The Murder House (14 page)

Smith's house was attached to number nine, so he was the one most likely to have seen or heard anything. Unfortunately, as he and his wife had been on holiday when the murder had taken place – it did not need a pathologist to tell Oakley that the victim had been dead for more than the time since they had returned – they could tell the police nothing about the murder itself. Oakley went to number eleven, which was next door but separated from the murder scene – and the smell – by a small garage. The Greaves family lived there – mother and son. A dark-haired, tired-looking woman opened the door in response to his knock.

‘It isn't Mrs Smith, is it?' she asked worriedly, standing aside to let him enter a brightly decorated hallway. ‘I thought she looked peaky when she got back from the airport, and I told her to lie down.'

‘It's a problem with number nine,' said Oakley, showing her a warrant card that she barely glanced at. ‘Do you know if anyone's been staying there recently?'

‘Doctor Kovac,' replied Mrs Greaves. ‘But he went back to Albania at the end of July. There hasn't been anyone since, and the lights have been off.'

‘When was the last time you saw lights?'

She looked flustered. ‘I don't pay much attention to dates. But there haven't been any for a couple of weeks. Not since Doctor Kovac left.'

‘Did you see him leave? With his suitcases?'

‘Well, no, but he told me he was going at the end of the month, because his family planned to spend August at the seaside in Albania.'

‘Do you have his address in Albania?'

‘No, we only exchanged a few polite words when we saw each other out front. Mister Smith might know it, though. Doctor Kovac liked him – he gave him a sausage. Has something happened to him? Is he a drug smuggler? There's lots of that going on these days.'

‘Why do you mention drugs?' asked Oakley. ‘Did Kovac ever cause you to believe that he was involved in anything like that?'

‘No, but it's always the quiet ones, isn't it? Fred West had neighbours who thought he was normal. I read it in the
Daily Mail
.'

‘We've found a body,' said Oakley, knowing she would soon see it carried out. ‘We think this person died in suspicious circumstances, so anything you can tell us would be very helpful.'

‘Doctor Kovac is dead?' she cried. ‘Oh, the poor man! He had children. His poor children!'

‘We don't know who it is yet,' said Oakley, aiming to calm her by keeping his voice gentle. ‘What can you tell me about the last time you saw Doctor Kovac? Take your time, now. Don't rush.'

She sank to a frayed red sofa and began to gnaw a fingernail. ‘I think it was about two weeks ago. It was a Monday. Yes! A Monday! July the thirtieth. I know, because Kevin was listening to
Clare in the Community
on the radio, and that's on Mondays. I saw Doctor Kovac and called out to him. He told me he was off in the morning, but that he'd be back in December. He was a physicist. Something to do with partings.'

‘A particle physicist?'

‘That sounds right.' She smiled. ‘You must be clever, to know that. My Kevin would've known, too, before his accident. He doesn't know much now.'

‘Your husband?'

She stared down at her feet. ‘My son. He was in a car crash two years ago and … well, he doesn't know much these days.'

‘What was Kovac doing?'

‘Throwing stuff in the bin, tidying up. You know, like you do when you're leaving a place. He was a nice man, very clean. He said he liked our English baths, if you can believe it! He said he liked to fill them right to the top and lie in them.'

‘What about your husband?' asked Oakley. ‘Would he have noticed anything?'

‘Not unless he could've seen down from Middlesborough,' she said bitterly. ‘We're divorced, and I haven't set eyes on him for six years. He doesn't even visit Kevin.'

‘I'm sorry to keep pressing you, Mrs Greaves, but you may be the only person who can help us. Are you sure you didn't see Kovac after that Monday?'

She nodded. ‘But I imagine he left on Tuesday morning. It's not easy getting Kevin up and dressed, so I never notice much outside, I'm afraid.'

‘Would Kevin?' asked Oakley hopefully.

‘He's blind,' she said in a low voice. ‘It was the glass, you see. From the accident. It went into his eyes.' She swallowed hard. ‘Mister Smith was going to have a barbecue tomorrow, and he'd invited me and Kevin. He won't be able to do it now, will he?'

‘It might be best to postpone it.'

‘Kevin was really looking forward to it. He hasn't been to one since the accident, and—'

She burst into tears, leaving Oakley patting her shoulder in inadequate sympathy.

I heard everything on my radio – Oakley calling for SOCO, photographers, the police surgeon, the works. Wright was quiet, though. I suppose he was looking around the house, satisfying his ghoulish curiosity while Oakley did all the work.

I went to my burglary calls and took down the information, trusting the complainants were giving me all the details I needed because I barely heard what they said. All my attention was on the radio. What had Oakley found? Did he know yet that the body was James Paxton? If not, when would he? Hours? By morning, I was sure. There couldn't be that many missing men in their late twenties wearing expensive suits.

And then what would I do? Carry on as normal, I told myself. The hardest part had to be the actual killing, and I was way past that. All I had to do was sit tight, act as though the body in Orchard Street was nothing to do with me, and everything would be fine. The only things to worry about were the phone call and the purple stone.

I took a deep breath. I'd already decided that the rock wouldn't be good for fingerprints, so I should stop fretting about that. And the phone call? That was easy too – time of death was notoriously difficult to pinpoint, and it became harder the longer a person was dead, so no one could prove that I was the last person to speak to him. But what should I say if anyone asked why he'd called me? That it was a wrong number? That I'd been out, and he must've got my answer machine?

I decided to go home and think everything out really carefully. I wouldn't make the mistake I'd made with Colin, when I should have denied that I'd slept with James. I'd be cautious and precise and, if there was any justice in the world, it would work out right. After all, James had been blackmailing me – he was the one who deserved to die. I was
not
going to do time for him.

The previous winter, a man had been stabbed on Park Street in a brawl between rival football gangs. An incident room had been set up while the squad had tracked down the culprit. The case meant that New Bridewell had recent experience of murder enquiries, and the system that swung into operation was smooth and efficient. Superintendent Taylor was to head a mix of local officers and imported experts. Inevitably, uniform was to help with some of the routine house-to-house enquiries.

The first man Taylor chose was Oakley. He needed competent, meticulous officers, and Oakley was probably the most painstaking detective Taylor had ever met. He wanted Clare Davis, too, and a new man named Dave Merrick, who had valuable computer skills. He took Evans because he and Oakley seemed to work well together.

At seven thirty on Saturday morning, Taylor assembled his team in the basement, which was now the Orchard Street Incident Room. He had already heard it called the Kovac Incident Room, and was quick to correct it – he didn't want his investigation to start with shaky assumptions.

He looked around at the men and women he had gathered, and nodded his satisfaction. A good mix of young and keen, and older and experienced. Many had worked on the Park Street stabbing, and knew exactly what was expected.

‘I won't speak for long,' he began, ‘because we've got a lot to do today. I just want to fill you in on a few details. First, we have a body in a house, wrapped in plastic. The cause of death was a single blow to the head. The pathologist has confirmed the death as suspicious. The house was leased short term to overseas scholars and, as far as we know, the last was one Doctor Marko Kovac from Albania.'

He nodded to Oakley, who took up the tale. ‘According to the neighbours, Kovac was due to leave at the end of July, but none of them saw him go. DI Davis and DC Johns will visit Academic Accommodations today, to get a home address for him and to find out who, if anyone, was supposed to move in next. Kovac was in his early thirties, and
could
be the body in the kitchen. We need to wait for the full post mortem and the DNA results to be sure.'

‘You and DS Evans can look for the murder weapon,' said Taylor. ‘Start with the P.M. Obviously, you'll need some idea of what we're looking for, and the only way to get that is from the pathologist. The rest of you will be on door-to-door enquiries in Orchard Street and at the university. It's the weekend, so people are more likely to be at home than during the week. We've contacted the physics department, and they'll give us a list of Kovac's colleagues later today.'

‘So we do think the body is Kovac?' asked Evans.

‘It's a working assumption,' said the superintendent. ‘Unfortunately, lying in a hot room for two weeks – the pathologist's rough guess – means facial identification is out. As Neel said, we need to wait for DNA and the P.M. However, Dave Merrick can contact Interpol and the Albanian police, so we'll have a head start if it does turn out to be Kovac. Questions?'

Clare Davis raised her hand. ‘The body was found in the kitchen. Is that room overlooked?'

It was Oakley who answered. ‘There are no curtains on the window, but the garden is enclosed by a five-foot wall that's difficult to see over from the neighbours on either side – and there's a garage between number nine and number eleven. The people who live in the house at the back would be able to see into Kovac's kitchen from their bathroom if their windows weren't frosted and unopenable.'

‘Were any blunt instruments of suitable size and shape retrieved from the kitchen?' asked Evans. ‘Rolling pins or a domestic fire extinguisher, for example?'

‘That's what you and I'll be doing today. I didn't see anything obvious last night.'

‘I heard the body was wrapped in bin liners,' said Merrick, a morose man who'd recently transferred from the Lancashire Police to be closer to his ageing mother. ‘Is that true?'

‘Black plastic sheeting,' corrected Taylor. ‘The body was rolled in it, like Cleopatra in a carpet. Perhaps it was a prelude to taking it somewhere and dumping it. Any more questions?'

Dave Merrick raised his hand again. ‘Did Barry Wright throw up all over the crime scene?'

The room erupted with a chorus of noises – derisive laughter, expressions of disgust and gratuitous requests for more detailed information.

‘Come on, man,' said Taylor irritably. ‘That sort of thing isn't going to help.'

Merrick looked indignant. ‘I wasn't trying to be funny, sir. I want to know whether samples were sent to FSS – the vomit might have been the killer's.'

From anyone else, the remark would have been made to make sure word of Wright's mishap spread around the station, but Merrick was too dour for malice. The tale had seeped out via the SOCOs, who had fallen foul of the obnoxious sergeant before and had been delighted with the opportunity to hit back. But Taylor did not want trouble between Wright and the murder squad. He dealt with the question briskly.

‘Of course. However, I doubt it will lead anywhere, so I advise you to put it out of your minds. Any more questions?'

‘What if the body
isn't
Kovac?' asked DC Johns. ‘What if he really did go back to Albania and this is someone else? How do we proceed then?'

‘It's possible that Academic Accommodations leased the house to someone after Kovac,' said Oakley. ‘We need to find out before we start to speculate.'

‘Right,' said Taylor loudly, cutting across the buzz of speculation that followed. ‘Thank you, lads and lasses. All I ask is that you keep up the paperwork. Give it to Dave, who'll be running HOLMES 2 – the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System. However, remember: crap in, crap out. It won't help us unless we help it. And be careful of the anonymous rubbish.'

‘Sir?' asked Merrick, bemused.

‘Unsigned letters, anonymous phone calls or mysterious emails,' elaborated Taylor. ‘I don't like them, and I don't want us wasting time on them. If anyone has good information they can damn well tell us about it upfront, not skulk behind a veil of secrecy.'

‘I don't think we should ignore them altogether, sir,' said Davis uneasily. ‘Sometimes such tip-offs give us our best leads.'

‘Ask West Yorkshire Police what
they
think of anonymous tips,' said Taylor harshly. ‘The hoaxer who made those “Geordie accent” tapes left the Yorkshire Ripper free to kill again. If the tip is genuine then whoever gives it should have the guts to put his name to it.' He rubbed his hands together. ‘Now, go out and catch me a murderer.'

‘What was all that about?' asked Merrick after Taylor had left. ‘I thought we were supposed to take
any
information seriously.'

‘Taylor was caught out badly by a hoaxer once,' said Oakley, ‘and he's been wary of anonymous tip-offs ever since. He has a point: there are a lot of people who like to see us waste time and resources.'

‘And others who get pleasure from seeing us blunder along in the direction they point us,' added Davis. ‘I suppose it gives them a sense of power.'

‘So we ignore these tip-offs?' asked Merrick.

‘Yes, if they're delivered by a youthful voice with a lot of sniggering in the background,' said Oakley eventually. ‘No, if it sounds like someone genuinely afraid to give his or her name.'