by Michael Wood
‘Poor thing,’ Matilda said.
‘The dog or the girl?’ Scott asked.
‘Both.’
Sian, gloved hand slapped to her mouth, looked down at the floor. She couldn’t take her eyes from the horror. ‘Are you sure she wasn’t hurt in any way?’
‘Not physically.’
‘She wasn’t … you know … interfered with?’
‘We don’t know that yet. I’m sure they’ll check her out at the hospital.’
‘How was she tied to the chair?’ Matilda asked. The chair was a small pine children’s chair. It was painted cream and the name ‘Rachel’ was written in pink copperplate on the back with a picture of a Dalmatian drawn on the seat.
‘She was tied around the waist, which held her arms in too. Her legs were tied together. She was also gagged but she’d managed to work that loose somehow.’
‘Why tie her up and not hurt her yet go on to kill like he did?’ Matilda asked, more to herself than her colleagues.
‘I don’t know. Have you seen the other victims?’ Scott asked.
‘We’ve seen two,’ Matilda replied.
‘Prepare yourselves. This is horrific.’
Matilda turned to Scott. He was looking at the ground, but she could see him struggling to keep hold of his emotions. ‘Are you all right?’ Matilda placed a comforting hand on the young DC’s arm. She could feel the tension.
‘No, I’m not. You don’t expect anything like this, ever.’
‘I’ve sent Rory outside for a break. Do you want to go?’
‘No. I’m fine.’
‘Right. Well, I need a team to go door to door. I want to know who these people are and if anyone saw anything. Sian, can you sort that?’
‘Sure.’
‘Obviously, don’t go into any details on what’s happened here. Not yet.’
‘There’s a marquee in the back garden,’ Scott said. ‘According to the woman who found them, there was a wedding reception here from yesterday evening onwards.’
‘We’re going to need a list of all the guests. Sian, give Christian a ring. Get him to bring a team out. I want everyone questioned.’
Sian left the room, dialling as she went.
‘Where’s the woman who found them, now?’
‘She’s been taken to hospital. She was hysterical when we got here. Oh, there’s a wet patch on the carpet on the landing. It’s where she wet herself.’
‘OK. I’ll let forensics know.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Scott asked.
‘Go to the hospital and keep me informed of the girl’s condition. Take a uniform with you to keep guard.’
‘Do you think the killer will come back?’
‘I’ve no idea, but it’s a possibility.’
Matilda made her way carefully around the butchered man at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the attic. She felt her mobile phone vibrate in her pocket but ignored it. She couldn’t take her eyes from the man. Despite the horror of his final minutes, he looked at peace. Who would do something so violent, so shocking to another person?
The stairs leading up to the second floor were drenched in blood; smeared footprints and the odd paw print. Matilda looked down at her feet. The protective overshoes were covered in blood. When she got to the landing, she pulled another pair out of her pocket and replaced the saturated ones.
The attic was a hive of activity as Adele worked with the crime scene investigators. Arc lights had been erected and lit up the scene in an intruding bright white. Matilda entered the room and saw Lucy to one side, tears streaming down her face.
‘I’m sorry. I’ll be all right in a minute,’ she said.
Matilda felt sorry for her. She tried to remember when she was new to the job and the first crime scenes she had attended. In her whole twenty plus years on the force, she had never seen anything as horrific as this. If she had entered the scene as a twenty-something, she would have fainted and probably handed in her notice.
‘Why don’t you go outside for some air?’
‘I can’t. I’m needed here,’ she said between sobs.
‘I’m sure they can spare you for five minutes.’
‘I don’t think I can go down. I don’t want to see that man. Did you see his head? Oh God.’
Matilda didn’t know what else to say. She placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder then moved away towards the bloodshed.
Adele, crouched over the bed, stood up when she caught Matilda approaching out of the corner of her eye. Her blue forensic suit was stained red. She looked like the killer in a slasher film.
‘Late-fifties, early-sixties, at a guess,’ she said. ‘I’ve no idea how many times she’s been stabbed. Once we get her to the mortuary and cleaned up I’ll give you a better idea. Most of the wounds are to her face, chest and stomach. Look around you, the length of the sprays, this was savage.’
Matilda looked up at the ceiling and took in the sight of red lines, flicked up as the knife was pulled out of the body.
‘Lucy, I need your help here to turn her over,’ Adele called out.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Matilda said.
Matilda backed away and watched as Adele and Lucy gently turned the woman over. She tried to get a look at her face, see if she recognized her from somewhere, but there were no definable features. This woman had been destroyed.
Lucy turned away and made a gagging noise as if she was about to be sick. Matilda looked back at the body.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ she asked.
‘Her intestines? Yes.’ Adele nodded.
‘What the hell has he done? Removed her organs?’
‘I won’t know until I conduct a full PM. It’s not unusual, though, for someone to stab so frenzied that they dislodge the intestines.’ Adele sounded so calm, so professional. How was that possible?
‘You’ve seen something like this before?’ Matilda asked.
‘Only in text books.’
More photographs were taken by the forensic team. Matilda couldn’t take her eyes from the butchered woman. She was reminded of one of Jack the Ripper’s victims. The carnage, the sense of anger and hatred the killer must have had to perform an act of pure evil. Matilda uttered a goodbye to Adele, but she was wrapped up in her work so didn’t hear. She turned to the staircase, and headed back down, frowning at the position of the bloody footprints. A flash of something entered her head, then disappeared just as quickly.
As she reached the landing, she stepped over the man again, looking him directly in the eyes. There was nothing there. She was staring death in the face and it was looking right back at her.
‘Matilda.’ She heard her name being called from the hallway downstairs. Glad of the distraction, she turned away.
Walking downstairs, she saw how her white forensic suit and gloves were smeared with blood, even though she hadn’t touched anything. It was everywhere. Her plastic overshoes were slippery on the wood flooring of the hallway. She closed her eyes as she carefully stepped around the body at the bottom of the stairs.
‘I’ve got an ID on our victims,’ Sian said, heading into the living room.
‘Go on.’
‘Clive and Serena Mercer live here alone. They have two children: Jeremy and Leah. Now, according to neighbours, Leah got married yesterday and she and her new hubby left for their honeymoon early evening. Jeremy came home from Liverpool for the wedding with his daughter, Rachel, and stayed the night.’
‘So he’s our other victim?’
‘It looks like it.’
‘And the little girl is his daughter.’
‘It would appear so.’
‘Where’s her mother?’
‘Apparently, she died a few years ago.’
‘We need a contact number for Leah. I don’t want her hearing about this on the news. Do we know where she’s gone for her honeymoon?’
‘Paris,’ Sian replied, looking down at her pad.
‘OK. Have a look around, try and find
something that tells us whereabouts she’s gone and we’ll arrange for the local police to go around and tell her. Where is everyone?’ Matilda asked, looking around and seeing no police officers.
‘I’ve just seen Scott drive off. Rory is in the back garden. He looked dreadful. I haven’t seen anyone else.’
‘Give Christian another ring. We need more people here. I need to go and see Valerie. This is going to go international once the press gets to know about it.’
Matilda left the house and peeled off the forensic suit. She passed a police car with its back door open. Behind a grill was a puppy Dalmatian caked in blood. Laying down, his head between his front paws, he looked up at Matilda with large sad eyes as she approached.
‘Hello sweetheart.’ She put a few fingers through the grill and scratched the top of his head. His tail wagged, but he didn’t stand up. ‘You’re missing Rachel?’ His ears pricked at the sound of a familiar name. ‘Poor thing. What did you see in that house?’ She tore herself away from the dog and headed to her car.
At the top of the drive she turned back to look at the house. It was a beautiful family home. Yesterday, there was a wedding. Everyone would have been so happy to watch two young people begin their new life together. They will have laughed, danced, and drank well into the night. Within hours it was a scene of horror.
It reminded Matilda how fragile life was. She knew that only too well. She took her phone out of her pocket, ignored the missed calls from Sally Meagan and looked at the photo she had as her wallpaper. It was her husband, James, smiling back at her. She loved that smile. She missed him so much. She walked away with tears stinging her eyes.
Chapter Five
The knock on the door made ACC Valerie Masterson jump. She was perusing a brochure on motor homes, which she quickly hid under a file on her oversized desk, before calling for her visitor to come in.
Matilda entered the room. She had driven to the station from Fulwood and gone straight into the toilets to scrub at her hands and face. Yet, even though she had been wearing gloves at the crime scene, she felt as though her hands were covered in blood and no amount of washing would make her clean.
‘Matilda, come and sit down. I’ve just heard. How bad is it?’ she asked. She went over to her coffee machine and started making Matilda a cup.
Matilda shook her head. ‘It’s like some kind of sick horror film.’
‘How is everyone?’ she asked, handing Matilda the coffee.
‘Not good. I think we’re going to have to offer counselling. Rory is taking this hard.’
‘That’s not like him.’
‘I know. I’ll ask Scott to keep an eye on him. Since he was attacked he’s been more sensitive.’
‘Do we know who they are yet?’
‘I think so. Clive and Serena Mercer.’
‘The Mercers?’ Valerie asked. Her eyes wide.
‘You know them?’
‘No. There was something in the local paper about them last week. Hang on.’ Valerie opened her laptop and began searching the Internet. ‘Yes, here we are. He’s an anaesthetist and she’s a neurologist. They’re always in the news for helping to raise money for various charities. Serena’s been doing a lot of protesting about saving the Sheffield trees. If memory serves, she was arrested late last year,’ she said with a hint of a smile. ‘Anyway, it was their daughter’s wedding, and the vicar who married them all those years ago came out of retirement to marry their daughter. They had the same church and everything. You’re saying they’ve been killed?’
Valerie turned the laptop around and showed Matilda the article on the site of the local newspaper. The main photograph was of Clive and Serena standing next to their daughter and soon-to-be son-in-law, who were hugging. All four were grinning to the camera.
‘So has their son. His daughter has been taken to hospital. We don’t think she’s physically injured though.’
‘Oh my goodness.’
Matilda closed the laptop. She could feel the smiling eyes boring into her. ‘The press is going to be all over this when it gets out.’
‘Well, leave that to me,’ Valerie said. ‘I want you and your team to put all your efforts into this. Drop whatever you’re working on and get this solved as soon as you can.’ Valerie returned to her side of the desk. ‘I don’t mean to sound heartless here, Matilda, but this has come at the best time for us. You’re now running a Homicide and Major Enquiry Team and this is your first test. Solve this, and solve it fast, and it will show those upstairs they did the right thing putting you in charge. We could get more money out of them for more officers. Then we can tackle some of these cold cases.’
‘I’m short of detectives as it is. I haven’t had a replacement for Faith yet and now Kesinka’s on light duties.’
‘I’ll get some drafted in but it will only be for this case. You can’t have them on a permanent basis.’
‘I need at least one permanent to cover Faith.’
‘I’m working on it.’
Matilda drained her coffee cup and stood up to leave. She hadn’t failed to notice the brochure for motor homes sticking out of her in-tray. Valerie wasn’t fully focused on getting more detectives for the HMET at all. She was due to retire in less than two years and the plan was for her and her husband to travel around Europe while they were still able to. Valerie’s mind was on one thing – buying the right camper van.
When Matilda Darke was first promoted to detective chief inspector, she was put in charge of the Murder Investigation Team. Budget cuts soon intervened and, five years later, the MIT was closed down and Matilda was put in charge of CID. When the press got hold of the information that South Yorkshire Police had more than twenty-five unsolved murders on their books, the pen pushers on the top floor decided to launch a Homicide and Major Enquiry Team which would deal with all serious crime and, in their spare time, tackle some of these cold cases. It was basically the Murder Investigation Team with a new name. Matilda was, once again, put in charge, and she was able to hand pick her team. She purposely chose the same team she had when running the MIT. They were even in the same open-plan office the MIT worked from.
The new unit had been up and running for less than a month. However, a lack of resources had meant the cold cases hadn’t even been touched yet. The murder of DC Faith Easter last year had been a blow to everyone on the close-knit team, and now DC Kesinka Rani, who was heavily pregnant, was on restricted duties, following a health scare in which she collapsed at a crime scene, until it was time for her to start her maternity leave. So, Matilda had only a DI, two DSs and two DCs. It was not enough.
As Matilda headed for her office she was stopped in the corridor by DI Christian Brady. He was usually composed, neat and professional, but this morning, his shirt was sticking out of his trousers and his tie was loose around his open-neck shirt.
‘You look harassed,’ Matilda said.
‘You’d think being a DI would give you some power, wouldn’t you? I’ve spent almost an hour having an argument with a sergeant to send a team of uniforms out to Fulwood. He was behaving like they were his own personal PCs.’
Matilda smirked. ‘Have they gone?’
‘Yes. They’re on their way now. Aaron’s already on site. He’s going to tell them what to do.’
‘Excellent.’
‘There are several DCs on the fast-track in CID. Can’t we steal them?’
‘Only if you want to give the ACC a heart attack. We need her say-so before we do anything.’
‘We’re going to end up with a couple of trainees, aren’t we?’
‘Not if I can help it.’
They walked down the corridor at speed, taking long strides to get to the HMET suite.
‘Rory called a few minutes back. He said forensics are going to be there all day, possibly tomorrow too. There’s a lot to process.’
‘I know. I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life. It’s shocking,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Fingers crossed house-to-house w
ill give us something. Whoever did this is going to have been drenched in blood. You don’t take a change of clothing with you to commit a crime, so someone must have seen something.’
‘Famous last words,’ he said as he held the door open for her.
‘You’re getting as cynical as I am.’
‘I know. Horrible, isn’t it?’ He smiled.
Matilda made her way along the suite towards her office. She couldn’t help it, but she threw a glance at the desk Faith used to sit at. Her heart sank. It wasn’t getting any easier. Faith wasn’t the first detective under her charge she had lost in the line of duty. They all tore away at her conscience, caused a piece of her to die inside.
‘Boss,’ Kesinka struggled to stand up. She seemed to be getting bigger by the day. ‘I’ve just had Sian on the phone. You’re not going to believe what she’s found at the murder house.’
Chapter Six
Matilda and Christian drove to the crime scene in silence. Christian was driving while Matilda sat staring out of the window with a heavy frown on her face. She had been so sure the neighbours would have spotted a bloodstained man fleeing the scene. Now, her theory had been thrown out of the window.
A larger crowd had grown at the entrance to the cul-de-sac. Police tape was keeping them at bay, but uniformed officers were still battling with the neighbours who chanced their arm and stood in the middle of the road. Christian beeped, making a few onlookers jump.
‘Ghouls,’ he said quietly.
‘At least there are no reporters here, yet.’
‘I doubt they’ll be much longer. One of these lot will have called them, hoping to snag a few quid.’
They drove up to the drive and Christian parked haphazardly on the pavement. Sian was waiting for them.
‘Have you heard from Scott?’
‘Not yet.’
‘I just wondered how the young girl was,’ she said as she led the way down the gravel drive to the large house.
‘How are forensics getting on?’
‘There are plenty of fingerprints but as there was a wedding reception here yesterday it’s hardly a surprise.’
