by M K Farrar
She finished cleaning up Reese’s mess and then whizzed around the lounge, plumping cushions and straightening picture frames.
The doorbell went, and she hurried to answer it, smoothing back her hair and hoping she didn’t look too flustered. She had to remind herself that these people were working for her, and not the other way around. She hated other people coming into her house, though, always feeling as though it was being judged. She tried her best to keep the place as tidy as possible, but it felt like a never-ending task between work and the kids. She’d thought it had been hard enough when the children had been little, and she’d been forever picking up toys and hoovering crumbs. But they only seemed to have got worse as they’d got older, and now they could help themselves to their own food and yet never seemed to manage to clear up after themselves. They drove her crazy. Maybe she was a bad parent and needed to come down on them harder, but life for a teenager didn’t exactly seem easy either. They had so much pressure on them all the time that she hated giving them a tough time at home as well.
Helen opened the door.
An attractive man in his late forties in a suit stood on her doorstep, a tall, younger man standing slightly behind and to one side of him.
“Mrs Bolton,” the older of the two said brightly, putting out his hand for her to shake. “James Voysey from Stem and Prince Estate Agents.”
She shook his hand. “Yes, hello. Come on in. I’ve been expecting you.”
The two men stepped into the house.
“This is my colleague, Philip Sweeny,” James introduced.
She shook his hand, too.
“You have a beautiful home, Mrs Bolton,” he said.
“Thank you.” She did like this house. It was a modern new build and was surprisingly spacious, but they weren’t selling because of the house. It was the location that was no longer working for them.
James agreed with his colleague. “Yes, you do. Thank you for choosing Stem and Prince to market your property. We’ll be taking some photographs and also some three-sixty video footage for you today, so we can get everything online hopefully by the end of the week.”
It surprised her. “Oh, that soon?”
He flashed her a wide smile. “No reason why not, assuming you’re happy to progress with everything. I understand you’ve priced for a quick sale.”
“That’s right. My husband has a new job, and he’s commuting, and it’s not easy, for any of us really. Feels like he’s barely here.”
“Of course, I completely understand. That must be hard on the family.”
“It is, that’s why we need to move. We’d thought it might be manageable, but unfortunately it’s not.” She remembered her manners. “Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? Water?”
“No, I’m fine thanks.” He turned to the younger man. “You need anything, Philip?”
“No, but thanks for the offer.”
She smiled at him. He really was very tall—at least six feet three or even four. She assumed he was the photographer, since he carried equipment with him.
“I’ll just let you get on with it then,” she said, feeling awkward. “Oh, and my kids are in their rooms. Just tell them to step out for a minute while you do the photos.” She hesitated. “On second thought, I’ll make them go and sit in the garden.”
She also wanted to make sure they hadn’t sneaked any bowls or cups up there while her back had been turned, or that one of them would have left their dirty underwear out in plain sight for the estate agents to deal with.
“We’ll get started down here,” James Voysey said. He jerked his chin at his colleague. “That work all right with you?”
Philip shrugged as though he was already bored. “Of course.”
“Shout if you need anything,” Helen said.
She left them to it and sprinted up the stairs.
“Reese? Tyler?” She knocked on her kids’ doors. “The estate agents are here. You need to make yourselves scarce.” Muttered complaints came from inside both the rooms. “Come on, you two. Don’t make me show you up in front of a couple of strangers.”
A humph of irritation came from her daughter’s room. The door opened, and Reese appeared, scowling in the gap. “This is so unfair. I have homework to do.”
“It won’t be for long. Just go and sit in the garden for ten minutes.”
“What? The garden? It’s practically winter!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s barely autumn. Do what I ask for once,” Helen snapped, losing her temper.
“Fine.”
Tyler emerged from his room, too, barely glancing up from whatever game he was playing on his Switch handset.
She gave them a few seconds to get down the stairs and then darted into her son’s bedroom and flung open a window to let some air in. As much as Reese drove her crazy, at least her bedroom didn’t smell like a boy’s changing room.
She checked there was nothing in the bedrooms that would show her up, straightened the beds out again, and then let herself breathe. She pasted on another fake smile, as though everything was just fine, and went back downstairs. She found the estate agents taking photographs and measurements of the kitchen.
“Everything all right?” she asked them. They were probably wondering what the hell had happened to her.
James smiled at her. “Yes, almost done down here and then we’ll head upstairs.”
“Great, thanks.”
Helen moved out of the way to allow them both to traipse up the stairs. She hoped they weren’t going to take long. She still had dinner to start, and she sensed the resentment coming from her children—who were still out in the garden—like actual shockwaves.
The thought of going through multiple viewings and offers, and people dropping out at the last minute, and house sales falling through depressed her.
She was stressed out and exhausted. The last thing she wanted to do was clean the bloody house all the time for viewings and argue with the kids to keep things tidy, but what choice did she have? Andy wasn’t here most of the time so it wasn’t as though he could do it.
She was excited for the move, though, in part because it would get her out of the crappy job she hated, answering customer service calls for an insurance company. At least Andy would be on a higher wage down there, so it would take the pressure off her having to earn. She still planned to work though. She couldn’t be one of those women who had to ask their husbands for money.
She’d loved living in Bristol, but it was time for a change. The house they hoped to put an offer in on was right on the edge of Exeter and backed onto some gorgeous countryside. She pictured them all heading out for long family walks down the river. Not that they did such a thing here—in fact, she struggled just to get Reese out of her bedroom—but she could always dream.
The estate agents were being thorough, getting multiple photographs and taking measurements of each room. She appreciated they were doing a good job, but she did wish they would go already. She pictured Reese on the verge of blowing her lid outside and storming off, and she didn’t have the emotional energy to deal with her teenager right now.
Finally, both men trotted back down the stairs.
“I don’t think it’s going to take long to sell,” James Voysey said. “This is a perfect family home, well decorated, and a great layout. It being a new build means there’s little maintenance to do, and it’s energy efficient. Truly, it is a lovely home.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m sure you say that to all your clients.”
“Oh, believe me, some of them would mean I was lying through my teeth.”
She laughed and hoped he wasn’t lying now.
He continued, “So the photos and details will be online within the next day or two, and the three-sixty virtual tour footage will take a little longer as it needs a bit more specialist work doing to it, but we’ve found it really does help people get a good idea if a house is for them without having to disturb you with actual viewings.”
; “That sounds good,” she said with a relieved smile. “I can’t stand time-wasters.”
“Neither can we, and it really does help weed them out.”
“Great.” She showed them both to the door.
James shook her hand again, and Philip the photographer gave her a nod.
The two men left, and she was able to shut the door behind them. She remembered the children in the back garden and went to call them in.
“It’s okay,” she said, sticking her head out the back door to where both kids sat on the decking on the perfectly comfortable outside furniture. “They’ve gone. You can come back in now.”
Reese shoved back the chair and stood. “Now we’re not going to show you up, you mean?”
“Just come inside.”
Reese glared at her as she pushed by. “I hate this.”
Helen let out a sigh. “It’s not exactly much fun for me either, sweetheart.”
She glanced at the wall clock and counted down the hours until her husband would be home.
Chapter Four
Ryan called a briefing as soon as he got back in the office. It was already past knocking-off time, but with a case this big, everyone was going to be pulling some serious overtime.
He stopped by DCI Mandy Hirst’s office to fill her in.
“I’d like to bring in extra hands for this one,” he told her. “Four bodies are a lot for our team to handle.”
She nodded in agreement. “As long as you can get the case solved, you can have as many people as you need. Got any theories so far?”
“Possibly the teenage son went off the rails and killed the rest of the family, but until we’ve had a report from SOCO and the post-mortems, we’re just guessing.”
“No witnesses?” she asked.
“None that we’ve found so far, though one of the neighbours heard something during the night. I’ve got a friend of the family who reported there being something wrong sitting in interview room one, and I’m hoping she’ll be able to shed some light on the family situation. We’ve got uniformed officers doing interviews with the neighbours and we’ll pick up from them if they find anyone who has seen or heard anything. It’s a regular street with plenty of families living on it. Hopefully someone will have seen something.”
“Yes, let’s hope so. I’ll see you in the briefing room.”
“No problem.”
Ryan left her office and crossed the floor to his desk. The place was a hive of activity, a constant thrum of background noise of phones ringing, people talking, and computer keys tapping. His desk was one place of calm, and that was how he liked to keep it. Everything was perfectly organised and in exactly the right place. If anything had been moved or misplaced, he found it impossible to concentrate until he’d set things right again.
He quickly printed off everything he needed for the briefing and took it to the briefing room. To a board on the wall, he pinned photographs of the crime scene, the bodies, names of the victims, and a local map with the location of the house pinned to it. As the case was gradually built over time, and they learned more about the family and made connections, the board would be added to. Some people liked to have everything online, but Ryan was still more old school. Computers were fine, but files could be easily missed. Just like how he preferred to take his notes using pen and paper, he liked to see things in real life.
As he worked, people filed into the room and took their seats. DCI Hirst was last to join them and positioned herself at the back of the room. From their time working together, he knew she’d allow Ryan to run things and would only step in if he needed her to.
Ryan took in the sight of his team—DCs Penn, Quinn, Kharral, and Dawson— and some new faces brought in for extra bodies. Mallory sat in the front row, her legs crossed, and a notepad balanced on her lap.
“Okay, everyone, thanks for coming.” He ran through a roll call and then went over everything that had been learned so far. “We believe the final person inside the house to remain alive was the sixteen-year-old son. He was found in his room with the murder weapon still embedded in his body. As of yet, we don’t know if the stab wound was self-inflicted, but until we know one way or another, we treat the boy just like any of the other victims.
“I’m afraid we’re all going to be working late tonight, but I’m sure you all understand why. We have four people dead, and time is of the essence. I’m going to need someone to coordinate with the uniformed officers to find out if there’s anyone who needs to be interviewed in more detail. We already have one neighbour who believes they heard something around three a.m., so focus around that time. Someone else might have heard or even seen something and dismissed it.”
“I can do that, boss,” DC Linda Quinn offered.
He gave her a nod of thanks. She was good with the public and would be a calming influence on the shellshocked neighbours.
“I want any CCTV gone over. What street cameras do we have around the area? Check local shops and other businesses, and of course, find out if any of the houses on the street have home security cameras.”
DC Craig Penn—the youngest member of their team—called out, “If the son was responsible for the murders, are we likely to see anything on street cameras?”
“Until we have proof that it was the son, we’re keeping all our options open. I’m not going to let the bastard who did this get away because we were blindsided by chasing the wrong idea. For all we know, that’s exactly what the killer wants us to do.” Since Penn had been the one to single himself out, Ryan figured he might as well be the person for the job. “You can take the CCTV footage then, Craig. See what you can learn.”
“Yes, boss.”
“The house had a home alarm system,” Ryan continued. He looked to DC Dev Kharral. “Dev, can you find out what company it was with and get the history on the alarm being disabled and armed. Also, find out what kind of information the company holds. Would anyone within the business have access to the security codes?”
Dev nodded and typed something into his phone.
“Shonda,” he said, addressing DC Dawson. “Can you request their phone records. Each of the family members, including the eleven-year-old girl, had a mobile phone. I want their records, see if any calls were made during the night, or if there were any unusual call patterns showing in the days leading up to their murders.”
“On it,” she replied.
Ryan took in the other faces. “I want to find out everything there is to know about the lives of the Wyndhams. Who were their friends, what other family did they have? Where did they like to hang out, what are their hobbies? What about the kids’ schools? How were they liked—especially the son? What were their jobs? Did they have any issues, drinking, gambling, drugs, things like that? They seem like a normal, middle-class family, but normal families don’t end up slaughtered in their beds. There has to be a story behind this, and I want to know what it is.”
Heads nodded in agreement.
“We also need to get a press report out. The newspapers are swarming like flies, and it’s only going to get worse. A case like this will make national news.” Ryan hardened his tone. “It goes without saying that I don’t want anyone talking to the press. I’m sure they’ll have a field day with the headlines about a murder house, but if I see so much as a whisper about our suspicions about the boy, I will come down hard on everyone.”
He had to hope the neighbours wouldn’t talk to the press too much and put any ideas in the reporters’ heads. He didn’t want a victim to be vilified in the press when there was currently little proof as to what had actually happened.
“I’m going to speak to the friend of the family who called this in, a Mrs Alison Perry. She’s waiting in our interview room, and since she was close to the family, I’d like to hear what she has to say first hand. Does anyone have any questions?”
He gave them a minute to speak up, but it seemed they all understood what their actions were.
“Okay, thank you, everyone,” he co
ncluded. “Let’s get to work.”
Chapter Five
Ryan punched in the keycode for the interview room, waited for the buzz, and then pushed his way inside. An attractive red-haired woman in her late thirties sat on the opposite side of the room.
“Mrs Perry, I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”
The woman glanced up at him with eyes rimmed with red, her skin blotchy and lips pale. She wrung a tissue between her hands. She closed her eyes briefly. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’m planning to do anything else today.”
“I am very sorry for your loss. Can I get you anything? A cup of tea? Coffee? Water?”
“No, I’m fine, really. I just want to get this over and done with.”
“Of course.” He could have done with a cup of coffee himself, but he didn’t want to keep her waiting any longer than he already had.
“You understand that this is an informal chat and you’re free to leave whenever you want,” he told her. “I will be recording what’s being said, but it’s just standard procedure.”
She didn’t protest.
He pulled out the chair opposite to sit down, the chair legs screeching on the floor.
She tore another shred off the tissue and let it drop to the table. “I just want to help. I still can’t believe someone would do this to them. They were good people.”
“Because this doesn’t look like a burglary, it really is vital that we learn everything we can about the family so we can start to build an idea about who might have wanted to do something so terrible.”
“I’ll tell you everything I can. I want you to find that sick son of a bitch as much as you do.” She covered her mouth with both hands and inhaled as though she was suddenly fighting for breath. “Sorry.”