by Michael Wood
‘This isn’t a rouse to have your ego stroked, is it?’
‘No. Look,’ he pulled out a chair and sat down, ‘when Faith got killed, it made me evaluate a few things. Maybe this case has just tipped things a little, but, I don’t want to be one of those coppers who’s in their forties and have no personal life and are screwed up by everything they’ve witnessed over the years.’
‘Like me.’
‘Shit, no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean … I didn’t …’ Rory stuttered.
‘Rory, it’s fine.’ She smiled. ‘I love being a detective. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.’
‘Me too,’ he interrupted. ‘The reality is different from when you’re eight years old and playing cops and robbers, though.’
‘I won’t lie to you and say this case is going to be a piece of cake, because it isn’t. And, I think we’re all going to be affected by it for years to come. However, I’ve been a detective for more than twenty years and this is the worst I’ve seen. These cases don’t come along very often, thank goodness. This is not the norm.’
‘I know it isn’t. It’s just … I don’t know … I want more out of life than to come to work in the morning, not knowing what time I’m going to get home, then passing out from exhaustion. What kind of a life is that?’
‘For a man of your age, it’s no life at all,’ Matilda relented. ‘I really don’t want to lose you, Rory,’ she repeated. ‘You’re a major asset to this team. I wouldn’t have picked you for it otherwise.’
‘I know, and I’m really very grateful to you for the opportunity.’
‘I tell you what, don’t hand your notice in now; wait until we’ve solved this case. Then we’ll have a chat, you and me. What do you say?’
‘What if the case never gets solved?’
‘Then you never leave.’ She grinned.
‘You’re harsh.’
‘I have to be if I want to get what I want.’
Rory was silent while he mulled over what Matilda said. She looked past him and out into the main suite. She saw Scott sat at his desk. He too had the same lost expressions as Rory.
‘I’ll stay until we’ve solved the Mercer case,’ Rory said reluctantly.
Matilda relaxed. ‘Good. I’m glad. Rory, if you ever want to talk to me, about anything, you know I’ll always listen.’
‘I know. Thanks.’
‘It won’t go any further either. I’m very good at keeping secrets. You won’t believe some of the stuff Sian’s got up to over the years,’ she said with a sly smile.
‘Oh I believe that.’
‘Speak of the devil,’ she said as she saw Sian approach the door.
‘Am I OK to interrupt?’ she asked, knocking lightly and pushing the door open.
‘It looks like you just did.’
‘I’ve had Kesinka on the phone. She said Rachel woke up screaming for her dad. Nothing would calm her down, so they’ve had to sedate her.’
‘Shit. I wish her sister would hurry up and get here. She’s going to need her right now.’
‘Do you think we should contact social services? They’ll be able to arrange temporary care for her.’
‘Let’s wait to see what happens when Leah gets back.’
‘OK. All the neighbours have been interviewed, not that we’ve got much to go on, and since the ACC gave a statement we’ve had the papers calling asking for more information.’
‘They can wait.’
‘Medical report on Clive Mercer has come through. He knew about the brain tumour, but, he was being treated in Leeds, not Sheffield.’
‘Why?’
‘No idea. I’m guessing he didn’t want his colleagues to know about his condition.’
‘Talk to his consultant. Find out everything you can about the tumour, how Clive was taking it, that kind of thing. Also, should he still have been working? And, did his bosses know about it?’
She nodded. ‘Speaking of Clive Mercer, I’ve been doing some digging into the Mercers’ background. Clive was reported to the GMC on three occasions due to malpractice.’
‘Excellent. Keep digging, Sian.’
‘Will do.’ She left, closing the door firmly behind her.
‘See, you’d miss all this if you left,’ Matilda said to Rory.
‘I think I’d prefer to keep my sanity.’
‘Sanity? What’s the point in being sane when the rest of the world is completely crazy? Come on,’ she said, standing up. ‘I want you to come with me to the Mercers’ house. I’m going to show you why you’re a born detective.’
It didn’t take long for the conversation to die out. Rory told Matilda how jealous he was of her car. He played with the seat controls and flicked through the menu on the touchscreen on the dashboard like an excited child. Eventually, he sat back and looked out of the window. Matilda’s mobile rang. It was in between the front seats so she ignored it. When the ringing stopped, Rory looked down at the phone.
‘You’ve missed two calls from someone called Daniel H.’
‘Oh,’ was her reply.
‘Someone’s keen to get hold of you.’
‘Yes. He’s the bloke who’s doing up my house.’
‘Shouldn’t you call him back? There might be a problem.’
‘It’ll be fine. Rory, how’s Scott?’ Matilda asked, wanting to get the conversation away from her private life.
‘He’s fine. Why?’
‘He seems quieter.’
‘Is that possible?’ He sniggered.
‘Quieter than usual then.’
‘I hadn’t noticed.’ He shrugged.
Matilda turned down the driveway and the Mercers’ house came into view. It was almost as if a heavy mist had descended. They stopped talking, and both of them could feel the intensity of the situation.
‘It’s a shame, isn’t it?’ Rory said as Matilda turned off the engine. ‘A beautiful home like that. What do you think will happen to it?’
‘I don’t know. That’s for Leah to decide, I suppose.’
They remained seated. They knew what was in store for them behind the front door. Even though the bodies had been removed, all evidence had been bagged and taken to forensics, they were left with the detritus of a crime scene, the aftermath of a vicious knife attack.
A police cordon was still in place and a bored-looking PC sat in a marked car parked next to the front door. He didn’t bother to get out. Matilda showed him her warrant card through the window. He nodded.
As they made their way upstairs, Matilda booted up the iPad she’d taken from her bag.
‘Go into the bedroom in the attic, Rory,’ she said.
They were both wearing overshoes to protect their footwear from any bloodstains. As much as they tried their best not to walk over the area where Clive Mercer had died on the landing, it was difficult to get around it. In places, the carpet still squelched.
Rory walked up the stairs but kept looking over the bannister at where Clive had been slaughtered. At the top of the stairs he stood in the doorway of the attic and went no further.
‘It’s just a room, Rory. What’s happened is over,’ Matilda said. She was trying to comfort him but force him into action at the same time.
‘I know,’ he said quietly.
‘Take a good look, Rory. Look at the blood sprays on the walls and ceiling. Tell me what you see.’ Matilda studied her iPad. She had the report from the crime scene investigators.
Rory took a deep breath and entered the room fully. He slowly looked around him, taking in the scene of carnage. ‘There’s so much blood. The sprays. They’re so high.’
‘What does that tell us?’
‘It was frenzied. He pulled the knife out, lifting it high so he could stab with great ferocity, which caused the sprays, before stabbing again.’
‘Keep looking.’
He walked around the front of the bed, eyes darting in all directions. ‘There’s a footprint by the bed.’
‘OK. What do you notice about it?’
‘It’s a good print.’
‘Yes.’
‘But there’s only one.’ He frowned. ‘There should be others.’
‘Why?’
‘Like I said, it’s a good print. It’s soaked in blood; there should be other prints as the killer left the room.’
‘Good.’ Matilda smiled. He was picking up on what she had noticed. ‘What does that tell us?’
‘The killer either took his shoe off, or he covered the shoe with something, like what we’re wearing, overshoes, and was careful where he stood upon leaving.’
‘But would he have time for that? He’s killed three people. There’s a dog yapping down there, and a seven-year-old girl. We can guess he went into Rachel’s room last because of all the blood on him. Wouldn’t he just want to leave and go to them?’
Rory frowned as he thought. He looked from the footprint to the door and back again. ‘Maybe the killer came back. After he killed everyone, he returned, used a shoe to make a footprint to throw us off.’
Matilda smiled. ‘Well done, Rory.’
He returned her smile. ‘But why would the killer do that?’
‘I don’t know. Either there’s something under that footprint that the killer couldn’t take with him and he needed to cover up, or it’s to make us believe that it is the killer’s shoe when it isn’t.’
‘You mean say this is a size ten print and the killer is only a size seven or something.’
‘Something like that. Look around the rest of the room, Rory. Look at the furniture,’ Matilda said, looking down at her iPad once again.
‘On the chest of drawers, there’s evidence of arterial spurts.’
‘Good. What does that tell us?’
‘She was facing that direction when he stabbed her. She was low down, probably lying down on the bed. The knife hit an artery and it sprayed all that blood out.’
‘So there’s less cast-off stains because …?’
‘Because the blood had run out of her here. This is probably one of the first stabs,’ he said, going over to the chest of drawers and leaning down.
‘If Serena is incapacitated so early on in the attack, how do we account for the hair under her fingernail?’
‘Maybe she fought back.’
‘Maybe. Anything else?’
‘Maybe it’s not the killer’s hair. It could already have been there under her nail when he came in. It could be her own hair or her husband’s.’
‘Anything else?’
Rory suddenly looked up at Matilda, a wide-eyed look on his face. ‘Another plant?’
Matilda smiled.
‘So, what are you saying, this whole crime scene is a lie?’
‘I think this is staged. It felt wrong as soon as I first came through the door.’
‘But, why?’
‘That is the million-pound question. I don’t know. However, this is not just some random killing. This family was targeted for a reason, and the killer went to great lengths to cover their tracks.’
‘But what about those clothes we found? Do you think they’re planted too?’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’
Matilda turned and left the room, leaving Rory standing in the middle of a bloodbath. She was in the hallway on the ground floor of the house by the time he caught up with her.
‘But everyone says they’re a lovely family. She’s a neurologist or something and he’s an anaesthetist. They can’t be involved in anything that results in this kind of violence, surely.’
‘That’s what we need to find out. So, still thinking about resigning?’ she asked with a grin on her face.
It was a while before he answered. ‘Not just yet.’
Chapter Eighteen
The HMET suite was a hive of activity as the evening briefing was about to begin. The murder board was full of crime scene photographs and pictures of the family taken in happier times extracted from the laptops and iPads officers were still going through. However, there were plenty of gaps left to be filled. Leah Mercer should be able to help join the dots when she turned up.
Matilda called the room to order. Phones were hung up and laptops closed.
‘This case is moving very slowly,’ she began. ‘Now, I’m aware we have a large crime scene which is taking time to process, and, as most of the neighbours were pissed or asleep when the murders took place, we are lacking in eyewitnesses. However, we need to put in some ground work. The vultures are swarming and are looking for something to put on their front pages. I hate to be held to ransom by the press but if we don’t give them something, they’ll make it up, or go down the sensational route. I don’t want that to happen.
‘I want Rachel interviewing as soon as possible. Now, I think she might feel less frightened when Leah gets back and she knows she’s got some family left. Any news on when that will be?’
‘I called her about half an hour ago,’ Scott said. ‘She’ll be here within the hour.’
‘Good. Is she coming straight here?’
‘Yes. I’ve told her not to go to the house or the hospital.’
‘Thank you, Scott.’ Matilda had won the battle with Rory but needed to keep an eye on him for the rest of the war here. However, there was something eating away at Scott and she was worried about him.
‘Aaron, the bloke from the council who Serena smacked.’
‘He’s been in Doncaster nick since last summer. Armed robbery.’
‘That’s one avenue we can rule out. Ranjeet, anything on the post mortems?’
‘Yes. Dr Kean was able to extract the tips of the blades from Serena Mercer and Jeremy Mercer,’ he said, looking down at his note pad. ‘Now, there are a couple of knives missing from the kitchen, but we’ve bought a block of knives like they had and matched the tips to the missing knives.’
‘So the killer didn’t come prepared?’ Sian asked, looking in her snack drawer for something to eat.
‘It would appear not.’
‘But he obviously came with a change of clothing,’ Scott said.
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Sian continued, tearing into a Ripple. ‘Nothing was stolen, nothing obvious, anyway, so if he didn’t come prepared to kill, what did he come for?’
‘Rory, would you like to fill everyone in on what we’ve discovered?’ Matilda asked.
Rory smiled and stood up. He smoothed down his tie and cleared his throat. ‘We went back to the Mercers’ house this afternoon to go through the report from the CSM. There are several points in the crime scene that don’t make sense.’ He told them about the single bloody footprint in Serena’s bedroom, and the hair under her fingernail. ‘Also, if the killer didn’t come prepared, I’m guessing he wasn’t wearing a mask or anything, yet he tied Rachel Mercer up. She must have seen his face, so why leave her alive?’
‘Do you think the crime scene was staged?’ Sian asked, wiping away the crumbs of chocolate from her desk.
‘We do.’
‘But why?’
‘The answer to that,’ Matilda picked up, ‘lies in the Mercers’ past. Now, we know Clive was brought before a GMC hearing on three separate occasions. Any news on that yet, Sian?’
‘Yes. I spoke to someone from the GMC earlier. He’s going to email me the case files through.’
‘OK,’ Matilda said. She noticed how harassed and shattered Sian looked. ‘Try and make it a priority. Has anyone pulled Clive Mercer’s medical records yet?’
‘I have,’ Aaron said. He was texting on his phone and quickly put it down. ‘He had an aggressive tumour in his frontal lobe. It was diagnosed around eighteen months ago. I spoke to his consultant, Ravi Mukherjee, at Leeds General Infirmary. He said Clive took the news pretty well when he was first told. He said he’d spoken about it to his family, who were all supportive, and he’d cut down his working hours to the bare minimum. However, when I spoke to a couple of his colleagues at the Northern General, they had no idea of his diagnosis and said he’d been working his usual hours, sometimes more.’
&nb
sp; ‘I can’t say I’m surprised about that,’ Matilda said. ‘I bet he didn’t even tell his family. Thanks for that, Aaron. We’ll bring it up with Leah.’
‘Doesn’t a tumour on your frontal lobe affect your behaviour?’ Rory asked. He’d moved from his desk to Sian’s, where he was rummaging through her snack drawer. He picked up a Bounty and went back to his desk.
‘Yes, it does,’ Matilda said quietly. Whenever cancer or a tumour was mentioned, she immediately thought of James. His tumour wasn’t in the frontal lobe. His was imbedded deep within the brain making surgery practically impossible. His moods hadn’t been affected. James remained the same sweet, caring, intelligent, funny man he’d always been, right up until the end. They’d gone through their dark days during treatment, but he always maintained a level of optimism Matilda found inspiring.
She looked up and noticed everyone staring at her. How long had she been drifting away in her own memories? Shit.
‘OK. We need to interview the people he worked with. Had they noticed a change in his personality, his work ethic recently? Also, see if this ties in with the reports from the GMC.’
‘I’ll do the hospital. You do the GMC,’ Aaron said to Sian. She nodded.
‘What about the others in the family?’ Matilda asked.
‘I’ve been through their bank statements and credit card bills, there is nothing dodgy going on with their finances,’ Scott said. ‘They both make a very healthy living. They have private pensions, savings accounts that made me weep, but they’re not in debt, and the only loans they have are the mortgage, which is almost paid off, and their cars.’
‘We still need to keep digging. If someone had a vendetta against the family, the reason may not be in plain sight. Do the Mercers own any other properties? Do they have bank accounts in other names or going to other addresses? Were Serena or Clive having an affair? Do they have a secret family or other children we don’t know about? We need to tear this family apart in order to find out what killed them. Also, who would gain from the Clive and Serena’s death? Let’s try and get a copy of their wills. Christian, tomorrow I want you, Scott and Ranjeet working on this.’
‘No problem,’ Christian said, hurriedly writing down notes with one hand while trying to open a Mars bar with the other.
