Deadly Wishes (Detective Zoe Finch Book 1)

by Rachel McLean

  “Right,” said Randle. “Start again. You all know what happened last night. Can I assume you’ve already gone through the files I circulated this morning?”

  An email had gone out at six thirty with instructions to log into HOLMES and check what they had so far. Photos of the scene, a transcript of the 999 call. Early findings from Forensics. It seemed that until this case was solved, sleep was banned.

  “There are a few things that weren’t in the file, sir,” said Zoe.

  “OK, before we start on this. I run an informal ship here, encourage everyone to work closely together. I’ve told you before to call me David.”

  “Very well. David,” Zoe replied, the word feeling alien in her mouth. “Like I say, there were a few things missing.”

  “Go on.”

  “First there’s the missing picture. His study walls are solid with certificates, photos, artwork. But there’s a gap over the fireplace. And we need to find out if someone opened the safe behind it.”

  “Safe?” asked Carl. He leaned over the table and scrawled through the images on Randle’s laptop to find one of the study. Randle eyed him but said nothing.

  “On the wall, slap bang in the middle of where the missing picture should have been,” Zoe said. “I would’ve asked Mrs Jackson if she knew what the picture was, but…” she glanced at Randle. “Don’t suppose it’s been found?”

  Randle shook his head. “Not as far as I’m aware. I did ask Mrs Jackson about it and she had no idea what it would have been.”

  Zoe wondered how often Margaret went into that room.

  “OK. Then there’s the knife. I think it belonged to Jackson, it would fit in that room. But it was fancy, an ornament. The kind of thing you’d have a stand for. Or a case. I didn’t spot one, but I only looked from the doorway.”

  “The Forensics team is already going through the room. If there’s a stand or a case, they’ll find it,” said Randle.

  “And last but not least, the gate,” she said, flipping a page in her notebook. “Mrs Jackson said she’d gone out to shut it. It had been banging. The killer could have got in that way, then straight through the doors into the study. It was wet last night, there would be prints.”

  “Don’t worry, Zoe,” said Lesley, reaching out a hand to close Zoe’s notebook. “We have all this covered. Adi Hanson wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”

  “Just being thorough,” replied Zoe.

  “Yes. Good. It’s important we do this by the book.”

  This was the DCI’s trademark: procedure. Randle rolled his eyes and sat down.

  “There doesn’t seem much point in going through the rest of this with you,” he said. “You’ve all seen it. We need to get moving on this, I’ve already got the Chief Constable on the phone every fifteen minutes.”

  “Good,” said Lesley. Carl watched Randle. Zoe wondered if he planned to speak.

  “OK,” said Randle. “First things first, this investigation remains behind closed doors. The press are already camped outside the house and we can’t have them making it any worse for Mrs Jackson than it already is. I want you all to tell your teams to keep this under wraps. No one outside the investigation team gets a whisper of anything. Understand?”

  They all nodded.

  “Good. Now, roles. Lesley, I want you liaising with Forensics. Find out what you can about that knife. Look into the prints Zoe is so insistent about. Blood spatter. And get someone talking to the pathologist. I want to know if there were any other weapons involved, if there are defensive wounds. The lot. Carl, you can do that.”

  Lesley raised her palms. “I think I can direct my own team.”

  “Carl’s got a good relationship with the pathology team. He’s well placed to do this quickly. You disagree?”

  “No. It’s just—”

  “Good. So Carl, you report back from the pathologist. Zoe, I want you to use those analytical skills you put to such good use on Canary. Get onto CCTV. There won’t be any public sources but in a street like that there’s a good chance one of the neighbours might have caught something. And check the routes in and out of the area. Unfamiliar vehicles in that part of Edgbaston won’t be too hard to spot. And check if there’s CCTV at the house, too.”

  “There is, but it was switched off,” she replied.

  “Typical.” He checked himself. “OK, find out why. When and how it was turned off. Did Jackson or his wife flick a switch, or did someone else cut the power? You know what to look for.”

  “Fine.” CCTV was grunt work, not what she’d been expecting on her first case as a DI. But she could put her team onto it. And it would get her back to the house. She wanted to see Margaret again before repeating Mo’s suspicions to anyone.

  “OK.” Randle stood up. “Get a shift on, then. We haven’t got all day.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Margaret opened her eyes and blinked up at the ceiling. Her eyelids were heavy and her hand ached. She felt a moment’s fatigue then fell into the hole she’d been threatening to topple into as the events of the previous night came back to her.

  They’d taken Bryn’s body away at almost six am, at which point PC Bright had persuaded her to go to bed. She’d made her a cup of hot chocolate and left it by her bedside while the doctor had glued up her palm. The skin felt tight and inflamed now. She’d have to get used to using her left hand.

  She wondered where Bryn was now. In the morgue, no doubt, his pale face hidden by impersonal plastic sheeting. She’d seen those trolleys on TV, the drawers they slid out from the wall with tags tied to the poor people’s feet. Bryn was now a tag, a number, a case file.

  She rushed into the ensuite bathroom and flung the toilet lid up, vomiting into it loudly. She dropped her hands onto the seat to take her weight then yelped as the pain hit her palm. She leaned on the good hand and retched into the bowl. She hadn’t eaten since before the party. Numerous cups of tea had been placed in front of her last night, but she hadn’t touched any of them. Her stomach felt empty.

  The knife had felt hot in her hand. The pain when it had sliced into her flesh had been like nothing she’d ever known. But she’d thrown it away from him, consumed by a strength that had surprised her. Not that it had made any difference. He was already dying, his eyes clouding over and his head thudding onto the desk as she bent over him. The blood had felt hot and wet, gushing over her dress as the knife moved in her hand. She’d screamed and tossed it to the floor, horrified. He would have shouted at her. Never touch the evidence. Never contaminate the crime scene. She’d sat next to him through enough TV crime shows, listening to him cursing the writers, muttering about detectives who stood in blood trails or grabbed door frames before putting their gloves on. None of them fit to be on the force, in his opinion. Maybe he was right.

  But she had contaminated the scene. She’d put her hands all over that knife. Suddenly aware of what Bryn would think of her, she’d wiped the knife on her dress. Then she’d realised that was even worse. He hated ‘wiped’ evidence even more than he hated clumsy cops. She’d dropped it like it was on fire.

  At that point, her senses had come to life. She’d run back to the hall and grabbed the phone, jabbing at it in her panic. Eventually she’d managed to dial 999.

  “Emergency services, which service do you require?”

  “It’s my husband.”

  “Are you with him right now?”

  “Yes. No. Yes. I don’t know.”

  “That’s fine. We can help you. Just tell me what the problem is and I can get the right service to you.”

  “He’s been stabbed. The knife, it’s on the floor.”

  “Can you tell me where you’re calling from, please?”

  She gave them the address of the house, followed by Bryn’s name.

  “Police and ambulance are on their way. Is he breathing?”

  “Breathing?”

  “Are you with him now?”

  “He’s in his office. I’m not allowed in there.”

&n
bsp; “I’m sure he won’t mind. Are you Mrs Jackson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mrs Jackson, can you get closer to your husband while staying on the line?”

  She looked towards the study. She could see his foot, but no more of him.

  “No.”

  “Very well. The ambulance is ten minutes away. In the meantime, can you tell me where he’s been stabbed?”

  “Errr… his neck. And his side. Side of his stomach. I think.”

  Muffled speech on the other end of the line; the operator talking to someone else. Police? A colleague?

  “Hello?”

  “The police will be with you in five minutes, Mrs Jackson. The ambulance in eight. I’d like you to go to your husband and lift his head, please. Make sure his head is higher than his body. And if you can, put pressure on the wound. Use a handkerchief, or a towel. And don’t hang up.”

  “Right.” She let go of the phone, leaving it swinging from its cord. She dashed to the kitchen and grabbed a tea towel, then ran to the study. She hesitated a moment before crossing the threshold. What if he was awake? What if she’d imagined it all? But he was still there, slumped over the desk. She leaned on it, careful not to tread in the blood, and pushed the tea towel against the wound. It was hard to reach without disturbing him – his face was planted in the leather. She glanced at the knife on the floor and considered moving it, but that would only contaminate it more.

  She leaned in towards his face, watching his eyes for movement, his mouth for breath. She held her own breath. It had been years since she had voluntarily got this close to him. They were intimate still, but it was something she suffered. And there was no kissing, no face-to-face contact.

  His skin was pale and dotted with beads of sweat. His eyes were shifting from side to side. The blood still pumped out of him.

  As she had begun to consider what this meant, the sirens had started to wail.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Zoe hurried to the office where her team worked. Mo was already in, she knew. Connie would have arrived before him. And Rhodri… well, that depended on his hangover.

  She did a double take as she pushed the door open and found all three of them at their desks.

  “Rhodri, old chum. Good to see you in the land of the living.”

  “Yes, boss.” His eyes were sunken and his skin sallow, reminding her of Margaret Jackson. “Mo’s been filling us in.”

  “I bet he has.” She gave Mo a questioning look and he shook his head. So he hadn’t told them everything.

  She plonked down at her desk. It had a photo of Nicholas back when he’d let her take them (nine years old, yellowed up as Pudsey for Children in Need, if he found out she had this on her desk he would kill her). There was also a model Mini Metro that had belonged to her dad and a Japanese daruma doll, a present from her karate instructor.

  She leaned back in her chair, dropped her head back to look up at the ceiling tiles, then straightened. She had to stay alert.

  “OK, kiddywinks. Let’s see what we’re all going to be doing today.”

  Mo stood in front of her desk. Rhodri looked uneasy, weighing up whether to join the sergeant. Connie stayed upright at her own desk, her bright blue eyeshadow catching Zoe’s eye.

  “Randle’s got us working on CCTV,” Zoe said.

  Rhodri groaned. “That’s so dull, boss. Surely after—”

  Zoe raised a palm. “For now. We’ll have that sorted this morning, then we’ll find something more fun to do. That work for you, Rhodri?”

  “Yeah.” He slumped in his chair. The hangover seemed to boost a notch or two.

  “Glad to hear it. So, there’s the residential addresses. Big houses like that, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve got more cameras than Winson Green Prison. And there might be pubs, or shops. It was late, the area’s quiet from what I’ve seen. If we spot something coming or going at around the right times, it could be helpful.”

  “There’s a block of shops not too far away,” said Mo. “On Harborne Road.”

  “Good. Let’s get round there and ask the shopkeepers if they keep recordings. Anything else?’

  “The White Swan pub,” said Rhodri.

  “Might have known we could rely on you for knowledge of the local drinking establishments, Constable,” she said.

  A blush filled his pale neck. “My brother goes there.”

  She smiled at him. “Sorry, Rhodri. I didn’t mean to take the piss. We’ll add that to the list.”

  “Was there CCTV at the house?” Connie asked. She’d pushed her keyboard towards her screen. It sat at perfect right angles to the desk, just like everything else.

  “Yup, but guess what, it was switched off.”

  “Why?” asked Connie.

  “If I knew the answer to that, I’d have David Randle’s job.”

  “I like David Randle,” said Rhodri.

  “DCI Randle to you,” replied Zoe. “I didn’t know you’d had any dealings with him.”

  “I’ve watched him in briefings. He’s got charisma.”

  Zoe barked out a laugh. “Oh, I’m sorry, Rhodri.” She took in his ruffled hair and two-day stubble. “You need to go to a barber if you want to emulate the DCI.”

  Rhodri’s blush spread to his ears. “Right you are, boss.”

  She winked at Mo. “See. Told you he’d call me by the right name.”

  “He hasn’t heard me call you anything else yet,” replied Mo.

  “True. That’ll come.”

  “Did you say anything in the meeting about what we discussed?”

  Zoe sensed Rhodri’s ears pricking up. Connie peered into her computer screen but she too had tensed.

  “Not yet. I want to go back to the house. Pretext of checking the CCTV system. See what else I can find.”

  “What else about what?” asked Rhodri.

  “If you need to know, you will. Which reminds me.”

  They all looked at her.

  “Randle says we’re to keep this under wraps. Tight as a cat’s arsehole. Don’t even talk about it to your mates in local CID or Uniform. Just those on the investigating team. Right?”

  “Right,” they chorused. Connie and Rhodri exchanged looks.

  “Good. Mo, you and Rhodri check out the shops and pubs. Connie, you’re with me.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The house had changed. Instead of feeling eerie and deserted, populated only by the deceased and a tiny group of onlookers, it bustled with life.

  The driveway was roped off, FSIs trawling it for tyre tracks or anything the killer might have dropped. The side gate was open, people coming and going.

  The kitchen had become centre of operations. Adi’s team had confirmed that no intruder had come this way, so it was a safe base until he sounded the all-clear. The forensic scene manager stood at the kitchen table with his back to her, barking into a mobile phone.

  “I need two more guys here, pronto. Randle’s breathing down my neck.”

  “Hey, Adi.”

  He looked round and spotted Zoe, his face brightening.

  A male PC offered her a cup of tea from a large china pot. “Coffee, please,” she whispered. The PC frowned and rummaged in a wall cupboard. For the PCs, tea was the answer to everything. But Zoe needed coffee. She’d tried to snooze on the settee after getting home, but had managed no more than ten minutes before Nicholas had woken her. And tea tasted like something dredged from a swamp as far as she was concerned.

  Adi shoved his phone into a pocket and leaned against the table. “Who’s this?”

  Zoe turned to Connie. “DC Connie Williams. Adrian Hanson, Forensic Scene Manager.”

  “Always pleased to meet a member of Zoe’s team.”

  “Hello,” said Connie. She scanned the room, her cheeks glowing.

  “What can we do for you?” Adi asked.

  “CCTV. We need to check the house system.”

  “You do know it was switched off at the time of death?”

 
“Yeah,” said Zoe. “But Connie here’s my resident geek. She’s going to see if there’s anything from before they came home, any clues as to why or how it was switched off.”

  “Fair enough. It’s in the small room at the front, with all the other gizmos.”

  Zoe knew that in this house, small room meant something very different from in her own terrace.

  “We OK to go in there?”

  “It’s been dusted. Fire away.” Adi turned back to his phone, which buzzed. The last Zoe heard as she steered Connie through the door was the sound of him muttering at someone to leave another case and get their fat arse over here.

  They turned into the corridor separating the kitchen from the main hallway.

  “Spooky place,” said Connie.

  “Grand, more like.”

  “Buildings like this give me the shivers.”

  Zoe tried to imagine what the house would be like late at night with just two occupants. She struggled to picture it, with the glow of forensic lights spilling out of the study and equipment littering the hall.

  She turned back to the kitchen and poked her head round the door.

  “Any joy on that painting?”

  Adi put his hand over the phone and shook his head. “Gone. Recently, too, judging by the line of dust on the wall behind it. Everything else in this house has been cleaned to within an inch of its life.”

  “Ta.”

  “What’s that?” asked Connie, as Zoe joined her back in the corridor.

  “The missing painting. Expensive, probably. It could be related.”

  “You think Jackson disturbed an art thief?”

  “I’m assuming nothing. Don’t put theories before the evidence.”

  “Yeah.” Connie stared around the hallway. Connie wasn’t large but she had presence, something to do with her tall curly hair. But in this room, she seemed tiny. Like a child.

  “Wow,” she said.

  “Impressive, huh?”