My Bloody Valentine (Alastair Gunn) (10 page)

She pointed it out. ‘Was this contamination –’

‘Collected during the attack?’ Pritchard’s nasal tone cut in from behind them. ‘No. Neither the composition nor age of that material matches anything here in the park. It’s a mixture of domestic particles built up progressively over recent days. It seems Ms Philips wasn’t fastidious in her approach to personal grooming, a fact confirmed by the general state of her physical hygiene during autopsy.’

Hawkins turned her chair towards him. ‘So what’s your view?’

‘May I?’ Pritchard took the iPad from Otis and began skipping through the photographs, before holding the device out, pointing at the image on screen. It was a close-up of Philips’ right temple, or at least the crumpled mess it had become.

‘Epidural haematoma,’ he stated. ‘Induced by a sharp, heavy blow to the pterion, a weak point in the skull between the frontal, parietal, temporal and sphenoid bones, rupturing the middle meningeal artery and causing a fatal seizure. Surrounding strikes to the same
area were simply to make sure. Combined with the demonstrable absence of other injuries, this damage appears to have been inflicted by design, to prevent the victim defending herself; to debilitate and kill. This assumption is backed up by the angle of the initial blow, consistent with a strike from behind and slightly to the victim’s right. These details indicate that the killer – who’s right-handed, by the way – took care to ensure the target didn’t see it coming. In short, Detective, our perpetrator isn’t interested in the process of killing, only in its result.’

‘Seems reasonable.’ Hawkins followed the gist, if not the terminology. ‘What sort of implement are we talking about? Anything fancy?’

Pritchard shook his head. ‘I’d suggest nothing more exotic than a domestic hammer, I’m afraid. We haven’t found the murder weapon, but the victim’s injuries are consistent with such a tool. The killer would have required nothing more complex.’

Hawkins resigned herself to the fact that chasing the weapon’s origin would be no more than fruitless courtesy. Certain cases involving guns or unusual objects could sometimes be advanced by tracing their source. But a household tool that could have been brand new or years old, and was available from a thousand outlets in the capital alone?

No chance.

She looked over at where the attack had happened, assessing the memorial’s position adjacent to the path
as the perfect place to stage an ambush. The structure’s plinth was tall enough to hide an adult so willing, while the overhanging trees and lack of proximate lighting would deepen the shadows further still. She pictured Samantha Philips wandering slowly past in the dead of night, and the killer’s silhouette emerging unseen from behind the structure, shoes silent on the dampened grass.

She asked, ‘Does this type of attack indicate any training on the killer’s part?’

‘A strike to the pterion? Only what you or I could pick up after ten minutes on the internet. Such information is easily found.’

Mike joined in. ‘Any useful traces?’

‘Unfortunately’ – Pritchard nodded at the darkening horizon – ‘winter has played its caustic role. Shortly after Ms Philips expired, a heavy shower fell and then frosted over, obliterating most of the material evidence we’d otherwise have been able to exploit. Sadly, Detective, until we find a way of getting our tents in place prior to al fresco murder, British weather will remain the greatest curb on forensic science.’

‘Predictable.’ She glanced at Mike. ‘So what was our heroine doing out here alone at quarter past one in the morning?’

‘No mystery there.’ Maguire pointed up at the housing development poking out above the barricades. ‘Like I said, Sam lived up in that apartment block, courtesy of the state. But she was a smoker, and these days you can’t do that stuff in government-funded estates.
Department of Health have cracked down; so the place is shot through with detectors. Parolees like Sam have to be ten feet outside the boundary before lighting up. Who cares if every other mother in there is chain smoking on their DFS recliners? The locals who will talk to us say Philips was down here three or four times a night, every night since she moved in last weekend.’

‘Good old CPS, winning hearts and minds,’ Hawkins commented. ‘What do we have character-wise?’

Maguire shrugged. ‘Not much. Kept to herself, no real shots at making nice with the locals. We’re working friends and family now. Both parents are dead, but there’s a brother called Simon.’

Hawkins nodded, already constructing a mental list of anyone with a potential interest in Samantha Philips’ death. It could have been a random act of violence, of course: an indiscriminate killer who picked his target purely due to circumstance, although, in Hawkins’ experience, that was almost never the case. To hate someone sufficiently to kill, first you had to care.

The vast majority of murders were committed by those emotionally involved with their victims. Motivation for anyone to wait out an entire jail term and then settle the perceived debt as soon as the focus of their rage was released could come only from deeply impassioned roots. Anyone with strong emotional connections – and therefore prospective discontent with the deceased – had to be a suspect, at least. Potentials to exclude, therefore, began with boyfriends,
husbands, or significant others present or past, which might reduce the likelihood that this murder was, as the media proposed, linked to Valentine’s Day.

Then there was the brother. It seemed unlikely that a sibling’s rage could spawn such a callous act, but you never knew. A potential lifetime of resentment would only deepen the roots of such hatred, for which a paid assassin would be the perfect shroud. However, Hawkins still wasn’t convinced that emotionally imbued vendettas were ever settled in so calculated a style.

Still, the investigation would soon reveal its protagonist’s past, along with any smoke that might belie fire. People rarely jumped straight from law-abiding behaviour to murder, so if the brother and any exes had no form, it was less likely to be one of them. All of which meant their strongest line of inquiry had to be Philips’ criminal past. Revenge was one of the strongest incentives for murder, and not only did Sam have history of her own in that regard, she’d just spent six years locked up with hundreds of other people in exactly the same situation.

Typically, once a person has crossed the Rubicon of murder, life changed for good; the perpetrator’s existence was permanently scarred by the irreversibility of their action. And, with that pillar of self-respect gone, a different mind-set often then prevailed.

Once condemned, a killer has little left to lose, a situation that generally transforms their approach to every
interaction. Life becomes a series of trade-offs and threats, simple agreements that ease or prolong the survival of those involved.

Unless one crosses another.

And yet, according to the team’s initial research, Samantha Philips had made it through her time inside without major incident. She’d kept her head down and done her stint, never showing up on the prison radar as a troublemaker or upsetting fellow cons. It was unusual, but Philips had left prison without any known grudges against her; a state colloquially known as ‘clean’.

As a result, Hawkins decided the investigation should now prioritize anyone close to Brendan Marsh, the man who allegedly raped, and was then murdered by, Sam Philips.

Taking one last scan of the darkening green, she looked up at her second in command. ‘Which flat was she in?’

‘Twenty-eight.’

‘Let’s see it, then.’ She banged the armrests of her chair, indicating that she was ready to leave.

‘Sorry, no can do.’ Mike jabbed a thumb at the estate. ‘Flat’s second floor, so unless you want a piggyback or you’re up to climbing a bunch of stairs, it’ll have to wait.’

Hawkins was about to fight her way out of the chair when Otis saved her.

‘It’s okay.’ He retrieved the iPad from Pritchard. ‘I’ve got pictures.’

He
fiddled for a moment before handing her the tablet. The first image showed a small studio flat with plain walls and a dirty carpet, to one side of which was a makeshift bed. A few boxes were stacked against the rear wall, presumably clothes and possessions that had remained in storage during Samantha’s jail time, possibly with the brother. Otherwise, the place was bare.

Subsequent photos depicted an equally clutter-free kitchen and bathroom, perhaps unsurprising when you considered that Philips had been in residence for no more than a week.

Hawkins passed the iPad back to King. ‘Any observations about the places these pictures don’t show?’

The photographer thought for a second. ‘Only an overriding smell of damp.’

‘Okay.’ She turned to Mike. ‘Had she been out and about much?’

‘Sure doesn’t look that way. Cupboards are full of canned goods, so I’d say she was holed up for a while. Only reason she came out here was to smoke.’

Hawkins nodded. ‘So what was she doing for cash?’

‘Unknown. The court set up some interviews for manual work – you know, reintegration stuff – but they weren’t till later this week.’

She made a mental note to check the woman’s financial history. ‘What about the lack of any attempt to unpack?’

‘Maybe
she had nothing worth unpacking?’ Pritchard offered.

‘Could be,’ Hawkins agreed. ‘Or is it the behaviour of someone not planning to stick around?’

Someone who knew they were being hunted down.

20

Bull lay on his back, staring at the underside of the bed above.

‘Nobby’, ‘Swish’, ‘Barker’, and a hundred other names had been scratched into the shabby slats, filling every inch of space so there was nowhere for Bull to carve his own, even if he’d wanted to. How many of these guys were still around? It was probably best not to know.

He stretched in the tight space; there wasn’t much room in the bunks, and this one smelled permanently of sweat. At least he had the lower level, with storage space underneath.

He could hear some of the others talking at the far end of the room. Normally, by now they’d all be out working, but after last night they’d been allowed to rest. He’d crawled into bed about four, but hadn’t slept. His head was full of death.

He’d seen bodies before, but this time it was different. There had been women.

Kids.

They’d lifted the bodies by hand, working in groups to shift the bigger men, lugging the corpses across and passing them up to the guys in the backs of the trucks. Then they’d gone back to search for more, working in teams, but as the bodies became harder to find, the group had begun to spread out. Bull had seen his chance, and slowly drifted away, hoping the others wouldn’t notice he wasn’t making as many return trips.

Then he’d found the baby.

The small body lay crumpled in a corner. Bull had looked around, but no one else was nearby. Reluctantly, he had reached down and picked it up.

But the body broke in two.

Bull had fallen, retching. He’d knelt in the dirt, swallowing bile, then the urge to run hit him. He’d staggered to his feet. It didn’t matter where he was going, or how far he was from home. He just wanted out.

Away from the baby boy with no legs.

The others had found him soon after that, curled in a corner, talking nonsense to himself. The ride back had been shit, too, although Bull was glad no one else had wanted to talk. He’d still been busy trying not to puke.

That feeling had passed, but the images of the previous night came back whenever he shut his eyes. He needed something to take his mind off it all.

Then he remembered the wood.

He rolled to the edge of the bunk and reached underneath, right into the corner. He found what he was looking for and pulled it free, holding the small block of wood up in front of his face. He’d found it there a couple of days ago. He had no idea what type of wood it was, but it was solid enough and, apart from a few rough areas, its surface felt nice.

He ran his fingers along the grain before digging in his pocket for his knife and picking open one of the tools. He tried rubbing down the splinters, but the file was too small, so he swapped to the large blade and began shaving off small chunks instead, pleased to find the wood soft but dense enough to leave a smooth edge.

As he carved, his mind wandered, and for the first time since the night before he began to relax. For a moment he was back in his room, listening to music when he should have been doing homework. It wasn’t so long ago, but now it seemed like another life.

Footsteps interrupted his daydream as someone passed his bunk. He hid the piece of wood behind his leg until they faded. Then he held the carving up and studied it again.

What the fuck?

Maybe it was just the angle. He turned it over. But still the carving reminded him of the same thing.

He put the wood back under the bed and closed his eyes, wishing the thoughts would go away. Last night, destruction and death.

His part in it all.

But he couldn’t forget; the carving looked just like the image now turning over and over behind his eyelids.

It looked like the baby boy with no legs.

21

The poorly nuanced British accent caught her up. ‘Back in a jiffy.’

Hawkins turned, shaking her head as Mike’s Range Rover pulled noisily away from the kerb. She turned the chair back towards her house and rolled on up the path.

Only when the deep thrum of the engine had faded did she let herself crumple in the seat, exhaling hard, attempting to relieve some of the singing discomfort in her stomach wall. Her heart thumped in her ears, reminding her it was working overtime to repair as well as to sustain. She stayed motionless for a long moment, glad that the February days were still short enough to shroud her in darkness, checking the windows for signs that her dad had heard them arrive. But the curtains remained undisturbed.