by Liz Mistry
‘Nah, we had to get an ambulance for her. She had a panic attack and fainted and cracked her head on the kitchen table. Paramedics took her to Bradford Royal Infirmary. I sent a uniform with her and when she’s been given the all-clear, the officer will take an initial statement. I’ve got her details so we can follow up when she’s back at home. Maybe we’ll get more from her in her home environment. All we were able to ascertain before it all got too much for her, was that Hudson had no living relatives that she knew of and no visitors that she’d ever seen.’
That was true: being away from the crime scene, and all the images that she wouldn’t be able to un-see, might make the carer more ready to share anything that might elicit a possible motive for the attack on the old man. On the other hand, if she was the deceased’s most frequent visitor, at some point they’d have to bring her back for a walk-through of the house. They’d need to see what, if anything, was missing or moved. Nikki pulled her crime suit on, yanked it up and pulled the hood round her head. ‘Have you been able to establish an entry point?’
Anwar nodded. ‘Straightforward, boss. Looks like the killer jimmied the lock.’
Nikki walked to the cordon, signed herself in and after ducking under the tape looked at the house. Unlike most of the other residences, this house was decrepit. The windows, although double-glazed, were in need of reglazing. The bay window at the front had many cracks and condensation had steamed up between the two layers of glass. The front door was wooden, but hadn’t been cared for or varnished in a long time and there were clear areas where the frame was damp-ridden and soft. Around the lock were clear crowbar marks, which the CSIs had already given a yellow number. Middle of the night, quick job to jimmy the lock, old bloke sound asleep, it’d be an easy entry from even an inexperienced burglar. Though the fact that the old bloke was stabbed multiple times in his own bed made Nikki question the “burglary gone wrong” theory. At this stage, she’d keep all avenues of investigation open.
Walking up the uneven path, with weeds sprouting from the numerous cracks and a garden filled with debris fighting for dominance with the brambles, which attacked Nikki and Saj, they battled their way to the door. When she reached it, an unexpected reluctance to step over the threshold took hold of Nikki and she stumbled on the bottom step.
Saj grabbed her arm to steady her. ‘You okay, Nik?’
Exhaling slowly, Nikki shook his hand off and threw him a quick grin. ‘’Course I am. Just tripped on these fucking slabs.’ And forcing the weight that rested in her chest down to her stomach, she climbed the few steps and entered the dingy hallway.
A yell from the stairs that went up from the left of the dimly lit corridor grounded Nikki in the present – in her job. She looked up and grinned as Gracie Fells the CSI manager pulled the mask from her face. ‘Can you just make do down there for now, Nikki? We’re a bit crowded up here right now. Give us ten minutes and you can come up. We’ve just had death certified and we want to crack on with the room before we focus on the victim. We won’t move him till you’ve seen him though.’
Nikki waved a hand to let Gracie know she was fine with that and then, Sajid at her heels, made her way on the specially laid-out tracks towards the living room, which led off to the right of the lobby. The smell of stale nicotine hung like a layer of cloud, but it was the underlying smell of mould that caught in Nikki’s throat. The wallpaper was so faded that it was impossible to tell its original colour, far less what the pattern was. The skirting board was black with grime. At the end of the hallway, a door leading into the kitchen stood ajar, releasing a faint odour of bins that needed emptying, old fried food aromas and general filth, whilst another door revealed a rather disgusting toilet tucked under the staircase. Wishing she hadn’t opened the door, nor witnessed the level of bacteria forming in the toilet pan, nor felt the smart of ammonia that stung her eyes, she quickly slammed it shut.
Sajid pinched his nose with two fingers. ‘Whatever the carer did, she clearly didn’t have enough hours to make any sort of indent into this cesspit. Not the most appealing environment to work in.’
Breathing shallowly through her mouth, Nikki fastened a mask around her neck and pulled it over her mouth. ‘Got any Vicks?’
When Sajid shook his head, she rolled her eyes. ‘Can’t rely on you for owt, can I? What about a scoosh of that very expensive eau de toilette that you favour? Even that’d be an improvement on this.’
Sajid pushed past her, fastening his own mask over his mouth, and braved the living room. ‘Philistine.’
Nikki braced herself and followed him in, only to be surprised at the contrast between the neglected hall and the equally neglected kitchen that she’d glimpsed a moment ago. ‘Ah, looks like the carer chose her battles. She must have focused on this room, presumably because it’s where our victim spent most of his time.’
‘Looks like it,’ said Saj walking over to inspect a dresser that was positioned in one corner of the room and hosted a range of photographs. Its drawers were pulled open and various things scattered across the carpet, which, although faded and threadbare, had once been of good quality and judging by its cleanliness, had been hoovered recently.
Before joining him, Nikki took the time to absorb the room. Focusing on the wider picture first often made her more perceptive to the little idiosyncrasies that could lend insight into a victim. This was their domain after all. The place where they could indulge any private interests, the room where they could tell her, even in their death, something about the real them – not the one that others saw. However, whether this room would give more insight into the old man who now lay dead upstairs or not, remained to be seen. If, as Sajid thought, it was more of a reflection of the carer’s priorities than the victim himself, then perhaps this room would reveal little. Thinking of the old man growing cold upstairs, his life’s blood draining from his body, Nikki wondered at the cowardice of the murderer to kill him in his bed. She put that thought to the side to consider later when she could view the body.
Instead, she did a mental inventory of the room. The dresser that Saj was examining was hefty and old, like the antique ones you would see at auction. It shone as if it had been buffed to within an inch of its life and the faint scent of furniture polish battled with the overriding cigarette smoke. A large recliner chair with a remote control to raise and lower it, stood sideways-on in the bay window. Nikki appreciated that the combination of sunlight filling the room, the heat from the old radiator that followed the lie of the bay round the alcove and the proximity to the window itself, would be motivation enough for a lonely old man to choose this area as his main space. Opposite the strangely positioned recliner, in the middle of the room, stood a large TV angled to give the chair’s occupant a prime view. Beside the recliner was a table with an overflowing ashtray, a Thermos flask, a cup with only dregs remaining, a pile of crossword books, and copies of the Bradford Chronicle. The most recent one was dated the previous day – most likely either delivered or brought in by his carer.
An old-fashioned cottage suite with faded cushions was placed in a line against the back wall, as if the owner had no use for it, – which, if he had no visitors as they’d been told, he probably didn’t. She wondered what Hudson’s job had been, for although the house was a mess, the few contents, although old, seemed of good quality. She moved over to stand beside the recliner and saw that she’d been right about him having a bird’s eye view of the goings-on in the street.
Perhaps he’d sat here watching Anika and herself playing in the street when they were little or maybe watching her mum taking them to and from school. She frowned. Something was niggling her, but she couldn’t put a finger on it. If she left it alone it would probably come to her. She turned and joined Sajid who was rummaging through the items on the floor. Leaving him to it, Nikki studied the photographs. For such a reclusive old man, with no living relatives, he sure had a lot of snapshots. As Nikki’s eyes drifted over the images, which were mainly of children, a few with adults and children, she r
ealised that there was a clear space where two photos were missing. It seemed that the killer had taken them with him. She made a note to ask the carer if she could identify what those particular photos were of. Nikki looked closer. Some of the many photos were dated. She squinted her eyes at the small faces trying to see if she could identify any of them and then paused. That’s odd. ‘Saj …’
‘Hmmm.’
‘Look at this.’
Saj finished studying the utilities bill that he held in his hand before standing up and looking at the photo frame Nikki pointed out. He pursed his lips. ‘Sorry, Nik. Don’t get it. It’s just a family photo. What do you see?’
‘That’s what I thought at first glance, but it’s not, is it? Look closer.’
Saj leaned in and studied the image. ‘Nope, still don’t get it, Nik.’
‘The image is the bog-standard one that comes with the frame – it’s not a photo of anyone he knows, it’s just a random image.’ She lifted her hand and pointed to another. ‘As is this … and this … and this.’
After studying them all again, he nodded. ‘Shit, you’re right … but what the hell does it mean? Why would the old bloke display snaps that aren’t real? It’s like he’s creating false memories. Maybe he had dementia or something?’
Nikki shrugged. ‘Maybe, but Anwar didn’t mention that and I’m sure she would have, if she’d known. It might mean nothing, then again, it could mean something.’
She sighed. She really wanted to make sense of this crime scene and get ahead of things before the media started prying. Any time Nikki was heading up an investigation she could be pretty sure Lisa Kane would turn up, like dog turd on a shoe – unwelcome, stinking of crap and persistent. The journalist hadn’t quite forgiven herself or Nikki for being duped by her photographer partner earlier in the year. ‘Only a few of the photos are real – these ones and presumably the two that are missing from these spaces. Not much point in taking them otherwise,’ and she pointed to seven different images that were proper photos.
The pair studied the images in silence. One drew Nikki’s attention and she took a photograph of it on her phone, before deciding to snap all of them to show to her mother later. Hopefully she’d be able to recognise some of the kids in the photos. ‘All the real photos are of kids …’
Sajid took up her train of thought. ‘And all of the false ones are of families …’
‘We need to look into this a bit more before we start jumping to conclusions.’ Nikki’s brows gathered together. ‘But I don’t bloody like this. Not one little bit, Saj.’
‘Me neither … it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.’
Reluctant to enter the kitchen, Nikki took a last glance at the photos and as a CSI photographer entered the room, said, ‘Make sure you get photos of all of those images on the dresser … and I want all of them bagged.’
The kitchen was everything Nikki had expected it to be apart from one small oasis of cleanliness at the sink, one of the work surfaces and the cooker. Kussum had clearly decided that if she had to supply some meals for Mr Hudson, she would do it in as clean an environment as she could. The cause of the pungent smell was mildew that was sprinkled in black over most of the wall surfaces and dampness coming from curtains, which were pooled at the bottom in a sodden pile of mucky water let in by the leaky windows and left to stagnate. Nikki wondered why social services hadn’t insisted Mr Hudson move into a home and, more to the point, how poor Kussum had managed to work in such an environment. She was becoming more desperate to speak to the carer to find out what light she could shed on Hudson.
A yell from above in Gracie’s less than dulcet tones had Saj and Nikki exchanging a grin. It seemed it was time for them to view Mr Hudson’s body.
Before heading up the stairs, Nikki cleared her mind of any of the possibilities that were floating around there. She didn’t want any of the assumptions gleaned from what she and Saj had seen downstairs to get in the way of bonding with Mr Hudson as a victim of an atrocious crime – not yet anyway.
The tread on the stairs was as threadbare as that of the living-room carpet, and the stair-lift, which was waiting at the top of the stairs for a man who would only ever go back downstairs in a body bag seemed poignant, as did the Zimmer frame discarded in readiness at the bottom of the stairs. The only discernible marks on the stairs were traces of blood, which got darker as Nikki and Saj climbed. The killer hadn’t bothered to clean up before making his escape and by the last few faded marks on the hall carpet, it looked like after he’d done the deed he’d left the house pronto. Which meant he’d taken the time to go through the downstairs and take what he wanted, including those photos, before heading up to finish Gerry Hudson off.
Gerry Hudson’s bedroom was cramped, filled with boxes piled up on every conceivable surface. For a second, an image of the boxes monitoring her father’s whereabouts she kept in her own bedroom, flashed in Nikki’s mind. What if in thirty years’ time she too was found dead in a manky old bedroom like this, surrounded by boxes containing evidence that her father was miles away from her? She gave herself a mental shake. What the hell am I thinking? I’m not a sad, lonely old geezer like Gerry Hudson. I’ve got Marcus and the kids. I’m not alone. I have my family.
‘I want all of those boxes taken over to Trafalgar House.’ Some uniformed officer would thank her for the lovely little task of dredging through them and logging whatever they contained.
Ammonia and dirt were pushed into the background by the metallic stink of blood and Nikki moved closer to examine the body, wondering if some faded memory might tug loose. It was difficult to tell what Gerry Hudson had been like in life – or when younger and fitter – because lying in his bed fully dressed, dirty duvet pulled neatly back from his shrivelled frame, he looked completely inanimate. Pale, bald, and emaciated. His cheeks were sunken and his pure white eyebrows neglected. The only splash of colour was the blood that had pooled on his sheets from the numerous stab wounds on his upper body and stomach.
Nikki looked at his hands, but lying by his side, they were covered in blood too. ‘Any defensive wounds?’
Gracie shook her head. ‘It’s difficult to tell, but I don’t think so.’
‘Walk us through it then, Gracie – I won’t hold you to it, but it’d be good to hear your thoughts on what played out here.’
Gracie and Nikki had worked together for a long time and, although she wouldn’t do this with any other officer, Gracie would do it for Nikki. Maybe it was female solidarity or maybe she just really trusted Nikki.
‘For you, Parekh, but don’t take any of this as gospel, will you?’
As Nikki shook her head, Gracie inhaled and then began. ‘I reckon the old bloke was asleep. The attacker came upstairs with the knife and just laid into him. It will be your Langley …’ she nodded to Sajid ‘… who will work out which of the wounds was fatal.’
It had been Gracie who had inadvertently outed Sajid and his partner, Langley Campbell the pathologist, to one of the immoral local journos during a particularly demanding investigation earlier in the year.
‘There’s so much overkill here though. I’d be surprised if this isn’t a revenge kill.’ She turned and grinned as two uniformed officers and a couple of her CSIs began to take the boxes downstairs ready to offload at the incident room at Trafalgar House. ‘You might need a few more officers to help you with those – there’s a whole other room full of them – all sealed and ready for you to take.’
Gracie turned back to Nikki and Saj and spoke to one of her team who was processing the contents of the wardrobe, which was a similar style to the dresser downstairs. ‘You got that bag, Jen? The loose pages?’
Nodding, Jen rummaged in the box next to her until she retrieved a sealed and bagged item and handed it over. Gracie handed it to Nikki. ‘We found this under the deceased’s pillow.’
The blood drained from Nikki’s face as she looked at the top page.
The paper had been ripped from a book
. Beside her, Saj inhaled then exhaled in a whoosh as he read.
Thursday 3rd March
He hurt me again tonight. I don’t want to do this anymore. When he put me to bed I was barely breathing … I hate hate hate hate hate doing this. I hate it.
‘Fuck’s sake, Nik. This is bad.’
Saturday 6th November
One of these days I’ll do what DD says – I’ll kill him. I’ll take that great big kitchen knife and I’ll stab it right in his gut – his big fat gut – and then I’ll cut off his willy and stuff it in his big smelly slobbering mouth and make him eat it – see how he likes it. I hate him and one of these days I will do it. I swear I’ll do it and then he’ll be sorry – he’ll be damn sorry. Maybe I’ll even do the rest of them. Maybe I’ll do every single one of them.
‘You can see a mark here – like a teardrop. This fucking sucks, big time.’
Before he could utter another word, Nikki spoke. ‘We’ll take this with us and get it processed quickly. Was there any sign that the pillow had been moved after death?’
Gracie was definite about that. ‘No way. There would have been blood on it, but as you see it’s clean. It’s a photocopy – not the original. You’re wondering if the killer left it?’ Gracie bit her lip as she considered this. ‘To be honest, Parekh, I don’t think so. Most times when the killer has left something behind on purpose, it’s been visible from the start. Positioned where it can be easily found. On the chest, or near the body – sometimes on the floor or on a piece of furniture. Not often it’s hidden away like this. We only discovered it because it rustled when the doc turned him over to check his back.’
That had been Nikki’s thinking too, but she wanted to double-check. None of this made sense, but all of a sudden this whole case seemed too close for comfort.
With a gesture for Saj to follow her, Nikki completed her tour of the upstairs. Once out in the fresh air, she inhaled sharply. Her head was fuzzy and now that she was outside, she was aware of how tense her body was. ‘You phone Langley to arrange an expedited post-mortem whilst I make sure everything’s under control here.’ She tossed him her keys. ‘Looks like we’re travelling Nikki style today.’