The Couple on Cedar Close
Page 3
Five
I’m still singing along to Boston’s ‘More Than a Feeling’ as I pull up outside. Rachel always used to say, You murdered that track, Danny, every time she heard me sing. I can’t help but smile at the irony as I switch off the engine.
Number 13 is a smart-looking house – a very smart-looking house on a very smart-looking close. It’s what the old man would classify as ‘suburban chic’, I think as I pull up the driveway. It’s a cherry-tree-lined, pretty address tucked away on the outskirts of Barnet, where those who’ve made it come to live and child-rear. It’s non-London London, a slice of suburbia in the city – the outskirts really, if you’re going to be pedantic. With its detached houses and perfectly mowed lawns, it reminds me of one of those upmarket neighbourhoods in LA, attractive, but lacking soul somehow. The houses on Cedar Close are pretty similar-looking in as much as they’re all huge. There’s money here for sure, and it seems the residents don’t mind letting their neighbours know about it with their Jaguars, Range Rovers, top-of-the-range soft-top Minis and even a couple of Porsches on their gravelled and gated drives. I imagine the residents here all know one another; it’s secluded, private, a close close. I also imagine they’re all secretly in competition with each other too: who has the biggest driveway, the best car, the prettiest wife and the highest-achieving kids? It’s an assumption of course, but those are the thoughts running through my mind as I step out of my car.
Blue lights are flashing outside number 13, giving the atmosphere a familiar inky glow and filling me with anticipation. I see the yellow-and-black tape, two police vans and three cars. Forensics are marching in and out of the front door with a sense of purpose; they look like giant green ants. I take a deep breath. I didn’t manage to shower but I did brush my teeth; I suppose one out of two ain’t bad.
I walk towards the house, mentally assessing the scene. This doesn’t look like the typical place where someone gets their throat savagely cut. But looks can be very deceiving so I’m making no assumptions. Yet. I notice the shutters in the large sash windows, those expensive-looking white ones that Rach always talked about getting for our apartment – until I’d seen the price of them! ‘We’re on the third floor – no one will see them anyway!’ was my take on it at the time, if I recall.
‘Yes, but we will see them, Danny – that’s the whole point!’ she’d replied.
I smile at the memory. I’m sure I acquiesced in the end.
But we never did get round to it.
Lucy Davis makes her way over to me. ‘Good evening, boss.’ She’s even chirpier in the flesh. I like the fact that Davis is not yet tarnished by the job; in the best way possible, she’s actually thrilled to be working on homicide.
A lot of people back at the nick think I’ve got the hots for Davis. She’s young and pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way with a friendly yet firm disposition, so it’s not altogether surprising. I don’t fancy Davis, but I do like her. I like her work ethic, her quiet determination and almost militant meticulousness, her attention to detail. She thinks outside the box and she’s loyal too, unlike Delaney, who I have a nagging suspicion is going to be a real ball-ache on this one.
‘Is it, DS Davis?’ I say. ‘I’d never have guessed.’
She gives me a wry smile. ‘I picked you up a Costa.’ She hands me a hot cardboard cup. ‘Skinny latte with a shot of hazelnut.’
‘I’d marry you if you weren’t already taken, Davis.’ I flash her a grateful smile as I take it and she looks away, a little uncomfortably.
‘So, hit me with it.’
‘It ain’t pretty.’
I had a sneaking suspicion she was going to say that.
‘The deceased: Robert Mills, thirty-nine, due to turn forty in a few weeks. His throat has been cut – looks deep, boss, almost severed his head. And he’s been stabbed. Multiple times.’
Nice.
‘You mentioned a wife.’
She nods, looks down at her notepad.
‘Laurie Mills. She made the call. She was covered in blood when we got here, blathering, incoherent. She was intoxicated. It looks like a domestic, Gov. Probably an argument that got out of hand.’
I stare at the house as Davis talks. There’s something odd about it that I can’t put my finger on. I get a bad feeling from it, like it’s an unhappy house.
‘Delaney is with the wife. Baylis, Murray and some of the team are out doing door to door, talking to the neighbours – the ones who’re still up that is.’
I glance at the street. There are people standing at their front doors and looking through their windows, observing the scene unfolding, their faces illuminated by the flashing lights. Some are in their dressing gowns – the curtain twitchers. Hopefully they’ll have some information to share. They look the type.
‘Good. Secure the road. Make sure no one comes in or out. Deal with any press. This is the Golden Hour, Davis.’
The Golden Hour is a term homicide gives to the first sixty minutes on the scene. This is when we need to garner as much evidence as possible, forensic mainly, but also circumstantial. My job is to make sense of both and put them together so that you see the full picture. Some coppers are all about the forensics, but for me the two go hand in hand. One doesn’t really work well without the other – you know, a bit like Lennon and McCartney.
I duck underneath the yellow-and-black tape and enter number 13 with a strange feeling. More than a feeling.
Six
The first thing I see is Delaney. He’s standing in the large, open-plan kitchen, which is off the main living area and attached to some sort of conservatory. He’s talking to someone: the wife, I’m assuming. I can’t see her face, just a mass of long brown hair as she’s bent over the table with her head in her hands. As I enter the kitchen, I notice there’s blood on them and on her – a lot of it.
‘Dan,’ Delaney acknowledges me in that irritatingly familiar way of his, like he’s known me all my life. He approaches me, turns his head towards mine in a clandestine fashion. ‘We’re looking at a domestic here… She’s hysterical, doesn’t know what’s happened, says she can’t remember, isn’t making much sense… She’s intoxicated… and she has injuries to her wrists. Self-inflicted by the looks of things.’
He makes to continue but I cut him off by physically passing him as I move towards the table, towards Mrs Mills.
‘Mrs Mills… Laurie, I’m DI Riley – Daniel Riley…’
The woman raises her head from the kitchen table. Her face looks like a crime scene in itself, a red mass of mucus and swollen eyes. Her lips are trembling and every muscle looks as if it’s screaming out in agony. She tries to speak but only a small rasp escapes her lips. Her hands are bloodied and shaking, her dress heavily stained. She’s a proper mess.
‘I… I… Oh God… Robert… Robert… I don’t know what happened… don’t… I can’t remember… I was asleep… I thought he was… He stood me up…’ She collapses onto the table, her head thudding against the wood.
‘It’s okay,’ I reassure her, ‘it’s okay. Can you tell me what’s happened, Laurie?’ I ask.
She’s shaking her head, lifting it a few inches off the table and then banging it back down again repeatedly.
‘Get her out of here,’ I say sharply, turning to Delaney. ‘Take her down the station. We’ll speak to her there.’
Delaney nods reluctantly.
‘We’re not going to arrest her, boss?’
‘For what?’ I snap back. ‘We don’t know what’s happened yet. She needs to be checked over first. Send two of the team down there with her. We’ll interview her once she’s been seen by the quacks.’
‘Any sign of a break-in?’
‘Nope.’ Davis is keeping pace behind me as I make my way up the stairs. ‘And nothing has been taken.’
Except for a life, I think, but I don’t say it. DI Obvious.
‘The en suite, boss,’ Davis says. ‘He’s in the guest en suite.’
This strikes me as a lit
tle odd. Why is Robert Mills in the guest en suite of his own house?
‘They were estranged, he and the wife,’ Davis says, pre-empting my next question. ‘She was expecting him for dinner around 7.30 p.m. but apparently he never showed up. She said something about falling asleep, waking up in the dark… a switch tripped or a power cut? Then she sees she’s covered in blood and panics. She calls his number, her husband’s, and says she heard his phone ring upstairs, went to take a look and… well… you’ll see for yourself.’
* * *
The guest bedroom is busy, as I would expect. Forensics are all over it, dusting for prints, taking samples, bagging up evidence, taking measurements and photographs. It’s a large double room, which holds a king-sized bed comfortably and is decorated to a very high standard in tonal creams and beiges. The furniture is white and has that distressed look that’s popular now. Shabby chic, I think they call it. There’s a dressing table with an ornate oval mirror above it that houses perfume bottles and a box of tissues. There’s a sheepskin rug, expensive looking, on the floor in front of it. Large and rather sumptuous-looking cushions in various sizes and fabrics are scattered across the bed. The bedspread looks antique, in keeping with the style, and appears untouched. The bed looks inviting, probably because I haven’t slept well and feel exhausted. I resist the urge to throw myself on it.
It’s a nice guest room, clean and feminine-looking – lots of attention to detail. The walls are adorned with black-and-white photography, well-lit, soft-focus images of a woman in various boudoir poses, sexy yet subtle, almost ethereal images. In some she is posing naked, though it’s suggested nakedness rather than obvious, and in others she’s wearing lingerie. I can’t tell if it’s the wife or not. The shutters are white, matching the ones downstairs, and they’re closed. A flashlight goes off next to my ear, startling me a little – I’m edgy through lack of sleep – and I wince. The sound of a camera popping always makes me think of death now, which is a bit of a shame really, as I’m quite keen on photography. Perhaps I’ll pick up a camera more often when I retire, if I ever manage to retire that is, because according to Woods, ‘You never stop being a copper, Riley, even when you’re asleep or in your dotage.’ He’s such a comfort, is Woods. I give myself a wry smile. Not that I’m getting much of that lately, sleep or comfort.
On first glance there’s nothing out of place in the bedroom. It looks pristine, like a showroom; there are no scattered clothes, no messy spots, no signs of it being lived in. I spot Vic Leyton among the throng of green-covered bodies, recognise the back of her head as I make my way towards the en suite. She turns as she hears me approach.
‘Ah, Detective Inspector Riley.’ She smiles at me; even her smile seems efficient somehow. It’s oddly nice to see her again, though the circumstances in which we always meet never are.
‘Ms Leyton.’ I bow my head by way of acknowledgement.
‘This is a particularly nasty one.’
She cuts to it, no pun intended. Good ol’ Vic, she never sugar-coats stuff and I respect that.
‘Savage really,’ she muses.
Vic stands back as I crouch down next to the body. Robert Mills is lying on his side with his back towards the door. He’s fully clothed in a pair of smart blue jeans and is wearing a white – well, formerly white – T-shirt underneath a leather jacket. I catch a faint smell of aftershave, something soapy and fresh. I’m guessing he’s a tall man, or was, because his frame seems to cover quite a distance along the tiled floor even with his legs bent up towards his chest in a sort of half-foetal position. From the back he looks as though he could be sleeping, passed out drunk on the floor, his dark hair fanning out underneath him like a woman’s.
It’s only when I lean over him and see the blood that I’m confronted with the horrific truth. Robert Mills’ eyes are wide open, piercing and icy blue; they’re staring straight ahead of him, almost in surprise, or shock I imagine. Blood has collected in a pool around his throat, staining the whole front of his T-shirt, soaking it through. The wound to his neck is deep, exposing sebaceous fat – ugly yellow bubbles of it protrude from his open flesh and I think I can see bone, or cartilage or something. The cut is long, jagged, almost from ear to ear in distance, making a gaping, bloody mess of his neck; it looks like someone’s taken an axe to him.
I stand and move around the body, then crouch down over him again at another angle. My knee makes a nasty click as I bend, reminding me that I’m getting old – well, older anyway. I have a birthday next week, one I’d rather forget about, one I will be spending alone, or rather alone down at the nick, unless the old man insists on taking me out for a drink like he has every year since Rachel died.
There’s blood on the walls, splashes of it on the shower glass and sink, and that’s when I see the mirror. The words Lying, cheating scumbag have been written on it in what I’m assuming is Robert Mills’ blood. I think it’s fairly safe to conclude that it’s been written by whoever murdered our friend here. My stomach does a little flip, which is unlike me – I’m pretty well acquainted with blood and gore, having seen more than my fair share of abattoir-style slaughters, gory road accidents, and broken and bloodied bodies, but this attack is truly stomach-churning in its brutality. It looks as if considerable force has been used – frenzied, aggressive, violent force: savagery. Someone was very clearly pissed off with Mr Mills here.
I look at his face. Even with his neck sliced open you can tell he was a handsome bloke, kind of hipster-looking, like one of those types who frequents trendy bars in Shoreditch.
‘I’m afraid that’s not everything,’ Vic says in that dispassionate way of hers that makes me wonder if she might be passionate in other ways to counterbalance it.
‘Hit me up,’ I reply, which sounds kind of blasé, but I don’t mean it to. There’s nothing mundane about murder.
‘He’s been stabbed, multiple times by the looks of things. Looks like a few major arteries were hit in the process, and the lungs. He would have been extremely short of breath, sprayed blood with every exhalation,’ she explains. ‘That’s assuming, of course, that the wounds were inflicted before his throat was cut. I’ll need to get him on the slab for further examination before I can give you anything conclusive, but judging simply by looking, my money’s on his throat being cut first, followed by a somewhat frenzied stabbing attack.’
I nod sagely. ‘How long?’ I ask. ‘How long has he been dead?’
‘Not so long, actually,’ Vic says, ‘judging by his temperature. It’s just gone 11.45 p.m. now.’ She checks her watch. ‘Anywhere between two to three hours I’d hazard a guess.’
I do the maths.
‘So we’re looking at TOD somewhere around 8–10 p.m.?’
Vic tilts her head to the right. ‘Give or take.’
I stare at Robert Mills’ body a little longer. It’s a grim picture of a man literally cut down in his prime, slaughtered like an animal.
‘Looks like we’ve got the weapon, boss.’ Davis appears at the bathroom door. She’s holding a large, bloody kitchen knife in a plastic zip-lock bag.
I nod, thinking it’s safe to assume so – either that or Mills here likes a very close shave. I take it from her with a gloved hand and inspect it through the plastic. It’s one of those chopping knives you see in wooden blocks in the kitchen, a chef’s knife, similar to the ones Rachel used in the restaurant where she worked, large and razor-sharp with a thick black handle. It’s heavy in my hand, weighty, and I feel guilty that it reminds me of her. I imagine the force that must’ve been used to slice right through the deceased’s flesh; it would have been considerable by the looks of the damage done.
‘It was on the bed. Forensics bagged it up after taking pictures.’
So there was no attempt to hide the weapon or dispose of it. Interesting.
‘And the phone? You said something about the wife calling his phone.’
‘We found it next to the sink,’ Davis explains.
I turn back to Vic.
<
br /> ‘It’s definitely in keeping with the wounds,’ she says, pre-empting my question. ‘The knife.’
‘You know you’ve always got a viable secondary career as a clairvoyant, Vic, if this game doesn’t work out for you,’ I say.
She smiles thinly. ‘What are the hours?’
It makes me wonder what Vic does in her spare time for pleasure when she’s not cutting up the dead and putting the pieces, literally, back together.
‘Long,’ I say, ‘and the pay is rubbish.’
‘Hmm, not much in the way of a change then,’ she muses.
I want to add, ‘Yeah, and you’d still be dealing with stiffs in one way or another!’ but I reckon that may be overstepping the mark, so I don’t.
‘Give me the low-down on the neck wound,’ I say, thinking about Laurie Mills, the state she was in and how Delaney appeared to be handling her when I arrived, leaning over her almost menacingly. ‘Shouldn’t there be more blood, given the severity?’ There’s not exactly a shortage of claret on Robert Mills’ body and T-shirt thanks to the stab wounds – in fact, there’s a river of the stuff surrounding him, splashed up the tiles of the bathroom and, of course, on the mirror – but I can’t help thinking that there should be more of it around his upper body, around the neck area.
‘Perceptive of you, Detective,’ Vic says, almost looking half-impressed. ‘You’re learning.’
‘From the best,’ I say, but I can tell she’s done with the banter now and has switched back to being purely professional.
‘There’s a misconception about the cutting of the throat. I blame TV shows and films… People expect blood and gore on a level that doesn’t correlate with science, at least not always—’
I nod. Vic has started with the riddles.
‘It all depends on how it’s done, you see,’ she continues. ‘Cutting the front of the throat simply severs the windpipe. If it’s done with enough precision, the combination of the swelling and partial collapse due to cartilage severance will cause the victim to choke. This would be slow and not especially bloody; it wouldn’t guarantee an efficient death. Actually, people have been known to have picked themselves up after a few minutes and walked to get help.’