02 Blue Murder (11 page)

Of course, that wasn’t exactly fair. And
since both Hetheridge and Bhar were on her shit list at present,
Kate pushed the thought away. Glancing around to make certain she
was unobserved, Kate logged in with her old super’s ID — she’d
overheard DCI Vic Jackson boasting about his password, “anaconda” —
and spent ten happy minutes selecting new wallpaper. When she was
finished, it seemed DCI Jackson had re-adorned the computer with
Officer Blow Me. This magnificent male specimen — perfect pecs,
six-pack abs and one of the largest male appendages Kate had ever
seen — was completely nude except for his unmistakable constable’s
hat. Another young man, fully uniformed, was waiting open-mouthed
to administer the required service. Kate added the caption DCIs DO
IT ON THEIR KNEES. She only wished she could be a fly on the wall
when her loathsome former guv was confronted, once the IT
department fingered him as the culprit.

Buoyed by her bad deed, Kate logged into the
main Met database as herself, determined not to stew about
Hetheridge, the gala or what his assumptions — much less her
reaction to those assumptions — boded for their fledgling
relationship. Better to contemplate murder.

And since FSS works slower in real life than
on telly, maybe it’s time to reacquaint myself with the Sir Duncan
Godington case …

Kate logged into HOLMES for the basics,
widening her search via Google as necessary. Once she started
reading, it all came back to her, so familiar she was surprised
she’d ever forgotten.

The triple murder had been discovered on a
Christmas morning, five years past. Sir Raleigh Godington, a
baronet as well as an international financier, was found dead in
the grand salon of his country estate in Surrey. Also dead: his
heir, Eldon Godington, and his butler of twenty-eight years, Philip
Jergens. The scene was a bloodbath that seemed to spring from a
desperate tabloid editor’s fevered psyche; many of the details were
too grisly for even the filthiest rag to describe. Of course,
HOLMES contained them all, along with the photographic and
digitized evidence.

Sir Raleigh had been hacked limb from limb.
Eventually the chief medical examiner decided the murder weapon was
a machete, though the murder weapon was never recovered, Kate
noted. And Sir Raleigh’s head had been split down the middle.

But not clean down the
midline
like French and Parsons,
she thought.
Still — is
this a coincidence? Or a clue?

Unlike Clive French and Trevor Parsons, Sir
Raleigh had been attacked from the front, by a perpetrator of
roughly the same height. According to the chief medical examiner,
the blade had been only moderately sharp. That semiblunt blade had
connected with Sir Raleigh’s face several times. The damage had
been so extensive, Kate stared helplessly at the crime scene
photos, unable to discern a face in the ruin that remained.

A personal crime. When the
face is destroyed, it’s always personal
,
Kate thought, remembering her training.
With French and Parsons, their faces were left
intact.

Sir Raleigh had also been disemboweled, Kate
read. Aware of the effect this news would have on the jury, Sir
Duncan’s legal team had floated the notion of a sinister intruder.
They’d suggested a latter-day Jack the Ripper was responsible, a
madman who’d dismantled the corpse with privileged medical
knowledge. But one glance at the crime scene photos had put that
notion to rest. Sir Raleigh’s butcher could only be described as an
enthusiastic novice. Bits of organs and entrails were strewn all
over the grand salon. Some even decorated the branches of Sir
Raleigh’s twelve-foot Christmas tree. Among the star-shaped
ornaments and silver tinsel, a length of intestine hung, somewhat
less than festive.

Sir Raleigh’s sexual organs had also been
removed. Like the machete, they had never been recovered, prompting
the press to screech, “SIR DUNC A CANNIBAL?” in that
end-of-the-world-size typeface Kate so despised. But evidence the
male organs had actually been eaten was, of course, nonexistent.
And as she gazed on the scene with an officer’s eye, Kate wouldn’t
have been surprised if they had simply been misidentified in the
overload of bowels, blood and brains.

The crime scene photos of Sir Raleigh’s son
and heir, Eldon Godington, were equally grim. He’d been sawed in
two pieces across the abdomen, like a magician’s trick gone awry.
His frozen expression, as well as his curled, clawlike hands,
suggested Eldon might have survived the process, only to die of
shock as he stared at the final result. Kate, whose stomach was
reasonably strong, tasted bile at the idea. She was forced to hurry
on to the analysis of the last body: the butler, Philip
Jergens.

According to the medical examiner, Jergens
had been poisoned. He collapsed in the grand salon, prompting the
quick attendance of his employers. In the midst of such chaos the
murderer had struck, probably first on Jergens — his back bore two
enormous stab wounds from the presumptive machete. Then Sir Raleigh
and Eldon had faced the blade.

Officers drifted in and out of the bullpen
as Kate read, some talking loudly into their phones, others
bursting into raucous laughter. Ordinarily she didn’t care for such
close, overheated quarters, or so much noise pollution. But the
Godington case was so compelling, Kate barely smelled the takeaway
curry some other detective opened nearby for his lunch.

Fixing an exact time of death was always
tricky for medical examiners. In the case of Sir Raleigh, Eldon
Godington and Philip Jergens, that difficulty had been compounded
by two factors: the grand salon’s roaring fire and the great
house’s excessive gas heat. Someone had cranked the thermostat up
to eighty. Therefore, the chief medical examiner’s best guess for
the time of the murders was anywhere between midnight, December 23,
and 6 a.m., December 25. Naturally, Sir Duncan’s legal team had
made the most of such uncertainty.

“
My client arrived in Surrey
on December 24 around 9 p.m.,” the lead barrister had argued. Did
anyone actually believe that after visiting his girlfriend in
Paris, Sir Duncan had touched down at the airport, sped home,
committed triple murder with a machete and rushed off again to
enjoy a round of parties with his old schoolmates? And if he had,
where was the physical evidence? Where was the weapon, the bloody
clothes, the forensic traces in Sir Duncan’s vehicle or his London
townhouse?

Where, indeed?
Kate thought. Films and books were filled with
supernaturally self-assured psychopaths. In the real world, violent
personalities usually snapped, acted on impulse and left behind an
obvious trail, ineffectually trying to cover up after the fact.
Either Sir Duncan was innocent or he was that rarest of creatures —
simmering with violence yet controlled enough to plan his triple
slaughter to the nth degree.

Often as closing arguments neared, the Crown
would catalogue a suspect’s damning behavior after the fact —
threatening comments, obstructive behavior and self-serving
maneuvers. More than once Kate had seen a suspect convicted, not
because the physical evidence was unassailable but because his
conduct afterward had been so transparently guilty. But as far as
the Metropolitan Police Service was concerned, Sir Duncan had been
cooperation personified. He submitted to every request for
questioning, formal or informal, and allowed his townhouse to be
twice searched without a warrant. Even after his arrest, he spoke
calmly to the press before his booking, releasing the following
statement:

“
I am saddened the police
mistakenly imagine I had anything to do with the unthinkable
murders of my father, brother and family butler. However, I remain
convinced the truth will come out, and the real killer will be
brought to justice. In the meantime, I will gladly assist the
police with their inquiries, as any innocent man or woman would
do.”

Kate watched that video several times,
studying Sir Duncan each time. He was six feet tall and slender,
broad-shouldered with a tapering waist. One of those naturally lean
men who carried no extra fat, maintaining muscle only with effort.
His blond hair was combed straight back from a high forehead; his
high cheekbones and square jaw signaled a Teutonic background. Sir
Duncan’s blue eyes were warm, open, accessible. His mouth was
generous — sensuous, even. Never married, he’d been linked to a
series of starlets, singers and minor dignitaries. After his arrest
he’d nonetheless been the recipient of three marriage proposals and
one stalker. The stalker, a sixteen-year-old boy named Ian Burke,
had first attempted to gain entry into Sir Duncan’s trial by
pretending to be a twenty-one-year-old reporter. Phony ID
notwithstanding, the teenager had looked perhaps eleven years old
in person, putting his masquerade to a swift halt. Later Ian Burke
had reappeared on the scene in drag, pretending he was the daughter
of a juror, and managed to be seated before a security guard cried
foul. Smallish, delicate Ian Burke had been perfectly feminine, it
seemed, except for his pesky Adam’s apple.

As Kate examined the Crown’s prosecution of
Sir Duncan, she found it often looked paranoid, if not downright
ridiculous. The prosecution had opened by pointing out that Sir
Duncan had a chilly relationship with his father.

“
What member of the
aristocracy does not?” the defense’s lead barrister had
countered.

Next the Crown had pointed out that Sir
Duncan stood to benefit enormously from the death of his brother —
a title, ancestral home and considerable wealth.

“
What about Sir Duncan’s
life suggests a love of money?” the defense had countered. “Did he
not just spend a year in sub-Saharan Africa, helping to build
villages? And another year in Borneo, devoting himself to the Green
Party’s anti-logging, anti-poaching endeavor? Would a social
crusader like Sir Duncan Godington commit unthinkable crimes simply
to enrich himself?”

The Crown had been desperate to present
another piece of evidence — the unsolved murder of Sir Duncan’s
nanny when he was only ten years old. But the court had ruled that
event inadmissible. Thus the prosecution was reduced to floating a
series of unproven scenarios.

Why was there no bloody clothing? Perhaps
Sir Duncan had committed the crimes in the nude.

Why had Sir Duncan cooperated with the
searches and interrogations? Perhaps he had successfully disposed
of the weapon and any other physical evidence.

Why had mates and acquaintances supported
Sir Duncan’s alibi during the murder timeline? Perhaps they were
swayed by his mesmerizing persona. Willing to lie, in other words,
for a handsome, charming prince of a man who had a way of making
other people feel good about themselves.

Whatever the truth, the jury had finished
feeling pretty damned good about themselves, Kate decided. After
agonizing behind closed doors for three days, they acquitted Sir
Duncan of all charges. Post-trial interviews told the tale as
effectively as any crime writer’s analysis.

“
Sort of bloke all
aristocrats should be,” said the jury’s foreman. “Regular, but
gracious. Quality is the word I mean.”

“
Dead handsome but dead
sweet, too.” This from the jury’s oldest member, a grandmother with
sparkling eyes and an enormous vinyl handbag.

“
Fitted up by the plods, he
were, simple as that,” said the man on the street, who favored
acquittal by a two-to-one margin.

After the trial, Sir Duncan had expressed
gratitude to the jury for perceiving his innocence, and to the
nation for rallying behind him. His prepared statement read in
part:

“
This ordeal has been
painful. But not as painful, I must say, as the fate suffered by my
beloved father, brother and family butler. My hope is that my trial
will be swiftly forgotten, as mistakes should be. And our
collective hearts and minds shall be fixed, henceforth, on honoring
the true victims in this tragedy.”

Oh!
Kate was startled by a post-acquittal photograph of Sir
Duncan.
Kyla Sloane! So that’s where I
know her from!

But no. According to her ID, Kyla Sloane was
twenty-one years old. This picture had been snapped by a tabloid
photographer just three days after Sir Duncan’s acquittal, when
Kyla would have been barely sixteen. In the photo, Sir Duncan
presided over the opening of an exclusive West End restaurant. A
beautiful brunette sat at the table beside him, her thick, wavy
hair cascading over her shoulders. Slim and small-breasted, she
wore a red gown with spaghetti straps that highlighted her
prominent collarbone. Borderline anorexic the girl was, or an
aspiring model who lived on sparkling water and no-dressing salads.
And a dead ringer for Kyla Sloane, too. Except for a small
difference around the nose and upper lip, the resemblance was
breathtaking.

The photo’s caption named the brunette only
as Sir Duncan’s friend. It took a photographic reverse-search
engine to confirm Sir Duncan’s companion was none other than Tessa
Chilcott.

No way
, Kate thought, even as she knew it was true. Tessa had no
breast implants, no Botoxed forehead or veneered front teeth. The
young woman looked starkly real, not to mention fragile, compared
to DS Bhar’s usual type …

Kate’s mobile vibrated from inside her bag.
Irritated by the interruption, she snatched it up. “Hey?”

“
This is Dennis Chen,
calling from Forensic Services,” the caller stated in a flat,
robotic monotone. “Is that Detective Sergeant Kate
Wakefield?”