Death's Cold Hand

by J. E. Mayhew

  “It was the best I could do on the spur of the moment, Blake, don’t hate me.”

  Callum, whom Blake always thought of as new but was probably pretty well-established by now, appeared at the entrance, panting for breath, camera in hand. He nodded at Blake.

  “You don’t really want a picture with Mr O’Hare do you?” Callum said, glancing from Blake to Mallachy and back.

  “I didn’t think Malachy showed up on photographs,” Blake said.

  Callum looked confused. “Why not?”

  “Ignore him, Callum,” Mallachy said. “He’s trying to be funny. Take a picture of that hand there.”

  Callum took some photographs and then Mallachy tried to prise the fingers apart. “No good. Rigor mortis. Let’s hope so anyway or we might have to break the fingers.”

  “Really?” Callum said.

  Mallachy rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, what do they teach you in college these days? Cadaveric spasm mean anything to you?”

  Callum looked a little lost and glanced over at Blake. “Don’t look at me,” Blake said.

  “It’s not rigor mortis but often mistaken for it,” Mallachy explained. “If the victim died traumatically, there’s a chance the body goes into cadaveric spasm. The whole body stiffens instantly and often, it doesn’t loosen up. If he died clutching that, then the grip could be irreversible.”

  “Let’s hope not,” Blake said. “I want to know what he’s holding as soon as possible.” He stepped out of the tent and headed to where DI Kath Cryer was talking to a member of the public. Pulling his mask off, he took a huge gulp of fresh air. It never got any easier, having to look at the corpses of people who had died violently. Blake always tried to maintain a sense of clinical detachment but when confronted with the actuality of a brutal death, it always shook him. Kath Cryer finished talking and hurried over to meet Blake.

  “Neighbour, sir. Lives just on the corner, there. Thought she might have heard shouts sometime around midnight. She spent more time grumbling about the Bridge Inn and the rowdy folk club they have on a Wednesday than anything else. I’ll get a statement anyway.”

  “Nice one, Kath. Get door-to-door going. Someone must have seen or heard something. It’s such an open space to have attacked anyone…”

  “D’you think the setting is significant. Sir?”

  “I don’t think anything yet, Kath. It’s pretty apparent he was killed on the steps, judging by the blood. Knocked unconscious and then his throat cut maybe.” Blake scanned the area. “It’s such a peculiar place to choose to ambush anyone. I mean, look around you, it’s effectively a massive roundabout surrounding the memorial. Very few hiding places.”

  “Maybe the victim knew his assailant.”

  “That’s a possibility. So what happened? Did they have an argument?”

  Kath thought for a moment. “Whoever did that to Paul Travis was equipped for the job, sir. It doesn’t take a pathologist to work that out. Why was he carrying a blunt instrument and a knife unless he intended to use it?”

  “It doesn’t pay to assume too much, Kath. It could have been an argument on the way back from work. The killer could have been carrying tools or a bowling ball if they’d been for a night out at Bromborough Bowl…”

  “A bowling ball, sir?” Kath said, giving him a sceptical frown.

  “I’m just saying, we don’t know for certain…”

  “Yes, sir,” Kath said, staring up the treelined gardens to the Art Gallery. “It’s a pretty place, isn’t it? Must have been great for the workers here…”

  “My grandad worked for Lever Brothers as they were before they became Unilever. He refused to live here.”

  “Really, sir?”

  “Yeah. Apparently, he thought that once you did that, the company had you, body and soul. They told you when to go on holiday, and where to go, too. D’you remember that case last year with the paranormal investigator? What was his name?”

  “Trevor Long, sir?”

  “Yeah. That caravan park over in Thurstaston where we thought we’d found a body, I think that used to be a Lever Brothers holiday camp.”

  Kath raised her eyebrows and grinned. “As ever, it’s an education working with you, sir.”

  Blake smiled back. He liked Kath, she could be a bit of a blabbermouth and she rubbed people up the wrong way. That was a distinct advantage sometimes. Kath was a diligent officer with a mind as sharp as her eye and a tongue to match both. “We need to find out if there’s family and get Tasha Cook involved. Come on. The game’s afoot, as Sherlock would probably say. To be honest, it doesn’t feel much like a game to me.”

  Chapter 4

  There was blood on his hands, blood on his boots. The face in the mirror opposite the bed he sat on was freckled in red. He’d even walked blood in through the house when he came in last night. He could see it everywhere. Whether he’d slept or what time it was, he had no idea. Birds sang outside and light streamed in through the thin curtains, so it must have been morning. Slowly the memories of last night crept into his mind. The staring eyes, his battered face and his open throat. The blood.

  For a second, the room vanished and, once again, he was trapped in the Foxhound armoured car with the roar of the explosion, the heat of the flames and Corporal Graves’ pleading face in his. Graves’ hand gripped his ankle and then slid away as the car rolled and rolled. Pressing his fists to his temples he curled up, trying to squeeze the memories from his writhing brain. Blood pulsed round his temples and his heart hammered against his ribs.

  And then just as quickly, he was back in the bedroom. He knew what he must do and prayed it wasn’t too late. Running into the kitchen, he saw that the chef’s blowtorch was on the worktop next to the pliers. Maybe he’d remembered and put them there last night. Rummaging in his pocket, he found the toy soldier. It was green and almost featureless, a man wearing a tin hat and carrying a rifle in one hand. With the other, it was throwing a grenade. He struck a match and smiled grimly at the satisfying roar of blue heat that sprang from the end of the blowtorch.

  Gripping the toy soldier’s feet with the pliers, he levelled the flame at its head. Slowly, the arm bent as drips of green plastic fizzed angrily onto the work surface. He angled the soldier so that the molten drips slid down the body of the toy and pooled on the stand. The smell filled the kitchen, tickling his nose. It wasn’t unpleasant. It calmed him.

  He spoke as though he was chanting a prayer. “Go back to Hell. You aren’t welcome here. You aren’t meant to be here. Go back.” Clicking off the torch, he looked closely for any signs that it had worked. God, he hoped so. The toy soldier cooled into a shapeless lump with a pair of legs. He knew what he had to do now. Bath. Bin his clothes. Clean the house. Then sleep. And pray he didn’t dream.

  Chapter 5

  It was late afternoon by the time Blake got the team together. A number of uniformed officers and detectives ranged around the meeting room. DI Kath Cryer sat at the front along with Detective Sergeant Vikki Chinn and Detective Constable Alex Manikas. Someone was missing, though.

  “Where’s Kinnear?” Blake said, scanning the group. DC Andrew Kinnear was one of the detectives Blake rated and liked to have on the team. He was rarely absent.

  “Adoption meeting, sir,” Vikki Chinn said, looking up from her notepad.

  “Adoption? He’s a bit old to be adopted, isn’t he?”

  “Him and Chris have been going to meetings and stuff for months, boss,” Kath Cryer said. “Didn’t he tell you?”

  “It didn’t really come up in conversation. We tend to talk about work. Or biscuits, to be honest,” Blake said. “I guess I need to have a word. I feel bad now.”

  “I’m sure there’s no need, sir,” Alex Manikas said. “He wasn’t exactly broadcasting it about the office. The Super, knows. Wrote him a reference and everything.”

  “I see,” Blake said, wondering why he felt a little bit offended himself at not being asked for a reference. He scanned the group. “Okay. I’m sure Kin
near will catch up, when he’s back. Let’s have a look at what we’ve got here, then. So, in the early hours of this morning, around three o’clock, the body of Paul Travis age thirty-six was found on the steps of Port Sunlight war memorial. Someone had set about him with some kind of blunt instrument and cut his throat. The post-mortem will reveal more but, for once, this seems like an obvious attack. You can view the pictures at your leisure.” He looked over to Vikki Chinn for more detail.

  “Thanks, sir,” she said, standing up. “Paul Travis lived at Central Avenue, Port Sunlight. CEO of a non-profit-making organisation, Pro-Vets, which found work for unemployed veterans in Merseyside, amongst other things…”

  “War memorial… veterans… a connection you think, sir?” Kath said.

  Blake nodded. “It’s a possibility. Keep it in mind. Was he a veteran himself, Vikki? I’m guessing he might well be.”

  “Yes, sir, served in the Mercian Regiment until six years ago. When he left the army, he set up the Pro-Vets organisation with George Owens, another ex-army colleague.”

  “Domestic circumstances?” Blake asked.

  “Married to Rachel Travis, they have a little girl, Danielle,” Vikki said, looking down. “Tasha Cook is Family Liaison Officer. They’ve broken the news and gleaned some preliminary information.”

  “The poor woman, little kiddie too,” Blake said, with a sigh. “Any ideas what he was doing around the war memorial?”

  “His wife said he’d been drinking at the Bridge Inn pub with three mates,” Vikki said, checking her notes. “One of them, George Owens, who we mentioned before, a Dave Jones and a Barry Davies. We’re in the process of trying to reach them.”

  “What does the manager of the Bridge Inn, say?” Blake said, “Did they all leave together?”

  Kath put her hand up. “The manager knows Paul and his mates, he said they’re semi-regular, pop in there every couple of weeks for a few pints. One of them, Barry Davies, had a few too many and was singing loudly. The manager wasn’t particularly alarmed as Paul had already ordered a taxi for them.”

  “So they left in the taxi and Paul walked across the village alone,” Blake said.

  “It looks like it, sir,” Kath said. “Although the manager didn’t actually see them drive off. He gave me the names of a few regulars. I phoned them and two said they saw the friends getting into the taxi. Paul Travis set off alone down Church Drive in the direction of the war memorial.”

  “Timing?”

  Kath looked at her notes. “Eleven fifty or thereabouts.”

  “So, unless they zoomed round the corner and lay in wait for him, which seems highly unlikely, then they aren’t suspects.”

  “Paul’s wallet and phone were still on his body which rules out robbery as a motive,” Vikki said.

  “Unless the attacker was disturbed,” Manikas chipped in.

  Blake shook his head. “In the time it took to knock Travis out and cut his throat, the killer could have snatched his wallet from his pocket and run for it. Whoever did this was disturbed all right, Alex, but not in the way you mean.”

  “Mallachy O’Hare called a while ago, sir,” Alex said. “Apparently, the sole print left in the blood matches a size 11 Bates Ultra-lite Tactical boot. As used by the British Army.”

  Blake raised his eyebrows. “Are they commonly worn outside the forces?”

  “Dunno, sir. They’re a hundred quid a pair. You can get them cheaper online but only about twenty quid less. I don’t know if you’re allowed to keep your boots when you leave the army?” He looked around the room, searching for anyone with recent service experience.

  “Dress uniforms have to go back, Alex,” DC Sue Wooton called from the back. “The rest you keep. I’ve got a ton of stuff up in my loft from my other half.”

  “Okay, Sue, thanks. That goes into the mix.,” Blake said, rubbing his chin. “But keep an open mind, people. I don’t want us to go bolting off down some weird army rabbit hole and missing something else because of it.”

  “We can check if any of his drinking mates have similar boots. It sounds like a possibility if they’re ex-army, sir,” Vikki said.

  “True, Vikki. Has anything come from door-to-door?”

  “Not much sir. Some people heard a disturbance around midnight, somebody running through the village but didn’t see anything. There aren’t that many houses that actually face onto the memorial and they’re all some distance away.”

  “CCTV?” Blake said, hopefully but he already knew the answer.

  “None, sir,” Kath said. “No cameras there. Only one on the garden centre carpark and he didn’t go near there.”

  “Okay, Vikki, Kath and Alex, you talk to Travis’s drinking buddies. I’ll pay a visit to Mrs Travis,” Blake said, his heart sinking. “I want to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible.”

  *****

  The Travis’ house lay at the northern end of the village, not far from the Lady Lever Art Gallery. It was a large end terrace with a red tiled roof and white walls. Every house in Port Sunlight seemed slightly different to Blake, some of them looked small but the Travis’ was one of the larger ones. Parking his car at the side of the road, he knocked on the bright green door and waited.

  Tasha Cook answered the door, her thick, honey-coloured hair tied back. She looked drawn and, once again, Blake couldn’t help but admire those who stayed with the bereaved, bridging that gap between family and the force. “You okay, Tasha?”

  “Yes, sir. I think it’s just sinking in with Rachel…”

  “Mrs Travis?”

  “That’s right,” Tasha said. “The little girl, Danielle is with her grandma.”

  “Any information?”

  Tasha shook her head. “Nothing note-worthy yet. They seem like a normal, loving couple. Planning holidays, more kids, you know.” She pulled the front door back and Blake stepped in. “She identified the photographs of the tattoos as being those of Paul Travis. I don’t think she’s able to formally identify him. Just go gently, sir.”

  Blake raised an eyebrow at Tasha. She had been critical in the past and not afraid to respectfully point out that he could be like a bull in a china shop in his eagerness to solve a case. “I’ll do my best.”

  The house was stylish and minimalist without being too clinical or cold. Whoever had decorated had an eye for design, mixing the traditional features of the house with modern wallpaper and paint colours. It looked lived-in, too, a child’s bike in the hall and coats hanging on the banisters.

  Rachel Travis was a small woman, in her early thirties, with shoulder-length blonde hair. She had an almond-shaped face and a short, snub nose that was currently rubbed red with tissues. Her cheeks were streaked with mascara. Blake wondered how she managed to do the simplest of tasks with nails as long as hers. She sat in a cream armchair, cradling a pile of tissues in her lap. An untouched cup of coffee stood on the parquet flooring.

  “Rachel, this is Detective Chief Inspector Blake. He’ll be leading the investigation into Paul’s death.”

  Rachel stood up, smoothing her dark skirt down. “Forgive me. I must look a proper sight.”

  Blake gave a pained look. “No, no,” Blake said, trying to figure out what to say next. You look fine? Hardly. You okay considering your husband has just been murdered? Jeez! “Just… have a seat.”

  She folded back into the armchair, hugging herself. Blake settled on the edge of the sofa opposite her. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Blake said. The words always sounded hollow and he wished he could show he meant them. “This must be a terrible time for you.”

  Rachel looked up at Blake. “I’ve had better days,” she said, her fleeting smile decaying into a sob.

  Blake waited for her shaking to subside. “So, Rachel, I know you’ve been through this, but can you tell me when you last saw Paul.”

  “Early evening last night. He gave Danielle a bath, read her a bedtime story and headed out for the pub.”

  “And how did he seem? His mood, I
mean…”

  Rachel thought for a moment. “Just normal. Quite cheerful, I suppose. He pecked me on the cheek and said not to wait up. Oh God, those were his last words: don’t wait up.” She started sobbing again.

  Blake glanced nervously over at Tasha. “Rachel, this is a difficult question to ask and it might be upsetting but, can you think of anyone who might want to hurt Paul?”

  “No,” Rachel said, looking at Blake in horror. “Who would want to do that? He was a kind, generous man, full of life. Everyone who met him loved him…”

  “Could anyone have been jealous of that?”

  Rachel looked perplexed as though she was trying to work out an impossible equation. “I honestly can’t think of anyone who had a bad word to say about Paul. I mean, he had the odd difference of opinion with George about Pro-Vets…”

  “This is George Owens?”

  “Yeah but he’d never harm Paul…”

  “Nobody is suggesting he would, Rachel, but we just need to get a full picture of Paul’s background, his relationships, that kind of thing,” Tasha said, eyeing Blake.

  “What did he and Paul disagree about?” Blake asked.

  Rachel smiled. “Paul was always wanting to go large, to grow the charity and help more people. George was just cautious, that’s all. He wanted to keep things manageable. George kept an eye on the finances while Paul was more the front man. But they never fell out badly over anything, really.”

  “Can you think of anyone else, either in work or around here who might have any kind of grudge against Paul?” Blake said. “No matter how trivial.”

  Rachel Travis sat thinking for a while and for a second, Blake thought he’d lost her to some kind of miserable daydream but then she looked up at him. “A week ago, he had to have a word with some kids. Well, I say kids, they were teenagers and old enough to know better. It was last Saturday, I think. We were just taking Danielle around the village for a walk. They were sitting on the war memorial steps, drinking cans of lager. There was a can crushed and dropped on the ground.”

  “I imagine Paul wouldn’t like that.”