A Long Time Dead

by Andrew Barrett

  Shelby, in the end found Chris. “Did you come via Brighton?”

  “Traffic was—”

  “Never mind,” Shelby smiled. “I took the liberty of commencing a scene log and erecting barrier tape, Chris,” he said, “though if you need it moving—”

  “It’s fine, thanks. Saved me a stack of bloody time, it has.” Both men ducked beneath the tape and strolled towards the house, getting a feel for the job, summarily casting a glance over the windows and doors for anything obvious. “What’s it all about then?”

  “I’ve got to say, Chris, this is a peculiar one.”

  Shelby pulled up the collar of his big camel hair coat, something all detectives of Shelby’s generation seemed to wear. Maybe it was part of the entrance criteria, Chris wondered.

  “The girl, Nicky Bridgestock, has no enemies that we know of, and she’s clean as a whistle as far as drugs and men go. We’ve run her details through all our systems: bugger all. And according to her friend,” he flipped open a small black book and scanned the scribbles on the last page, “Miss Joanne Philips, Nicky is a really good girl, rarely goes out, though she did last night, and...” Shelby paused, closed the book, “Well, she’s the typical girl-next-door.”

  “So how did she die?”

  “Dunno; I’ve not even been inside yet. You know me with scenes like this. I stay clear if there’s a chance of contamination. I won’t go in until you guys have put stepping plates down and I’m wearing a silly-suit.”

  Chris offered a wry smile, “But you’re already wearing a silly suit.”

  Shelby feigned dismay. “Don’t let my wife hear you say that.”

  “Go on, then. What have we got?”

  “Micky Harris forced entry since Miss Philips was concerned by Nicky’s absence from work.”

  “And?”

  “According to Micky, she’s got a big hole in her head or her neck; he didn’t want to get too close. And Miss Philips was having a fit on the floor behind him so he didn’t have the chance anyway, he says.”

  “Right.”

  “Nicky seems to have come to a rather sticky end, starkers on her bed with a gunshot wound or similar, to her head. So far, all I can say is that she was out clubbing last night, left early because she was up for work the next morning – told you she was Miss Prim-and-Proper – but didn’t show in because of the massive headache she had this morning. Don’t yet know who did it or why.”

  “No forced entry?”

  “Won’t know until the PM.”

  “No, I meant the doors or the windows.”

  “Ah. No, they’re all in order, no damage at all, except Micky’s.”

  “Have we pronounced life extinct yet?”

  “Doctor Rahall’s on his way; shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.”

  “Paul,” Chris called, “get the gunshot residue kits to hand, will you?”

  “We don’t know it’s a gunshot wound,” Shelby pointed out. “I mean, none of the neighbours we spoke to heard a bang of any description, we’re only going on what Micky saw in her dark bedroom.”

  “Preparation is nine-tenths of the game.”

  “Fair enough,” Shelby said. “I’ll get out of your way and let you get on. Though if anything shows up, let me know, okay.”

  “You can come and have a butchers yourself when we get the stepping plates down, only be twenty minutes. Oh,” he clicked his fingers, “have you sorted a pathologist yet?”

  “All in hand.”

  “Not that prat, Dwight Thistlethwaite-Smythe or whatever his bloody name is?”

  “Bellington Wainwright? Yes, it is,” Shelby said.

  “And Jacob Cooper, is he aware?”

  “Yes, the Coroner’s Officer is aware. I’m reasonably up on these things, Chris.”

  “It might be worth putting a ballistics expert and a biologist on standby.”

  “It’s not amateur night, y’know.”

  “Point taken. Right, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get suited up now and go and play.”

  “By the way, I thought Roger was working today.”

  “He is, but he didn’t fancy coming out to this for some reason.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  “Don’t know,” Chris said. “Anyway, it’ll give young Paul there an insight into how to do the job properly.”

  Shelby walked away shouting, “Back soon for a look around then, Chris.”

  — Two —

  Kensington Road, an upmarket street in St John’s, not far away from HQ, was where the Occupational Health Unit had its base. Roger sat outside in his car watching the wipers flick back and forth, oblivious to the wind as it rocked and jostled him; hurling leaves and long-dead tin cans down the pavement. Pink Floyd played Comfortably Numb again, quietly in the background.

  He had two important things spinning in his mind.

  Hobnail wasn’t missing after all. On the way out of Ward Street car park just ten minutes ago, Roger had almost knocked him over. His mind, he told Hobnail, was working on other things. But what Hobnail had said in reply blew him over, sent his thoughts skittering down avenues not previously hoped for. His brain worked on Hobnail’s news like it was all-consuming. It was good news. In a way.

  But it would have to wait until later for full consideration, until Roger had attended to the other thing on his mind. He closed the car door against the force of the wind, and then allowed it to blow him towards OHU’s glass fronted reception. Inside the reception area, Melanie busied herself with files and invoices, yet she stopped her work when Roger politely coughed.

  “She’s out.”

  “Her car’s outside.”

  “She’s still out.” Melanie went back to her invoices.

  “Why so hostile?”

  “I know what you did to Al—”

  “Come through, Roger.” Alice stood in her office doorway, arms folded.

  As Roger sat, Alice closed the door and stood before him, business-like. The atmosphere, so calming the last time he was here, felt unfriendly, and there was a distinct chill in the air. “I hope that you’re here for professional reasons.”

  “I wanted to apologise for the other night,” Roger said.

  “How sodding gracious of you. Would you like to bend me over the desk while you’re here, just as a PS to last night?”

  “I am truly sorry for not coming clean with you when I first got to your house, but I wasn’t strong enough to just come right out and finish it; I...I still have feelings for you.”

  “I shall do my best not to shout, here. Are you intimating that you would like to recommence our relationship?”

  “No,” he said quickly, “no, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that I handled it badly and would like to apologise for that. I still think we have no future together.”

  “You used me in the most repulsive of ways, and for that, I’m not sure I can forgive you.” Her eyes were dark, menacing, and her pale lips a tight line on an unemotional façade.

  “I can understand that, Alice. I came here to say I’m sorry; to say I’m genuinely sorry, and that I hope I can still come to you with my problems.”

  Alice sat opposite him, this time with the desk between them, still business-like but with arrogance attached. “I accept your apology, whatever the motive behind it is, but I will never forgive you. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I am sorry—”

  “Stop saying you’re sorry; you’re beginning to annoy me,” she said. “As far as our professional sessions are concerned, I will continue to counsel you for your own good. I want you to know that I could refer you to another counsellor, but it would mean you starting from scratch again, and I don’t think that would benefit you at all.”

  “That’s very kind.”

  “No, it is not.” She stood again. “Above all, I am a professional, and I could not let something of a personal nature interfere with my professionalism, no matter how intense that ‘nature’ once was. When you next come to see me, neither of us will men
tion anything relating to our previous out-of-hours experiences together; it will be purely to help you with the nightmares adversely affecting your bid for promotion. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Alice, that’s very, very clear.”

  “Now, if that’s all, I am busy.”

  Roger left the office, closing the door behind him. He didn’t stay to chat with Melanie, who ignored him anyway. He just quietly left and let his concerns drift over towards Yvonne.

  * * *

  Alice left it five minutes and then called, “Melanie, bring me Roger Conniston’s file, will you?”

  “Okay, Alice.”

  “I have a few backdated entries to make.”

  — Three —

  Doctor Rahall pronounced life extinct; he saw no reason to move the body, merely felt for a pulse and studied the girl’s eyes. Nothing else was needed. He couldn’t give more than a very loose approximation of the time of death because of the heat. It slowed the body’s rate of cooling and therefore made any measured body temperature uncertain. It seemed to him, however, that rigor had only recently begun to set in, and “that usually happens about twelve hours after death,” he said. “The air temperature is almost thirty degrees. I’ll make a note of it and of the body temperature, and file it for the pathologist. Okay?”

  Chris instructed Paul to seize the doctor’s scene suit as an exhibit, and then turned the heating down. Cursing and sweating, he opened as many windows as he could without risking loss of evidence. But he could still see the heat haze wafting off the bedroom radiator.

  And now, dressed in their white scene suits, white overshoes, facemasks and latex gloves, they stood on stepping plates and leaned over Nicky Bridgestock’s body. Chris peered at the girl’s white face, studied its features as he would a natural history exhibit. “Right,” he turned to Paul, “can’t take any more photos at this stage. We’ll take some after the body has gone.”

  “So what’s next, Chris?”

  “Well, it’s perfectly clear that she hasn’t had her head blown off, so we can forget the gunshot residue kits. She’s been stabbed in the left side of her neck.”

  “How many times?”

  “Just once.”

  “Go on, then, enlighten me.”

  “Come round here and I’ll show you.”

  Paul did, being careful not to disturb anything lying on the floor, especially the girl’s underwear.

  “You see she’s been stabbed in the first quarter of her throat, that’s where the carotid artery runs. The carotid artery supplies the brain with blood, which is pumped under tremendous pressure directly from the heart. Now,” he pointed at the wall beside Nicky’s head, “see all the blood, how it has spurted from the neck in ever decreasing arcs across the wallpaper?”

  “Yeah,” Paul said.

  “That’s arterial bleeding. She’s been stabbed once because we can see only one initial, or primary, arc. See? All the ones below it are subsidiaries of it. They’re decreasing because her blood pressure’s dropping all the time.” He swept a finger through imaginary arcs, dropping it a couple of inches each time. “If there had been more than one penetration into the neck then we could expect to see separate arcs, like tiny teardrops, created by the knife, or whatever, as it was pulled out, leaving behind its own small track on the wall. That’s called cast-off spray. This is the art of blood spatter interpretation and something you could expect to pay hundreds to the labs for.”

  “But seriously, couldn’t you tell she’d only been stabbed once because she only has one puncture wound?”

  Chris blinked. “That as well.” He straightened. “Anyway, until we begin hacking and slashing in the mortuary, it’s still unclear how many times she’s been stabbed. There’s too much blood around to see the wounds clearly.” He checked his watch. “Okay, come on, it’s twenty past three and there’s work afoot. I want to take you right through this scene and on to the mortuary if I can. But we’ll have to get a move on. So, go grab a body bag, two or three acetates and some poly bags for her head, hands and feet. Oh, and some adhesive tape. And some string.”

  * * *

  They peeled Nicky’s head away from blood-soaked pillow, noting how the blood beneath her was still in its slimy stage while the exposed blood on the bed and that caught in her hair was dry and as flaky as dandruff. Chris held the head clear of the pillow while Paul slipped the plastic bag over and then pulled it down before tying it around her neck with string that glistened red.

  “You okay?”

  Even with a mask to hide behind, Paul looked queasy. “I still feel seriously too hot, that’s all.”

  “You’re not going to puke, are you? Tell me you’re not going to throw.”

  “No, I’ll be fine.”

  “We’ll take a breather soon.”

  Both changed gloves, throwing their old pairs into a black bin liner that was already half full of empty film boxes and cellophane wrappers. Next, they tied bags around her stiffening hands and cold, clammy feet.

  “Right,” Chris said, “tapings next, I think.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait until the pathologist gets here?”

  “Yes, we should. Shouldn’t have bagged her head either, but we have things to do, and we can’t wait around all bloody day for him to finish his round of golf. Anyway, when he gets here, he’ll ask if we’ve taped the body, so we may as well get on with it.”

  They completed the tapings, twelve in all: two for each limb and four for the trunk: two front and two back. “Okay, go and ask Shelby where the bloody Exhibits Officer and Pathologist are?”

  “Right.”

  “I’m gonna start taping the inside of the body bag.”

  Paul stopped and turned. “Why?”

  Though he didn’t have the time to educate him on every point, Chris told him anyway. Knowledge belonged to all, he remembered. “If we find any hairs on her at the mortuary that don’t belong on her, where could they have come from?”

  “From the murderer,” Paul said.

  “Correct. But they could also have come from Mrs Bloggs in China or bloody Japan, or wherever it is they get this cheap crap from, whose job it is to inspect these bags and then fold them into the nice neat little square of black plastic you’ve just unwrapped. See?”

  Chris knelt beside the bag and half-heartedly dabbed sticky tape around its inner surface. His attention was yanked from the task by noise on the stairs, of scene suits crackling, latex-clad hands creaking on the banister. Chris stood with anger in his eyes as Shelby and the Pathologist entered, the Exhibits Officer behind them, and a couple of DCs behind her. Paul was last in, standing out of the way. Chris said, “Please tell me none of you used the banister on your way up here?” He looked at the ensemble. “Well?”

  “We might have grazed it,” one of the DCs said, eyes squinting in a grin.

  Chris recognised those eyes; it was Haynes, the dick from Sally Delaney’s PM. “Don’t you know anything, anything, about murder scenes?”

  Haynes looked away.

  Chris screamed to everyone, “Touch nothing! This is my bloody scene and you go nowhere unless I or the DI say so. And just to make sure we understand each other: keep your bloody hands by your sides!”

  “But we all have gloves on,” Haynes said.

  “Whoopee-fucking-do.”

  “Chris, that’s enough,” Shelby warned.

  He glared between Shelby and Haynes. “Sorry.” And then, just for the officer’s benefit, “What happens to the murderer’s fingerprint, which is made of nothing more substantial, nothing stronger, than oil and water, when a clumsy—” he checked his language, “when a clumsy soul like you drags his hand, his gloved hand, right through the centre of it?”

  “I’m sorry,” Haynes said. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  “Super,” Chris said. “Super.”

  Everyone remained quiet, successfully chastened. Bellington Wainwright inspected the body, made scribbles on a dog-eared note pad of the blood distribution patterns
on the wall, and of the body’s position and surroundings. “No Conniston today?” he asked Chris.

  “He has other commitments.”

  Wainwright seemed pleased that he was absent. He took the names and designations of those present, then asked Chris, “Have the tapings been done?”

  “Yes. And head and hands bagged, and scaled photos of the blood on the wall and the bed, and photos of her clothing...” Chris trailed off, bored by the man.

  “And we taped the body bag, too!” Paul chipped in; hoping to sound like an old hand.

  “Of course, your blood splatter photos won’t be perpendicular.” Wainwright stated.

  “We’ll be doing them again when the body’s gone and when we can pull the bed away from the wall.” Chris’s gloves creaked as he clenched his fists.

  “Good. Splendid.” Wainwright studiously – and slowly – took measurements, made more notes and peered at the girl’s fingernails through the crinkling plastic bags. He ignored Chris’s constant and rude sighing. “Do you think,” he turned to Shelby, “that we could arrange the PM for about seven-ish?”

  * * *

  DC Clements, a slip of a girl with hair the colour of ginger biscuits and with Chanel No. 5 leaking into the room, perked the place up a bit and helped Paul to bag up the girl’s belongings, which included her black jeans, flimsy white top, several sets of underwear lying across a chair, more underwear on the floor, and her shoes. They took further photos of the room now Nicky had been taken away, including the pools of blood she had left behind, and the duvet with its indented mark. Then DC Clements bagged that too, and with some regret on Paul’s part, left the scene, taking her fragrance with her.

  Within fifteen minutes, they had marked the height of the bed on the wall and pulled it far enough out of the way to get the camera in so they could take perpendicular scaled, arrowed and measured photographs of the blood distribution patterns on the wall. Chris said nothing throughout the operation.

  “Are we having a biologist, Chris?” asked Paul.