The Murder House (26 page)

‘Come on, Dave,' said Evans, laughing. ‘Tell him the good stuff, too. There was no saliva on the envelope,
but
there was a trace of it on the stamp. The writer obviously stuck down the envelope with water, then forgot himself at the post office, and licked it without thinking.'

‘Well, that's something,' said Oakley.

‘Not really,' disagreed Merrick. ‘He left very few cells behind, and FSS doesn't know whether there's enough to be of use. The heat hasn't helped, either, because it degrades the DNA. So the saliva
may
help, but it may not.'

‘Let's keep this to ourselves,' said Oakley. ‘It would be a pity to get everyone excited about it if it then it turns out to be nothing. If there's good news then it'll be a nice surprise, and if it's bad news no one needs to know.'

‘What did Jinic tell you about the Albanian secret police?' Evans asked Davis. ‘Could Kovac have been killed by them? It would explain why they're so damned slow in sending us information.'

‘Albania does have a secret police force but they're no longer very effective. Jinic doesn't think they'd have the funds to commit murder on foreign soil.'

‘He could be wrong,' said Evans.

‘He could,' she agreed. ‘But I don't think so. Albania is a poor country and Kovac's visa was due to run out anyway. Why put themselves to the expense of a foreign raid when they could kill him in Tirana? No, this has nothing to do with the secret police.'

‘Well, I've had enough for today,' said Oakley, standing. ‘I'm going home.'

‘I've got a lead, Guv!' Evans' face was flushed with excitement as he waved a piece of paper. ‘It's from someone who lives in Cornwallis Crescent. That's some way away from Orchard Street, and we've just found out about it, because we've extended our house-to-house enquiries.'

‘Well?' asked Oakley, when his sergeant paused.

‘You remember Mrs Greaves telling us she saw a woman wearing a headscarf walking quickly down the road on the night of the murder? Well, someone else saw her, too.'

‘And?' pressed Oakley. ‘Does the witness know her?'

‘No,' said Evans, ‘but he saw her.'

Oakley took the statement from him and scanned through it quickly, trying not to let his face register his disappointment. The witness told them nothing Mrs Greaves hadn't already mentioned, although he was able to say that the time had been 10.10 p.m. because of a football game he'd been watching in the pub. Apparently his dog had disgraced itself in some way, and he'd been asked to leave before the game was over. He'd missed a crucial goal while he'd hurried home, so could be very exact about the time.

‘The dog went wild when she walked past apparently,' Evans added. ‘Mr Jacobs had a hard time quieting it down.'

‘So it says here,' said Oakley. He pushed the paper back across the desk to his sergeant and laced his fingers behind his head. ‘Where do you think this takes us?'

‘It means a woman was walking very purposefully around the streets near where the murder took place – and possibly
just after
the murder took place – obviously in disguise. I think she could be the killer. Or he.'

‘He?'

‘If the scarf
was
a disguise, this figure might have been a man dressed as a woman. Why not? It'd be a good way to hide yourself.'

‘All right. Greaves and Jacobs clearly saw the same person, so look into it. Get a picture drawn up and show it around to see if anyone else noticed her – or him. Show it at the local shops, and see if they know anyone who dresses like that. Show it to Mrs Paxton, and see if she knows whether any of her son's acquaintances had a liking for scarves.'

Evans nodded enthusiastically. ‘Right you are, Guv.'

It was hard to get dressed and head for work that Saturday. I was on early shift and left my house at twenty past five to be in the station for ten to six. As I walked in posters of Marko Kovac greeted me, stuck up in the reception area and the briefing room. He was a nice-looking man, with dark hair and green eyes with long eyelashes. Still, at least the poster didn't say ‘wanted for murder' on it.

I'd spent the previous evening working on my second anonymous note, using the pen, paper and envelopes I'd used for the first one. I was just as careful as I'd been then, donning gloves to write, and hoovering the table clear of tell-tale fibres. I'd heard about Oakley's visit to James' work, so it was important that I got the team looking back to thinking that Kovac was the body. I'd written:

IT WAS YORKE'S GOONS WHAT DONE FOR KOVACH. IT WAS FOR DRUGS. I SEEN IT ALL.

My mother had called as I was finishing, so I'd had to shove it into the envelope more quickly than I'd have liked, but at least it was done. Rather than risk the post again, I simply dropped it straight into the station's letterbox on my way in, using the cuff of my sleeve to avoid touching it with my fingers.

I had a pleasant surprise when the morning briefing began: it was Wright's day off. His presence was still heavy around me, though. People were going out of their way to be nice, and I wondered if they'd be doing it if he was there, watching to see who was ‘on my side'.

Someone had to guard the murder scene at Orchard Street, and I wasn't surprised to find that Wright had pencilled me in to do it. The other sergeant, Rick Jones, gave an apologetic smile, but didn't have the balls to change it. It was stupid, he said – the night shift had been busy, and hadn't had a man to spare for the task. It had been left unprotected all night, but CID still wanted someone on it that morning. It didn't make sense, he said. But I was still stuck with it.

Jeeves arranged a lift and promised he'd get a car to fetch me at ten so I could have a break. He told me that Oakley planned to come by later so I'd have company for a while, adding that Neel was a good bloke. I pointed out, rather tartly, that it was that particular ‘good bloke' who'd landed me in trouble the previous day. Jeeves feigned a sudden interest in his work, so he wouldn't have to get into that particular can of worms.

I arrived at the house and stood in the garden. A huge lorry was at the far end of the road, trying to do a U-turn and making a total pig's ear of it. Why something that size had elected to tackle such a narrow collection of streets was beyond me. God only knew if it would ever manage to extricate itself.

For no real reason, other than that it was there, I pushed the front door, and was startled to find that whoever had been there last had forgotten to lock it. I glanced at my watch. Quarter past six – it had obviously been left unsecured all night. With no one on duty anyone could have walked in. I stuck my head around the door and heard someone moving about. I was reaching for my radio to call for assistance when a figure appeared.

‘Sarge!' I exclaimed in astonishment.

‘What're you doing here so early?' he demanded, consulting his watch. ‘It's only five past six.'

‘It's quarter past,' I said, bemused. He ducked inside the sitting room, and I followed. What was he doing?

‘Get out!' he hissed. ‘Mind your own business. You're in enough trouble without messing around in here. Go outside and do your job, woman.'

‘I
am
doing my job,' I objected, watching him drop to his hands and knees and concentrate on the floor. ‘I'm guarding the house from people who shouldn't be here.'

‘Fuck off!' he snarled. ‘I got things to do.
Someone's
got to do a bit of coppering around here. We've not got anywhere with women and Pakis in charge, so I'm giving the investigation a bit of a boost. I don't want
my
station branded as not being able to solve a simple murder – and if my meddling lands Oakley and Davis in the shit, then so much the better. Now get the fuck out, and mind your own business.'

He really was a nasty piece of work, I thought in distaste, as my fingers closed around another of the rocks on the mantelpiece. Like James, he was so arrogant and sure of himself that he didn't even bother to watch as he fiddled with whatever he was doing on the floor.

The rock made a thumping sound when it landed, quite different than with James. When I'd hit him, his skull had sounded like an egg smashing on a stone floor. Wright's bones must have been thicker, or perhaps the stone was lighter, because it didn't sound the same at all. For a moment, nothing happened, then Wright flopped to one side. He looked up at me, but I didn't meet his eyes. I hit him again, as hard as I could. The first blow had been on the top of the skull. The second got him on the side of his head, and blood started to flow from his temple.

Without another sound, Wright slumped down and went limp. I felt for a pulse in his neck, but there wasn't one. His nasty little eyes were half open, and it might have been my imagination, but there did seem to be a rather startled expression on his pudgy face.

Superintendent Taylor was exasperated with the slow pace of the investigation, and suspected the team had been following too many iffy leads. So when he collected the post and found another anonymous letter, he screwed up the cheap paper in a gesture of annoyance and tossed it into the bin. He was irked with Oakley for taking the last one seriously when he'd expressly ordered against it, and he wasn't having more of his budget squandered on useless tests.

He turned to the next piece of post and saw that a thick fair hair had settled across it. Where had that come from? Impatiently, he flicked it away and grabbed the envelope beneath.

K
illing Wright was very different from killing James. Perhaps it was because I'd brained a man before and so knew what to expect, or perhaps it was because I really hated Wright, whereas James had been pure instinct. Regardless, there was none of the sick horror with Wright that I'd experienced with James. Until my radio crackled, that was, and Jeeves called me. Then I came back to Earth.

A hundred questions clamoured at me as I stared at the body. Had Wright been alone? Had anyone seen me kill him? I looked around wildly. What had he been doing there in civvies at six in the morning, anyway? And why had he been so keen for me to leave him alone to finish it? I dragged my attention away from my panicky speculations and tried to concentrate on what Jeeves was saying.

‘We've got reports of a lorry causing an obstruction at the end of Orchard Street,' came his crackly voice. ‘Can you go and have a look?'

‘I can see it,' I lied, sounding a lot cooler than I felt. ‘It's a big articulated thing trying to do a sixty-eight-point turn.'

‘Can you sort it out? I've got three calls about it already. It's waking people up by revving its engine, as well as blocking the traffic.'

‘I'm guarding the crime scene,' I said, wanting my objection heard on air, lest someone reported me for not doing the job I'd been assigned. Wright would have done.

‘It's been left all night,' Jeeves pointed out. ‘A few more minutes won't hurt.'

The lorry was inaudible from inside number nine, so it was the homes at the far end of the street that were bothered by the noise. That was good, I thought. It meant neighbours like the Smiths and the Greaves wouldn't be awake, looking out of their windows to see me leave.

Getting away with killing Wright was going to be a piece of cake. He must have sneaked a key from somewhere, but
I
certainly couldn't be expected to have one. All I needed to do was go out, pull the door behind me to lock it, and no one would ever know I'd been in. I glanced at my watch. Eighteen minutes past six. It doesn't take long to kill someone: three minutes in Wright's case. I left everything just as it was, not even worrying about trace evidence this time. I'd helped Oakley to find the first murder weapon, so any fibres or hairs could have been left then.

I took the stone, though, and put it in a plastic evidence pouch before slipping it in my bag. There wasn't much blood on it – obviously, a ball of Portland limestone was good for not causing really nasty, bloody deaths. I didn't think my fingerprints could be lifted from its chalky, dusty surface, but there was no point in taking needless chances.

I examined the door before I left. Wright had left it on the latch, perhaps aiming to make a quick getaway before I arrived. He couldn't have known the house had been left unattended the previous night – unless he'd taken a radio home, which was unlikely – and I suppose he'd anticipated a gap between the nightshift finishing and me starting. Perhaps he'd put me on duty because he thought I'd dally in getting there on time. Regardless, he'd assumed he'd have ten or fifteen minutes for whatever he'd wanted to do. I wondered what it was. Clearly, something he thought would damage Oakley and Davis, and probably something that would frame some poor innocent who'd earned his dislike by being the wrong sex or colour.

I stepped out and pulled the door behind me. Then I stood in the garden and looked around carefully. I couldn't see a curtain quivering or a head sticking out of a window anywhere. I paid special attention to the Smiths' house, but all was still, so I supposed they were still asleep. The same was true of number eleven. I'd been in and out with no one noticing, and if anyone looked now they'd see me in the garden, where I was supposed to be.

I walked to the end of the road where the noise really was loud enough to disturb the residents. I felt calmly detached as I directed the waiting traffic down another road, then set about extricating the driver from his predicament. Between us we managed to get him turned around without trashing any of the parked cars, and he was able to drive away. The residents who'd been watching in dressing gowns and pyjamas gave me a round of applause.

I walked back to number nine, glancing at my watch as I went. It was almost seven. Wright had been dead for less than an hour, and at least ten people could say they'd seen me during that time frame sorting out the lorry. I radioed in to say I was returning to the house.