by M K Farrar
Ryan sat back. “Which is?
“I would have thought he’d use both hands at some point. It takes a lot of strength to stab yourself, and to drive a knife up into someone’s skull. I’d be very surprised for him not to use both hands. Plus, the prints are very clean. Hardly any smudged or marked repeatedly onto the knife. It would have meant he’d kept his hand at almost the same position on the knife handle the entire time.”
“Which is pretty unlikely.”
“I’d say so.”
Ryan processed what Ben had told him. Did that mean Sheldon Wyndham was innocent? He hoped he’d see Nikki Francis later that day and she could give him her thoughts as well. So far, it wasn’t looking likely that the teen was the killer and more that someone had set him up, perhaps aware what conclusion they’d jump to. The school shootings in America had put boys like him in a bad light, and now a killer was trying to benefit from their assumptions. Good thing they had science to back them up.
“There’s something else,” Ben said down the line. “We found a couple of footprints in the blood upstairs. They’re large and wide, and most likely belonging to a male, but it didn’t match the sizes of either Sheldon or his step-father, Hugh.”
“When you say footprints, do you mean shoeprints? Or actual footprints?”
“Actual footprints. Whoever they belonged to wasn’t wearing shoes at the time. I’d say they weren’t even wearing socks.”
Ryan frowned, mulling that over. Who gained access to another person’s house and removed their shoes and socks before killing everyone there? Maybe they were trying to be quiet and thought not wearing shoes would help that?
“What about DNA from the footprint?” Ryan asked. “Have you been able to get anything from it?”
“With combined samples, such as with blood, we need a sample to be at least twenty percent of the whole. I’m afraid with the amount of blood that was on the floor, there isn’t much chance of us getting a good enough sample from the print to be of any use.”
“Damn it.”
“Sorry,” Ben apologised, though it wasn’t his fault.
Something else bothered Ryan. “Why wasn’t there any blood found downstairs? If the perpetrator left the house after the murders, surely he would have tracked at least some of the blood down the stairs.”
“Could the killer have left from an upstairs window?”
“They were all locked from the inside. The only way out was through the front or back door.”
“Both of which had been locked as well,” he said.
“Whoever did this had everything meticulously planned. I think the killer took time to clean himself down, maybe even changed his or her clothes. They’d have been covered in blood unless they’d taken the time to wash and change.” He was thinking out loud now. “What condition was the bathroom in? Was there blood on the floor?”
“Yes, blood was found in there. The killer might have gone via the bathroom to wash off their hands—maybe there was too much blood on the knife, and it was making it too slippery to grip.”
Ryan sucked air in over his teeth. “I think it was more than that. Whoever killed this family would have been covered in blood, including in their hair, so there’s a chance they washed it out. They used the place to clean down before leaving the house.”
It was almost as if the killer had treated the house like his own.
“My officers are paying extra attention to gathering DNA and prints from the bathroom. If the killer was wearing protective gear and took it off in the bathroom, they might have shed hairs or clothing fibres. We’ll check the plughole and pipes for hairs as well.” Ben continued, “Fibres were also found that haven’t been matched to anything else in the house.”
“What kind of fibres?”
“Sheep’s wool.”
“From a jumper, maybe?”
“Possibly. Also, we found hemp fibres.”
Ryan straightened in his seat. “Hemp, like marijuana? Maybe from the boy’s room, if he was a smoker.”
“No, these fibres are different. More like the kind you’d find that had been turned into clothing or material for a rope.”
“Rope? There weren’t any obvious signs that the victims had been tied up.”
Maybe Nikki would find signs that they had been during the post-mortems. More fibres on the victim’s skin, perhaps. The initial view of the scene had looked as though the killer had disturbed the victims in bed and used a chair under the door to keep the younger members of the family trapped in their rooms, but perhaps that, too, had been a setup, like making it seem as though Sheldon had been the one responsible.
Something else occurred to Ryan. Why hadn’t the two children tried to get out of their windows upon finding their doors jammed? Had they not thought of it? Or had there been another reason?
He made a mental note to go back to the house and take a second look.
Another thing confused him. If the children had woken up and heard their parents’ murders and tried to get out of the room, wouldn’t one of the neighbours have heard them shouting? Either the killer moved fast and almost silently, and the kids didn’t wake up, or something else had happened.
“That’s about it,” Ben finished off. “I’ve uploaded the report which has everything in more detail, and if you have any questions about the findings, you’ve got my number.”
“Absolutely. Thanks, Ben.”
“Not a problem. Hope you catch whoever did this.”
“So do I.”
He ended the call. Everyone was back in the office for the day now, so he called a quick briefing for that morning to make sure everyone knew what they needed to be doing for the day.
Ryan stood in front of his team.
“We got the forensic report back,” he told them. “The blood found on the boy’s body did belong to his mother, sister, and stepfather, but there’s a possibility someone else smeared it onto him to make it appear as though he committed the murders and then killed himself.” He went through the information about the fingerprints and the footprint in the blood. “Right now, I think we’re looking for someone outside of the home.” He focused on Mallory. “Any luck on tracking down the biological father yet?”
“No, sorry. I swung by the flat on my way in, but there still wasn’t any answer, and the neighbours said they hadn’t seen him. He’s still not picking up his phone.”
“Okay, thanks. We need to make it a priority today that we locate him. If he doesn’t show up for work today, let’s get a warrant to ping his phone location.”
She nodded. “Agreed. He should be back in work this morning, so I’ll check again there. If he doesn’t show up, we’re going to have to assume he had something to do with the murders.”
Ryan turned his attention to DC Quinn. “Linda, how did you get on with the neighbours?”
“We have a second neighbour, Mrs Stephanie Rice at number forty-three, who says she thought she heard a thud come from the house shortly after three.”
“Thought she heard?” If what the neighbour had heard was Liz Wyndham falling out of bed while trying to escape, it helped to corroborate the time the murders occurred and would help them to narrow down any searches on CCTV.
“She said she was half asleep and so couldn’t be certain she hadn’t dreamt it. The only reason she thought to notice the time was that she’d woken up late the previous day and didn’t want to oversleep again.”
“What about any of the other neighbours? Did they see or hear anything around the same time?”
Linda shook her head. “Not that we’ve found so far. Everyone else claims they slept peacefully all night.”
Ryan did his best not to roll his eyes. “Typical that it happens on a street where apparently no one suffers from insomnia. Four people in a house, and yet no one woke up and tried to get help? Why were they all sleeping so soundly? We’re also assuming the killer took the family’s mobile phones and placed them in the freezer while they were asleep. They must have entered each room and located
the phone with no one waking up. If they weren’t wearing any shoes, that would have made them quieter, but it still doesn’t quite add up to me.”
“Does this mean we’re ruling Sheldon Wyndham out of the running?” DC Craig Penn asked.
“Not completely. I want to find out what the post-mortems reveal before we come to any conclusions. Let’s keep our minds open.”
Mallory put up her hand. “Sheldon could have had an accomplice. Maybe he was the one who let the killer into the house.”
“That’s a possibility, too. Or one of the other family members did, and things didn’t go to plan. We’re still digging into the lives of Liz and Hugh Wyndham. Maybe they have skeletons in the closet. Perhaps one of them was supposed to survive?” Ryan looked to Craig. “How far have you got with the CCTV?”
Craig checked his phone for notes. “One of the houses about ten doors away had security cameras. I’ve been through the footage from that night, but so far I haven’t spotted anything on it that would help.”
“What about the cars parked in the street?”
“They’re all associated with the people who live there. Nothing strange to be accounted for. I’ve requested footage from a couple of nearby shops as well, so that might give us something.”
“Okay, keep trying.”
Dev Kharral spoke up. “Boss, I’ve heard back from the security company that the family got their alarm system from. They’ve emailed me a report on that system going back to when they first had the alarm installed, and it’s definitely interesting.”
“In what way?”
“Up until a few weeks ago, the alarm was set and disabled a couple of times a day, mainly first thing in the morning, when I assume the family was leaving for work and school, and then it was disabled again around four p.m. when they were all coming back home, and then it would be set again around eleven p.m.”
Ryan nodded. “That all sounds normal. What changed?”
“Everything. The usual pattern went out the window, and the alarm started to be set and disabled during random times of the day and night.”
“Didn’t the family notice the change?”
“Not that they reported. The panel that shows the history is only small and part of the keypad, and you have to select the correct setting to show the history, so unless they had a reason to check it, they wouldn’t have seen it automatically.” He got to his feet and handed Ryan a printout. “I’ve done a comparison of the two different times and highlighted the ones that didn’t fit in with the previous pattern.”
“Good work.”
Ryan bent his head over the paper and studied the findings. Where the initial couple of weeks were regular, as DC Kharral had said, the extra entries didn’t seem to have any pattern at all. Some were in the daytime, other times during the middle of the night. On some occasions the alarm was disabled and reset within twenty minutes of each other, and, on others, hours passed between the two settings.
“This means one of two things,” Ryan said. “There was a glitch with the alarm, or someone was manually resetting it. The question is, was the person resetting it someone inside the home or outside?”
“It could have been the boy sneaking in and out of the house at night?” Kharral suggested.
Ryan nodded. “That sounds feasible. Or perhaps he was sneaking someone in, maybe a girlfriend, or even a boyfriend? How much have we learned about him so far?”
“Honestly, not a huge amount,” one of the DCs from outside of his team said. “We spoke to his teachers at school, who said he was a bit of a loner. He wasn’t the kind to take part in any clubs, and no one mentioned any girlfriend at all. I didn’t get the impression he was some kind of rebel who sneaks out at night, or who sneaks his girlfriend in.”
“Okay, thanks. How are we getting on with the family’s phones?
Shonda Dawson spoke up. “We’ve had the reports back on the family’s devices.”
“Anything of interest showing up, particularly on Sheldon’s phone?”
She shook her head. “Not on the boy’s, but there is something on the father’s phone.”
Ryan laced his fingers in front of his body. “Tell me.”
“There weren’t any recent anomalies, but several months ago multiple calls were made and received from the same number to Hugh Wyndham’s phone.”
“Do we know who the other number belongs to?”
“It’s not registered, unfortunately, but we’re still looking into it.”
Ryan thought for a moment. “Let me know as soon as you know who that number belongs to.”
“Will do, boss.”
“It’s far more likely that whoever did this knew the family. That’s going to be our key to pinning this down, I’m sure of it.” He surveyed their faces. “Let’s make the next twenty-four hours count.”
Chapter Eight
The last thing Mallory had been expecting was a call from the sullen man at the lorry depot.
“Thought you’d want to know that Conrad’s here,” Peter Phipps told her. “He showed up for work as normal.”
Mallory was instantly on her feet, grabbing her car keys. “Hold on to him for me. Don’t let him leave.”
“How am I supposed to do that? He’s got a job to do.”
She spoke with the phone clamped to her ear. “Tell him there’s something wrong with his lorry. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Irritation made him snappy. “I’m trying to run a business here.”
“And I’m trying to do my job, too. Please, it’s important. He needs to know what we have to tell him. I’m literally minutes away.”
She ended the call and looked around the office. Ryan was nowhere to be seen, but she wasn’t going to go and bring Conrad Smales in on her own. Craig was sitting at his desk, looking bored as he went through CCTV footage.
“Hey, Craig, you fancy a drive. I’ve found Smales.”
“Absolutely, Sarge.” He put his computer to sleep and got to his feet, picking up his jacket from the back of his chair.
“Great. I’ll drive.”
They hurried out to her car. Mallory drove as fast as she dared to the lorry depot, hoping Conrad hadn’t left already. If he had, she’d have to get the lorry’s licence plate number circulated as an attention drawn and get the highways agency to stop it on the motorway and then bring him in. She was sure they could all do without the drama.
They arrived at the depot and she and Craig headed straight for the portacabin. Peter Phipps saw them come in and he lifted his chin to where a man was sitting by the water cooler, his head in his hands. She flashed Phipps a grateful smile.
“Mr Smales.” She held up her ID. “I’m DS Lawson and this is DC Penn. Can we have a chat?”
Conrad Smales looked up. He was a jowly man in his fifties with a spiderweb of capillaries across his nose and cheeks. He seemed to be a fair few years older than Liz Wyndham had been, and Mallory wondered if that had been the reason they’d broken up all those years ago.
He frowned at her. “I’m supposed to be out on a delivery.”
“I’m sorry, but this really is more important. I’m afraid it would probably be better if we go down to the station. I do have some questions I need to ask you.”
He scowled and gestured to the window and the huge vehicles outside. “I have to work.”
Mallory shook her head. “Not today you don’t.”
She didn’t want to tell him about his son and ex-wife while they were here.
“It’s fine.” Phipps grunted. “I’ll get your run covered.”
Conrad unfurled and rose to his feet, revealing well over six feet of body and a decent-sized gut. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about at least?”
Mallory hesitated and then said, “I’m afraid it’s about your son.”
“Sheldon? What’s he done?”
She was surprised Conrad hadn’t already heard about the murder. It had been all over the news.
“He hasn’t done anything
, but I do really need to talk to you about him.”
That seemed to placate Conrad enough, and they left the portacabin together.
“Can you put your hands on the roof of the car,” Craig said.
“Why?”
“Just routine.”
Conrad did as he was told and Craig patted him down for any possible weapons. “All clear.” Craig opened the back door and Conrad climbed in. Mallory got behind the wheel.
They sat in silence as she drove them back to the station. She found her usual parking spot. “Thanks, Craig,” she told the DC. “I’ll take it from here.”
“No problem, Sarge.”
She showed Conrad through the building to one of the interview rooms.
Mallory gestured for him to take a seat. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?”
“No, all I want is for you to tell me what the fuck is going on?”
He was still standing beside the table.
“Please,” she said, “sit down, Mr Smales.”
He appeared to be thinking as though he was going to give her an argument about it, but then must have realised that the quickest way to get what he wanted was to do as she asked, and he sank into the seat.
Mallory took the chair on the opposite side of the table. “I’m afraid I have some terrible news about Sheldon, and your ex-wife, Liz, and the rest of her family.”
His eyes widened. “What’s happened?”
“They were killed in the early hours of Monday morning.”
“What? Killed how? In an accident?”
“We’re currently treating this as a murder investigation.”
His jaw dropped. “They were murdered.” He clamped his hand over his mouth. “My God. You’re telling me Sheldon and Liz are dead?”
“I’m very sorry. Hugh and Dulcie were also killed.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re making it sound like they were slaughtered.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
His face drained of colour. “Do you know who did it?”
“It’s something we’re still looking into. I am going to need to ask you some questions about your whereabouts when the murders happened.”