on. He wore a surgical mask and breathed through his nose as shallowly as possible.

  The pathologist was Ben Grossman. Due to retire soon, he was a genial man whom the police liked, as he didn’t patronize them or try to distress them with gruesome procedures. He had worked in the mortuary used by New Bridewell for as long as Oakley could remember.

  The post-mortem room had recently been refurbished, and boasted gleaming white walls and a hard grey floor with drains, so it could be hosed down at the end of the day. Custom-built lights, a camera and microphones hung from the ceiling, and there were three metal trolleys, each of which held a body; more were stored in large metal drawers in an adjoining room. Stripped of clothes, the Orchard Street corpse was a dark, blackish colour with hints of green. Its stomach was vastly distended, and its lower limbs swollen from the fluids that had pooled there.

  ‘Neel!’ cried Grossman, eyes crinkling in a grin that was hidden behind his mask. ‘And Mark Butterworth, is it?’

  ‘Graham Evans,’ corrected Oakley, uncomfortably aware that Grossman had performed the post mortem on his friend. How could he have forgotten? Or had he just seen so many bodies that one blurred into another?

  ‘Welcome, welcome,’ said Grossman genially. He switched on the spotlights and rubbed his gloved hands together. ‘This isn’t going to be pleasant, so don’t feel obliged to stay. Most will be irrelevant to you, and you can watch the DVD later if necessary. I’ll do the head first. That’s presumably what you’re most interested in.
Do you have a name yet?’

  ‘No,’ replied Oakley, still discomfited by the mention of Mark.

  ‘He’s probably Marko Kovac,’ countered Evans. ‘He was a visiting scholar at the university.’

  ‘Marko Kovac?’ asked Grossman, startled. ‘Not the Albanian particle physicist?’

  Oakley frowned. ‘You know him?’

  ‘I met him, certainly. I teach anatomy at the university, as you know, and attend the occasional science faculty bash. I met him at one last year.’

  ‘Last year?’ asked Oakley. ‘Not more recently?’

  ‘Christmas. I remember, because I’d never met an Albanian before and I asked how they celebrate the holidays. He was Catholic, and I couldn’t decide which of the traditions he described were basic Christian and which were specifically Albanian. That’s what happens when a Jew asks questions about Christmas! I should stick to things I know.’

  ‘He was religious then?’

  ‘Not overtly. That was our only discussion, although he told me he visited the physics department a couple of times a year. Dear, oh, dear. Is this him?’ He cocked his head and looked long and hard at the body.

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Oakley. ‘Is it?’

  ‘Grossman shrugged apologetically. ‘I’m not very good with faces, and you’ll appreciate that this one is somewhat changed. You’ll have to get me a photo to match to his skull. It could be him: it’s the right sort of build, age, hair colour. Eyes have gone, of course, so they won’t help.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  Grossman considered, pulling absently on the mask that covered his mouth. ‘A little arrogant, but that happens when you’re good at what you do. Good looking, long eyelashes. I remember those.’ He peered at the body. ‘I’ll have a dig around later, once I’ve cleared the maggots out, and see if I can find any.’

  Evans left the room.

  ‘Was he popular with his colleagues?’

  ‘He seemed a pretty normal sort of fellow to me. Talked about his wife and children, and went on about his work at the university in Tirana and how the Balkan conflicts had affected it. But people at the university will tell you this. I should be telling you about his injuries.’

  There was only one: a savage blow to the top of the head that had severely compressed the brain. Grossman peeled back the skin to reveal radiating cracks from a central dent, like craters created by asteroids in deserts. Fragments of bone had been driven into the brain, further compounding the damage. Everything else seemed normal, and Grossman could detect no sign of a struggle.

  ‘Can you tell whether the blow was administered left-handed or right-handed?’ asked Oakley.

  ‘Haven’t a clue. It might have been done two-handed for all I know. However, there was a lot of anger or power behind it. Death would’ve come fairly quickly.’

  ‘You mean he lived for a while afterwards?’

  ‘Oh, yes. In fact, had he been taken straight to a hospital he might even still be with us. He would never have walked or talked again, of course, but he might still be breathing.’

  ‘Can you describe the murder weapon?’

  ‘Something large and fairly heavy. Not a metal bar or a baseball bat. Something wider and with a flatter surface.’

  ‘Such as what?’ Oakley racked his brain for something that matched that description in the house. ‘A saucepan? He appears to have died in the kitchen.’

  ‘Possibly, but the bruising is deeper in some places than in others. A very dented saucepan would fit the description. I’ve taken swabs, so we can see if there’s any residue from the weapon, but don’t hold your breath. If it was metal we won’t find anything.’

  ‘A blow of such force raises two questions in my mind,’ mused Oakley. ‘First, does it suggest a man rather than a woman? And second, why wasn’t there any bleeding? I thought scalps bled easily.’

  ‘They do. However, it’s not unusual for the first blow in a bludgeoning to break bones but not skin. I often say the first strike is free, and it’s the rest that cause the spatter that gives us our clues. But our killer was happy with one. Perhaps it was an accident.’

  ‘An accident?’ asked Oakley warily. ‘How?’

  ‘He got in the way of some strange sport with dented skillets?’ suggested Grossman flippantly. ‘Regardless, that’s for you to find out.’

  ‘And the force of the blow?’ asked Oakley, unamused. ‘You said there was a lot of anger or power behind it.’

  ‘Considerable force was used. But there are some very powerful ladies around these days, so I wouldn’t like to speculate whether you’re looking for a male or a female culprit.’

  ‘But if you had to choose?’

  ‘A man, but I’ll deny it if you bring it up in court. It’s based on good old-fashioned prejudice that men commit more violent crimes than the fairer sex. But look at the victim’s skull. It’s quite delicate for a man – not abnormal, but it’s certainly thinner than yours would be. If the killer had delivered this sort of blow to you, he’d need to follow it up with another to make sure you were dead.’

  ‘Would the culprit know this?’ wondered Oakley.

  ‘I doubt it. Most killers don’t give their victims a physical examination before launching murderous attacks. It was probably luck – for the killer, I mean. Certainly not for the victim.’

  ‘Lord!’ muttered Oakley. The post mortem was throwing out more questions than solutions.

  ‘When you bring me a body in this state, you reduce the chance of getting definitive answers,’ said Grossman. ‘For example, I can’t tell whether it was bundled up in the plastic straight away or later. I’ll need to call in an insect specialist, too. He might be able to give you a more accurate time of death. My guess – which won’t go in my report – is the week between Saturday the twenty-eighth of July and Saturday the fourth of August.’

  ‘Kovac was alive on the thirtieth of July because he spoke to his neighbour. That was two weeks ago.’ Oakley sighed. ‘Of course, this may not be him. Kovac might be the killer.’

  ‘Unfortunately for you, DNA will only give you a name if you’ve got a sample to match it to. Kovac almost certainly won’t be in the criminal database here, and I doubt the Albanian police have access to such modern technology. You’ll have to resort to old-fashion identification methods, like dental records. Or perhaps they’ll have his fingerprints on file – academics are still regarded with suspicion there, so you may be in luck.’

  ‘Are his clothes Albanian?’

  ‘No, they all have British labels. But lots of Eastern Europeans treat themselves to Western clothes, so you can’t read anything into that.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why we didn’t find a suitcase in the house,’ said Oakley gloomily. ‘The culprit wanted his fashionable clothes.’

  ‘Last year we had a woman who was killed for the four pounds in her handbag,’ Grossman pointed out sombrely. ‘A suitcase of clothes is an improvement on that.’

  When he had finished at the mortuary, Oakley drove to the university. A technician there had phoned New Bridewell to say that he was the one who worked more with Kovac than anyone else, and Oakley wanted to interview him personally. Ron Yates, a tall, cadaverous man in his forties, took him to a spotlessly clean chamber and laid his hand lovingly on a console. Thick cables trailed from it and it looked expensive.

  ‘An SEM with an attached ICPMS,’ he said fondly.

  ‘Very nice,’ said Oakley. He’d been good at physics at school, and read popular science books, but the humming monstrosity that stood before him looked altogether too complex for his meagre level of understanding.

  ‘It’s a powerful microscope that can analyse materials at the molecular level,’ explained Yates. ‘I’ve made modifications that make this one the best in the country – perhaps in the world. Doctor Kovac comes here to use it – always in the vacations, as it tends to be less busy then. He’s been doing some pretty interesting work.’

  ‘What kind of work?’

 
‘Looking at the chemical structures of the particles comprising specific agents.’ Yates sounded impressed. ‘Some of his findings are revolutionary, and may have a major impact on nanotechnology.’

  ‘What’s Kovac like?’ asked Oakley, changing the subject before he became too lost.

  ‘Nice,’ replied Yates, ‘but edgy. He was in Skopje when the war broke out in Macedonia a decade ago, and the experience shook him. He worries about his family when he’s here. He’s always showing me pictures of them.’

  ‘Could he be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder?’ asked Oakley, thinking that Kovac wouldn’t be the first person so scarred by war that he perpetrated his own horrors to compensate.

  ‘He might – his stories certainly scared the shit out of me. But he’s not violent.’ Yates gave a sad smile. ‘He’d never hurt anyone, and I really hope it’s not his body you found.’

  Oakley left the university to give evidence for the remand hearing of the louts who’d set the M Shed alight. The prosecution wanted them imprisoned until the trial, and the defence was making a routine objection. Oakley fretted while he waited, aware that he had far more important things to be doing. But the ponderous wheel of justice hurried for no man, not even on a Saturday, and he could do nothing except pace with increasing exasperation.

  As expected, it was decided that Nick King and his mates should be kept in the juvenile detention centre until their case could be heard. Oakley was just leaving when someone stepped out to intercept him. It was Michael Yorke.

  ‘I’d have thought you’d stay away from places like this,’ remarked Oakley.

  ‘I was hoping to catch Robert Brotherton,’ replied Yorke. ‘He’s looking after Billy while Paxton’s on holiday.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you know where?’ asked Oakley. ‘His mother’s concerned about him.’

  ‘I was going to ask you the same thing,’ said Michael. ‘His disappearance when my brother needs him is inconvenient. I don’t suppose the police persuaded him to take off, did they?’