Читать книгу The Murder House - Michael Wood - Страница 18

Matilda met with Crime Scene Manager Sebastian Flowers outside the Mercers’ house. He looked as if he had been there all night. Usually clean-shaven and neat hair, his black mane was uncombed, and his stubble was patchy. Strangely, the unkempt look suited him.

‘My wife’s two days overdue. I keep seeing red patches every time I close my eyes and I haven’t had a decent meal since breakfast yesterday morning.’

‘Oh. Good morning to you too, Sebastian,’ Matilda said as she approached him.

‘The bodies have gone and forensics finished up about an hour ago. You’re still going to need overshoes and a face mask,’ he said before disappearing into the house.

‘Really?’

‘Unless you want to ruin your shoes.’

She glanced down at her cheap, sturdy slip-ons. ‘They’re hardly Jimmy Choos, but fair enough.’

In the hallway, Matilda looked at the framed photographs on the wall as she struggled into the paper suit. There was a different atmosphere to the house now the bodies had been removed. There was still a chilling darkness about the place, a sense that something horrific had happened here, but the immediate tension had lifted and been replaced with a great sadness.

The framed photographs on the walls showed the family at different stages in their lives. There was one of a handsome young man wearing his graduation outfit of cap and gown. His smile was beaming, and he was flanked either side by proud parents. They were now all dead. Butchered. Usually, Matilda reserved judgement as to the type of person who could commit this level of crime, but now, here, she didn’t care what excuse he used, was he mentally ill, high on drugs, to her, he was an evil, cold-blooded killer, and she would relish catching him.

‘I do have other crime scenes to attend,’ Sebastian called to her from the bottom of the stairs.

‘Sorry. I was looking at the photos.’

‘OK,’ he began, reading from his iPad, ‘this is where Jeremy Mercer was found. As you can see he lost a lot of blood, so the killer hit his target. Jeremy wasn’t stabbed as many times as his parents, but Adele can fill you in on that. Why is he on the stairs? Well, best guess is that he got up in the middle of the night and surprised the killer. There’s no sign of a head wound, so he wasn’t pushed or fell down the stairs. As you can see from the stains on the stairs there are some good shoe prints. Hopefully, we’ll be able to identify what kind of shoes. You can see the distinctive Nike tick logo in one on the landing.’

‘What about fingerprints?’ Matilda asked as Sebastian made his way carefully up the stairs.

‘This was a high traffic area. Don’t forget, there was a wedding here on Sunday. People will have been up and down the stairs on a regular basis. The bannister is covered with prints. None of them identifiable.’

‘Point of entry?’

Sebastian stopped once again mid-way up the stairs. He gave an audible sigh. ‘The marquee at the back of the house. The patio doors were open. The front door was locked and bolted from the inside. Nothing broken on any of the windows. No sign of forced entry. It’s all in my report which is in your inbox. Onwards and upwards,’ he said in a flat monotone as he returned to going up to the first floor.

Matilda remained where she was, looking at the amount of blood soaked into the carpet, and sprayed onto the walls. She wondered what had killed him: the loss of blood as his heart stopped pumping – a slow and agonizing death – or the stab wounds. She took a deep breath and headed up the stairs. She knew the sight that would greet her: the pool of blood where Clive Mercer had been murdered. As Sebastian was in the doorway of the room Rachel was found in, she went straight in there, leaving the horrors of what lay on the landing until she needed to see it.

Reading from his iPad again, Sebastian ran through what had been found in this room. ‘As you know Rachel Mercer was found tied to the chair. She was tied with a dressing gown belt which matches the one hanging on the back of the door, so the killer didn’t come equipped to tying anyone up. It’s been sent for analysis. There are three sets of identifiable latent fingerprints on the bedside table, fortunately it’s a nice smooth silk finish so we’ve been able to get some prints.’

The bed had been stripped of the bedding, including the mattress, so all that remained was the oak frame. There was no blood on the walls, but the carpet was stained with flecks of blood and small bloody paw prints.

Although Matilda was listening to the crime scene manager, her eyes were darting around the room. She wondered how long Rachel had been held prisoner here: what had she been forced to endure? Had she known all along that her family had been killed? If the murders had taken place in the early hours of Sunday morning and Rose hadn’t found them until just before ten o’clock, that was possibly six to eight hours of being tied to a chair, terrified, cold and hungry. What would that do to her mental health?

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘Yes, you’ve got good prints from the bedside table.’

‘No. I was telling you about the stains in the carpet.’

‘Oh. Sorry. Go on.’

Sebastian rolled his eyes. ‘As you can see, forensics have cut a patch out of the carpet. Depending on what they get from them they may need to come back for more. This is going to need to remain an active crime scene for a while.’

‘Not a problem.’

‘The little girl—’ he looked down at his iPad. ‘Rachel. She wasn’t physically harmed in any way. So, identifying the various blood groups will give you information as to who was killed in relation to when Rachel was tied up. No tampering with the window. The main light was on when she was found. Now, this is interesting,’ he said, going to the bedroom door.

Sebastian closed the door and Matilda suddenly felt her blood run cold. She inhaled a deep breath and held it for several seconds longer than usual. There was the distinct aroma of metallic blood with a hint of dog in the air. She put herself in Rachel’s shoes; trapped in the bedroom, tied to the chair, covered in the blood of her dying relatives. She shivered at the thought.

‘On the back of the door is a very clear print of an ear.’

‘An ear?’

‘Yes. Only small, so we’re assuming it’s Rachel’s.’

‘Why would her ear print be on the back of the door?’

He shrugged. ‘Best guess is she heard something out on the landing and pressed her ear against the door to have a listen. We’ve all done that at some point in our lives, to be nosy.’

‘So she could have heard – I don’t know – raised voices or something,’ Matilda surmised. ‘Maybe she heard the killer arguing with her dad. Perhaps.’

Sebastian raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t relish you interviewing her. Poor thing,’ he said in his usual monotone.

He opened the door. Matilda was relieved. She was beginning to feel trapped.

‘Now, on to the landing.’

Matilda swallowed hard. All she could see when she thought about the landing was the head hanging off the body.

‘Nothing of interest here forensically, so we’ll move on upstairs.’

‘Really?’ Matilda asked. She was pleased not to have to linger but was surprised by the lack of forensics.

‘Everything around here has been fingerprinted, the doors, the walls, the bannister, and we’ve found nothing. Obviously, not nothing, the bannister was full of prints, but all of them smudged. Don’t forget, this is the landing – a main thoroughfare of the house. People will have come up to use the toilet, get changed. We haven’t found a decent print at all.’

‘It was a frenzied attack,’ Matilda said, looking up at the ceiling at the sprays of blood. ‘There must have been something, hairs, anything under his fingernails.’

‘Nope. Shall we?’ he said, eager to get to the next bedroom.

Matilda frowned. When a crime scene was as frenzied as this one, when it was obvious the victim had put up a fight, something was usually left behind of the assailant – a hair, a fingerprint, a fibre from his clothing, a bead of sweat. She would have a word with Adele, see if she could find anything from under their fingernails.

‘Are you sure? What about something in the fibres of the carpet?’

‘Matilda, every scene of crime officer who was here has had more than five years’ experience on the job. If they’d have found something they would have documented it and I would have known about it.’

‘I’m not doubting the SOCOs. I’m just saying, a man was stabbed so many times he was almost decapitated, yet the killer left nothing of himself behind.’

‘I can only tell you what we find,’ he said, hugging the iPad close to his chest and walking slowly up the attic stairs.

Matilda remained on the landing. The image of Clive Mercer’s stricken body was etched on her brain. He was white from having bled out. The number of stab wounds to his neck were many. The attack was frenzied. How could the killer not have left something, anything of him behind? This crime scene did not make any sense.

The stairs leading up to the attic were also smudged with bloody footprints where the killer had run up and down. The wall behind the bed was an explosion of blood. The sprays were high and long. It was difficult to understand how one person could perform such a lengthy, brutal attack, unless they had superhuman strength. Unless there was more than one person involved.

‘We managed to get an excellent bloody footprint from the left side of the bed.’ Sebastian pointed to where a square of carpet had been cut out. ‘Now, judging by the shoes in front of the wardrobe, Clive Mercer was a size eight. The bloody print was from a size ten.’

‘Only one print?’

‘Yes. Best guess is he put his foot up on the bed, for whatever reason, stood in the pool of blood, and placed it back on the carpet. It also matches the print from the landing with the Nike tick.’

‘Is that the only decent print in this room?’

‘Yes.’

‘Shouldn’t there be more prints? What about when he left the room? Unless he levitated.’

‘There probably were, but look around you, the carpet is saturated.’

Matilda looked at the floor. Her overshoes were stained red. She pondered the sight before her. She looked at the route the killer would have taken from the left side of the bed to the door after killing. The single footprint didn’t make sense.

‘What happened here?’ Matilda asked looking at a large smudge of grey powder by the dressing table.

‘Lindsay knocked over her fingerprint kit. Lucky the carpet’s stained with blood or she’d have a hefty cleaning bill on her hands,’ he said with a smile. ‘Anyway,’ he said, clearing his throat, ‘you’ll like this next bit.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh yes. We have a hair.’

‘Just one?’

‘Sometimes it only takes one. It was under the woman’s little finger on her right hand. It’s only small but the root is attached.’

‘Fingerprints and a hair, I’ll take that.’

‘You can’t commit a crime this frenzied and leave nothing of yourself behind,’ he said, unknowingly echoing her earlier thoughts.

But he didn’t on the first-floor landing, she thought.

‘Have forensics finished now?’

‘No. They’ve finished up here but there’s the marquee in the back garden. I doubt we’ll get anything from there as there will have been hundreds of guests here for the reception. However, it has to be done.’

‘True,’ Matilda said. ‘Well, thank you for this, Sebastian. You and your team have done an amazing job.’

‘That’s what we’re here for. Obviously, the fun starts now, back at the lab. As soon as we’ve got anything, I’ll let you know. I’ll email you across the crime scene photos once I’ve been through them all. As you can guess, there’s a lot to go through.’

‘Thanks, Sebastian.’

‘Well, I’ll leave you to it. I’m off to see if my wife has gone into labour yet.’

‘Give her my best.’

‘Will do,’ he said, waving as he left the room.

Matilda stood in the middle of the bedroom and looked around her. She went over to the dormer window and looked outside. It was a beautiful area of Sheffield. She pushed open the window and leaned out. It was a cold morning and she shivered as a stiff breeze entered the room. Looking down, she saw white-suited forensic officers going in and out of the marquee. Everything had to be bagged and tagged. It was probably useless and no relevance to the case, but, maybe the killer had taken a sneaky drink from a champagne bottle, or bit into a lump of cheese and left behind a pattern of some distinct dental work.

Wishful thinking.

She turned back and looked at the bloodbath before her. Serena Mercer had been obliterated. She frowned as she thought. Jeremy Mercer was stabbed only a few times, and, according to Sebastian, it appeared he surprised the intruder, which meant he was killed first. If that was the case, why did he receive only a couple of incapacitating stab wounds while his parents were subjected to a fierce attack? He was a young man. He was tall. He wouldn’t have been as easy to overcome as a couple in their sixties. What did that mean? Was it just the couple who were the focus of the murder? Did the killer think they were alone which is why Rachel was unharmed?

‘Ma’am?’

Matilda jumped at the sound of being called. She turned to see Scott standing in the doorway.

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.’

‘No. It’s fine. What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. We’ve found a few laptops and tablets we’re taking back to the station. I’ve found a file in the boxroom being used as a study. It’s got a load of bank statements. I thought you might want to have a look.’ There was definitely something wrong with Scott. He was subdued, and he had a permanent worry frown on his forehead, giving him the impression he was about to burst into tears at any moment. Maybe he was.

‘Sure,’ she replied. ‘So, is everything all right?’ she asked as they carefully made their way down the stairs.

‘Yes. Fine.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. Fine,’ he repeated, more firmly.

He stormed into the boxroom at the end of the corridor and opened the top drawer of a filing cabinet.

Matilda immediately went to the bookshelves. Since she had acquired the book collection from Jonathan Harkness, a killer she hadn’t wanted to be guilty, she had been addicted to reading, and collecting books in general. Whenever she went into someone’s house, she headed straight for the bookcase to see what they had in their collection. The Mercers had no crime fiction. They were mostly biographies of historical figures and international monarchs. Although some of the covers were striking, the content held very little interest to Matilda, so she joined Scott at the filing cabinet.

‘They were very meticulous people,’ Scott said. ‘A file for everything. Gas, electricity, phone, water, council tax, pension plans.’

‘Anything juicy in the bank statements?’

Scott handed his boss a box file from the top of the cabinet. ‘All in monthly order.’

Matilda placed the box on the desk, now free of the desktop computer, and opened it. ‘Bloody hell look how much they made every month. I’m in the wrong job. What did they do, again?’

‘She was a neurosurgeon and he was an anaesthetist. Or it could have been the other way round.’

‘There doesn’t seem to be much of interest here,’ Matilda said, scanning the statements. ‘They have quite a few direct debit payments to charity. They really are the perfect family.’

‘Were,’ Scott corrected.

‘Take them back to the station and see if you can find anything. Don’t spend too long on it, though.’

‘Will do.’ He took the file from her and headed for the door.

‘Why would someone want to kill an entire family, and in such a horrific way?’ Matilda mused.

Scott stopped in the doorway. He turned back to his boss but gave her a shrug for a reply.

‘I mean, all killers believe they’re killing for a reason. So, if you have a gripe with someone, fair enough, you come in and you kill them, but this? This is overkill. And if someone has that level of anger towards them, then surely their friends or neighbours would know about it. Yet, according to everyone around here they’re Mr and Mrs Perfect. What aren’t we seeing?’ she asked, folding her arms.

‘A secret life. Maybe they’re in the witness protection programme and they’ve been found out.’

It sounded far-fetched but, in this instance, it had a sense of realism about it.

‘I get the feeling this is going to be a very complex investigation.’

Scott didn’t say anything. He stayed where he was and looked at Matilda, as if waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, he turned and left the room. Matilda followed.

‘Scott, come into the living room for a moment,’ Matilda said once they were at the bottom of the stairs. She took off her overshoes and went in.

‘What is it?’ he asked, standing in the doorway, still holding the file.

‘Put the file down and take a seat.’ She patted the seat next to her on the large sofa, but he went over to the armchair. ‘Scott, what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I’m fine.’

‘You’re not. You’ve been quiet for weeks. Are you having personal problems?’

‘No.’

‘Everything all right at home? Rory isn’t pissing you off or anything?’

‘No. We get on well.’

‘How’s the training for the marathon?’

‘Fine.’

‘You can talk to me, you know, Scott.’

‘I know I can, but I’ve nothing to say,’ he said. Not once had he made eye contact with Matilda.

‘OK,’ she gave in. ‘I don’t believe you, but OK. Look, if you want to talk to me, about anything, please, come and see me.’

‘I will.’

‘Either in the office or you can come to my house. You know where I live. I may give you a paintbrush, but you’re welcome.’

‘Thanks,’ he said with a fake smile. He stood up and left the room, taking the file of bank statements with him.

Matilda’s phone rang. It was Sian. ‘I’ve heard back from the FCO,’ she immediately said. ‘Leah and Oliver are going to get the next available plane back to England. They should be in Sheffield by this evening. They’ve been told to come straight to the station.’

‘How did they take it?’

‘Well, language barrier aside, Leah didn’t seem to believe what she was being told.’

‘I can understand that. We’ll meet her at the station and take her to the hospital when we’ve had a word with her. She’ll want to be with her niece.’

‘Adele called as well; she wants you to pop in and see her at the mortuary.’

‘Will do.’

‘Oh, and one more thing,’

‘Go on,’

‘Rory’s handed in his resignation.’