by Luca Veste
‘When was this?’
‘About ten in the morning, I think on a Friday. Or a Tuesday. Few weeks ago. Or two. It was quiet, so no one saw me. She didn’t weigh that much, so I could do it on my own all right.’
Murphy motioned with his hand to continue.
‘After that, I reckon I took her out to the front past Speke Airport. Garston way, down by the docks there. Put her in the Mersey and watched her float away. That’s what I probably did.’
‘You didn’t do anything to her other than wrap bin bags round her and just dump her in the river?’
Keith looked at Murphy and gave him a shrug of the shoulders.
Murphy allowed the snort from his nostrils to escape. Bodies didn’t float down the Mersey for very long without being seen, even those at the tail end of the river where there were fewer tourists. Further up, near the Albert Dock, it wouldn’t have lasted five minutes before being seen. It . . . she . . . would have been found by now.
That was just the practical element. There was also the fact that Keith seemed to have mental health issues, which made everything he was saying about what he may have done to Amy questionable to say the least.
Part of Murphy was thinking ‘poor guy’ . . . the other part was complaining about the time that was being wasted.
‘Are you ready to give us your surname yet, Keith?’ Murphy said, attempting to be more professional and not the irritable detective he had been for the previous hour. ‘So we can check into you, things like that?’
Keith didn’t respond. Just stared at the table, finding the grooves scratched into its grey surface of unyielding interest.
Amy Maguire had been missing for over three weeks. Vanished, one Thursday night. Into thin air and everything that went with it. Murphy and Rossi had been helping the short-staffed F Division in Liverpool South investigate Amy’s disappearance. Their division in North Liverpool had been almost overstaffed at that point. The newly created Major Crime Unit now in existence, following a few years of increasingly high-profile cases. Higher command hadn’t spread resources widely or anything as logical as that. Instead, they had simply bulked up the numbers in Liverpool North.
The Amy Maguire case might have fallen through the cracks if it wasn’t for the fact nothing major had come through their doors in almost a month. Liverpool South had a multitude of other cases to deal with, so the investigation had been shifted north and Murphy was about to hand it off to a detective constable to handle, when he’d seen something in the file which piqued his interest.
Amy’s mother, Stacey. A name and an address he remembered well.
A few days after she had disappeared, Murphy and Rossi had gone down to the shop where she’d worked. Rain had been coming in bursts, threatening to soak the ground and anyone in its way. Rossi had struggled to hold an umbrella over them both while Murphy looked towards the shuttered-up shop as they stood in the last place CCTV had caught Amy’s image. The camera only caught the area immediately outside the shop entrance. Amy had left the edge of the frame and disappeared into darkness. Police tape strewn almost randomly across the street, as uniformed constables struggled to keep order. A small number of angry voices with nothing better to do, snarling at the plain-clothed detectives, screaming for a justice the country didn’t provide.
Murphy blinked and was back in the interview room.
‘Interview terminated at ten fifteen a.m.’
Amy Maguire was still alive. She had to be.
Murphy walked ahead of Rossi as they left the quiet of the room and stepped out into the corridor. He pushed through into the stretch of corridor that led towards the main incident room, making an effort to keep the door open for Rossi, before letting it swing shut behind him. Calm to cacophony in a single walk.
‘How long have we worked together for now? And don’t you dare say “too long”.’
‘Must be over three years. Why?’
‘Have we ever had someone come in and confess to a murder they haven’t committed?’
‘A few times. Usually they don’t get this far though. Uniforms downstairs tend to see them coming. Obviously slipped through the cracks this time.’
‘It’s not like I’m averse to people confessing crimes to me – I’ve heard enough of them in the past – but it doesn’t half piss me off when someone confesses to something that hasn’t happened.’
‘Wait up, will you . . . Mannaggia.’
Murphy slowed a little to allow Rossi to match his step, then carried on towards the new office near the back of the building. Their old incident room was now used by the Matrix team who focused on drugs and gangs, leaving domestic violence, trafficking and the occasional murder for Murphy and his team. He wasn’t sure which was worse.
He threw open the door and walked to his desk at the back of the room past the array of staff now technically under his supervision. In his peripheral vision he saw his boss through the glass of her internal office, but he kept his gaze forward, unwilling to be beckoned within just yet.
Murphy slammed his fist into the back of his chair, instantly regretting it as it spun away and into the wall.
‘I’ve told you not to hit it so hard,’ Rossi said, sitting down at the desk opposite Murphy’s. ‘You’ll end up breaking a bone. We’ll have to get you a punchbag in here or something, if you’re going to spit your dummy out every time you don’t get your own way.’
Murphy made some sort of guttural noise at her and dragged his chair back. He sat down, shaking his right hand to rid himself of the low throb which had already set in.
‘Why don’t you start up boxing again,’ Rossi said, leaning across the desk.
‘Because I’m too old for all that now. Been almost twenty years since I was in a ring. I’d get flattened in a second. Plus, the pain in my hand says I’ve forgotten how to throw a punch properly.’
Rossi hummed and sat back in her chair. ‘Who does that?’
‘Does what?’ Murphy replied, as he began to calm himself. ‘Punch chairs? At least it wasn’t a wall . . .’
‘I meant confess to a murder which sounds not only improbable, but of which there is no evidence that it has actually happened.’
Murphy swept open palms across his cheeks. ‘Attention seeker? Mental health patient . . . God knows. We know it’s not true . . .’
‘Possibly . . .’
Murphy went on as if Rossi hadn’t spoken. ‘We’re still treating this as a missing person, not a murder enquiry. So, we send a report and see if there’s anything anyone wants to do with Keith. That’s not our problem.’
Rossi nodded slowly. ‘Don’t think we should dismiss it entirely though. It’s not like he was confessing to killing JFK or something. It’s possible that he could be telling the truth.’
‘It was Amy on the video. Walking from the shop at eleven at night, not at nine in the morning like he said. Her mum was still awake at one in the morning and it’s only a ten-minute walk from there. Amy would’ve been home well before then.’
Murphy had spoken a little harsher than he’d meant so wasn’t exactly surprised when Rossi didn’t answer at first, instead giving him a silent moment of contemplation.
‘People don’t just disappear . . .’ Rossi replied after allowing the silence to drag on for a few moments longer than was comfortable.
That was the only problem with trying to dismiss the thought that something had happened to Amy. Almost three weeks with no word. Nothing to say that she had run off of her own accord. Murphy scratched the back of his head and pulled himself closer to his desk. ‘Sometimes, you just have a feeling, okay? Remember that girl we pulled out of that basement a few years back?’
‘How could I forget? That was the first proper case we worked together on. It’s burned on my memory. It was about that time I started seeing more lines on my face in the morning.’
‘Well, I bet everyone thought she was dead or on some island somewhere. Turned out to be wrong, didn’t it?’
‘I think that was pr
obably a one-off. I’m not sure how many people want to take young girls off the street then keep them alive in a dark basement for a year. Just for some kind of experiment. We have to be realistic here.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe it’s something else this time.’
‘I’m all for positive thinking, Murph, but even I’m struggling with this one. Kick it back to Liverpool South and let them deal with it. Nothing more we can do now. We’ve spoken to all her friends, done the press thing, all that. Not a single lead, other than a possible mental health patient, confessing to a murder that we have no evidence for.’
Murphy didn’t answer. He was remembering Stacey Maguire as she had been years earlier. Seventeen, almost the same age as Amy was now. Mid-nineties haircut and pale skin. He smiled without thinking.
He was broken from his thoughts by DC Michael Hale appearing next to his desk. ‘Boss is calling us in.’
Murphy raised an eyebrow at Rossi before following her and DC Hale, catching up to them as they entered the boss’s office. The boss being DCI Stephens, head of their not-so-little corner of E Division.
‘I’ll get straight to the point,’ Stephens said. Murphy closed the door behind him, not for the first time bristling at the fact that there was enough room for four people to work comfortably in this room whereas everyone else was tripping over themselves.
‘We’ve got a situation developing at the moment near Anfield . . .’
‘At the stadium? Someone nicked a footballer’s car or something?’ Hale said. Murphy gave him a withering look, which made Hale stiffen and turn away.
Stephens deigned to look at him for a second before switching her attention back to Murphy and Rossi. ‘If you’ll allow me to finish my sentence . . . no, not at the stadium. Although not far from it. Two bodies found in a house in Anfield.’ She rattled off an address which Murphy was pleased to see both Rossi and Hale noted down.
‘Suspicious?’ Murphy said, noting a harried look in Stephens’s eyes and wondering what had caused it.
‘Very. And that’s not all. Early reports are that we’ve found our missing celebs. And that it’s bad. Very fuc—’ Stephens stopped herself short. ‘Let’s just say if what I’m hearing is right, we’re about to have a lot more company than usual.’
Murphy nodded and turned round, not waiting for Rossi and Hale to follow.
It always begins with a body. Or bodies, in this instance. Murphy thought of the cases over the years – the bodies he had seen in their last moments – and carried on walking.
That was what he was paid to do. To keep walking towards the bodies.
Chapter Two
They had arrived to a scrum of uniformed officers, all trying to look like they were being useful. Murphy guessed most were just hanging around in the hope of getting a glimpse of the scene. The opportunity to tell their friends and family later, that they had been involved in what was shaping up to be a much-discussed case over dinner – or ‘tea’ if you’re from the north and correct – in the coming days.
Murphy had parked between a forensics van and a marked vehicle, squeezing the pool car into the tight space.
‘Looks a bit different around here,’ Rossi said, once out of the car. ‘Thought they’d have got more done by now, though.’
‘Yeah, sprucing it up isn’t going to do much if the residents are still the same,’ Murphy replied, looking down the street at Anfield Stadium in the distance. Regeneration projects and the expansion of the football stadium were transforming the area of Anfield, albeit slowly, and arguably not in the way most people had envisioned. ‘Disenfranchised youth and a battle-hardened older generation aren’t the best of mixes. Nice to see those boarded-up houses around the stadium finally go though. About bloody time. Might even move up the season ticket waiting list with the ground expansion. Just hope ticket prices don’t keep increasing.’
‘Like you’d go that much anyway.’
‘You never know, Laura,’ Murphy said with a grin. ‘I could become a regular for all you know. Probably better than just Sky Plussing Match of the Day once a week and fast forwarding through that big-eared ex-bluenose. Bet it’s murder round here on match days.’
Rossi didn’t reply, just gave a slow nod of her head as she looked towards the row of houses that had been marked for demolition and rebuilding a number of months ago, all post-war brick and years of disregard.
Murphy knew the front facades only told part of the story. The steel coverings on the windows would have been broken into. Never at the front, always at the back – even squatters and robbers had sense. Armed with a crowbar or some other tool, they’d have easily pulled back the coverings and taken their fill of the leftovers or settled in and set up home. The security company in charge of keeping the houses empty would have made some attempts to clear squatters out, but Murphy knew that most of the time it was more trouble than it was worth.
Murphy brushed past the uniform standing outside the derelict house where all the attention was gathered. The PC acknowledged him with a nod.
‘Have you noticed they never ask me for ID?’
‘Let’s see,’ Rossi said, keeping in step with him. ‘The two highest-profile murder cases we’ve had in the past decade, and you’ve managed to be involved with both investigations. On top of that, you’ve also successfully closed cases against a number of other people, and had your face in the Liverpool Echo more times than Ricky Tomlinson. And you wonder why you might be recognisable?’
‘It’s not like I was doing those things on my own. You were with me, remember?’
‘I know when to hide from the cameras.’
‘I wish I did.’
Forensic teams were already in place. Murphy was about to step inside the house when a voice shouted from within.
‘Suit up.’
‘Sorry,’ Murphy called back, turning round to see a smirking Rossi behind him.
‘How long have you been doing this again?’
‘Obviously not long enough,’ Murphy replied.
A few minutes later, looking like extras from a film about pandemics, they entered the final resting place of Chloe Morrison and Joe Hooper.
The smell attacked them as soon as they crossed the threshold. Decay and blood. Rotting meat and something Murphy could never put his finger on.
The house was long abandoned; gutted and ready to be pulled down and replaced by whatever the building group who now owned this part of Anfield decided. More houses, Murphy guessed. Only smaller, and using worse building materials, but with a nice modern finish to the kitchen and bathroom to con those buying or renting the properties. Walls as thin as paper, small rooms dressed up to look big enough for growing families. Similar developments were everywhere, popping up on disused parcels of land across Merseyside, making money for invisible directors on multiple boards.
‘Together until the end. Kinda nice if you don’t think about it too hard.’
Murphy didn’t respond to Rossi, who was peering past people into the room in which the couple had been found.
The house may have felt abandoned, but Murphy walked through on the off-chance the person responsible had left behind something obvious. A three-bedroomed terrace, with nothing but damp in the walls and mould growing over old wallpaper. He walked upstairs, the smell above almost as wretched as the one below. The main bedroom which overlooked the road outside was bare, its wooden floorboards broken in places, newspaper pushing its way through cracks to the surface. The second bedroom was no different apart from an airing cupboard in the corner which had once housed the boiler, now taken apart and capped off.
The box bedroom was different.
At first, Murphy was surprised that only one officer was taking pictures of the walls carefully, methodically. Then he realised the space within the room was really only big enough for one person. There was no natural light due to the boarded-up window so a small beam from a stand-up light had to suffice.
Magazine covers, articles and newspaper clippings covered most
of one wall inside the room. From his position by the doorway, Murphy could just about see the other walls were bare. The forensic tech took photographs from all angles to capture the entire spectrum of pictures.
Murphy spied the headlines nearest to the room entrance, taking note of the names displayed in black capitals.
CHLOE AND JOE’S TICKET TO PARADISE
CHLOE AND JOE REVEAL ALL
CHLOJOE – WE WANT A FAMILY
‘Looks like a stalker’s collage,’ Rossi said, looking over his shoulder. ‘Some of these are from when they first started going out. They go back a long time. Must have been collecting them.’
‘I didn’t keep up, to be honest,’ Murphy replied. ‘Not my sort of thing.’
‘You didn’t watch the show?’ Rossi said, a sceptical look plastered across her Mediterranean features. ‘Everyone did.’
Murphy shook his head. ‘Couldn’t bring myself to. You know I can’t stand hearing Scouse accents on TV. Not even my own.’
‘You missed out then. You wouldn’t believe some of the things these people got up to. Made my uni days look like I was in a nunnery. Not those two though. They were a bit different. Found each other quite early on and that changed them I suppose . . .’
Murphy held up a gloved hand to stop Rossi talking. ‘There’ll be plenty of time to catch me up. Right now, I think we should concentrate on the scene at hand, yeah?’
Rossi grunted and stepped back as Murphy asked the forensics officer if he could come into the room.
The wall came into view, giving him the chance to see the message scrawled across the pictures. Red ink, bleeding into the walls.
NOTHING STAYS SECRET
