by Tim Ellis
‘Julie Adams from the Mission Daily,’ a small squat woman with grey wiry hair, an S-shaped nose and a Scottish accent said. ‘Have ye any idea as to the motive of the murder, Inspector?’
‘None at all at this juncture, Miss Adams.’
‘Wilma Lindesay from the Estuary Telegraph,’ a tall woman with a red pock-marked face, droopy eyes and a slanted mouth said. ‘Can you tell us who found the body, Inspector?’
‘I’m afraid that information is confidential, Miss Lindesay.’ He looked around, but the questions had petered out. ‘I’ll provide you with a more formal briefing at the station tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.
Richards had crept up behind him.
He jumped. ‘Are you in training for Special Ops?’
‘It’s funny you should say that . . . I’ve been thinking of doing my Sergeant’s exams.’
‘You just want to be above somebody – anybody.’
‘No, that’s not it. I really think I’d have something to offer as a Sergeant.’
‘You must think I walked through a hedge backwards. Come on, we have the sister of Christy Henson to see.’
Chapter Four
As they turned into Hilltop Farm in Brickendon, Stick beeped his horn, and the scoop of journalists who were congregated on the lane at the crime scene tape, parted like the Red Sea.
‘Do you feel like Moses?’ Xena said.
‘I read somewhere that he was a megalomaniac.’
‘The resemblance is uncanny.’
He glanced in the rear view mirror. ‘Do you really think so?’
‘No.’
Xena showed the uniformed officer her Warrant Card. ‘Are Forensics here?’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
Stick carried on down the lane to the main house.
‘Are you looking forward to seeing the donkeys?’
‘We’re not on a day trip to the seaside, numpty.’
‘I know, but it’s always nice to stroke the donkeys. After we’ve looked at the crime scene, we could stroke the donkeys. It’ll make us whole again.’
‘You might have a point.’ She wasn’t looking forward to viewing the crime scene, but that was the lot of a murder detective.
The farmhouse was stone with a slate roof, which appeared to have been refurbished recently. There were barns for hay, tractors, pigs and other farmyard animals. Cattle could be heard lowing in a Shippon made of brick, wooden beams and a corrugated metal roof. There was an orchard running down the edge of a field that housed a number of Shetland ponies, llamas and donkeys.
A gaggle of geese squawked and flapped out of the way of the car, and they saw a scattering of herons flapping their enormous wings as they took off like Hercules bombers from the roof of a barn.
Stick parked next to the Forensic truck.
There were also two ambulances with their back doors open and paramedics milling around waiting for the bodies to be brought out. Sitting in the back of one of the ambulances was a young dark-haired woman with a green blanket over her shoulders and her hands wrapped around a steaming drink of something.
A black BMW estate car was also parked there, which they knew belonged to the forensic pathologist Doctor Sandra Paine. Not least, because it had a banner with: “Keep Calm I’m A Forensic Pathologist” stuck on the rear windscreen.
After donning the forensic zip-up suits, overshoes, gloves and masks, and signing the visitors’ log, they made their way inside the farmhouse.
‘Pecker?’ Xena called.
‘Here, Ma’am,’ Peter Peckham answered.
‘Here where?’
There were white-suited forensic officers drifting in and out of rooms and along the hallway like ghosts at a séance.
One of them waved a hand.
‘You want to get yourself a hat with a flashing light on it, so that people can pick you out from all the other nondescript nobodies.’
‘I’ll make it a priority, Ma’am.’
‘Are you being insubordinate?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘And what have I told you about calling me “Ma’am”?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I’m sure I’ve said something.’
‘Not to me.’
‘Well don’t.’
‘Call you “Ma’am”?’
‘That’s right. And seeing as it’s you Pecker, I’ll let you call me “Inspector”.’
‘Yes, Inspector.’
‘So, now that we’ve cleared that mess up, what have you got for us?’
‘Another mess, I’m afraid. Mrs Boyd is in the kitchen, the son David is in the basement games room, and the two girls are upstairs in one of the two bedrooms.’
‘And they’ve all been shot?’
‘Yes – with a shotgun.’
Stick’s eyes opened wide. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. It’s not very pleasant.’
Walking on the aluminium tread plates they followed Pecker into the kitchen, which was painted forest green, had white cabinets and mottled brown floor tiles. There was a wooden table surrounded by six chairs, a central white-crackle marble worktop and large windows to let the light in.
On the floor, in front of the sink, lay Melissa Boyd with half her back and the top of her head missing. Blood, brain and bone was splattered over the white kitchen eye-level units above the sink, and the blood had been slowly dripping down the cabinet frontage into the water filling the sink and turning it a greasy red.
‘Jesus!’ Xena said.
Pecker looked at her. ‘I said it wasn’t very nice.’
Doc Paine was kneeling over the body and said, ‘This is the body of forty-three year-old Melissa Boyd, Inspector. I don’t think you need me to tell you what the cause of death was, do you?’
‘You’re relieved of that duty, Doc.’
‘My best guess, prior to the post-mortems, is that the murders occurred between six and eight this morning. All you need to do now Inspector Blake, is find out who would do something like this and why.’
‘That’s right, leave all the heavy lifting to me and Stick.’ She glanced at Pecker. ‘Have you found the shotgun?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘So, there’s a killer – who might or might not be Martin Boyd – out there with a shotgun?’
‘It’s certainly possible.’
‘Has anybody notified Operations that Boyd could be out there with a shotgun?’
Nobody said anything.
‘Great.’ She turned to Stick. ‘Call the Duty Inspector. Tell them that the murder weapon is missing, and they should have an Armed Response Unit on standby.’
Stick nodded, retrieved his phone and made the call.
Xena looked around. ‘Have you got a ballistics officer here, Pecker?’
‘Upstairs, Ma . . . Inspector.’
‘Any idea when you’ll get to the post-mortems, Doc?’
‘I expect I’ll be here most of the day, so let’s say tomorrow morning at ten, shall we?’
‘We’ll wander in at some point.’
‘It’s always nice to see you, DI Blake.’
‘I can imagine.’ She turned back to Pecker. ‘You know what I want, don’t you?’
‘I do?’
‘Working on the assumption that Martin Boyd killed his wife and three children, I need to know why he did it, which requires you to analyse telephone records, financial records, medical records and any other records that might shed some light on Boyd’s state of mind. Did both the Boyds work on the farm?’
Pecker shrugged.
‘How old was Martin Boyd?’
‘Fifty-one.’
‘Mmmm! Eight years’ difference between him and his wife. And don’t forget I want every phone, tablet, laptop, computer, emails, social media accounts and so forth examined?’
‘Of course.’
‘Who reported the murders?’
‘A Miss Heidi Ledger. She works at the Donkey Sanctuary. She arrived at about quarter to eight, came t
o the house after she’d put her things in the Sanctuary office, to discuss the day’s work with Melissa Boyd and found her here. I believe Miss Ledger is in an ambulance outside.’
‘We saw her. Did she go any further into the house?’
‘No. She didn’t know whether the killer was still here, so she went back to her office and called the police.’
‘Okay. Anything else, Pecker?’
‘Not yet.’
‘We’ll take a walk round the house then. While we’re doing that, I want you to organise a list of contacts – people we can talk to – and find out what the hell this is all about. Any grandparents living close by, siblings of either parent . . .’
‘We’ll do a search.’
‘Good. Come on, Stick.’
‘I could go outside and talk to Heidi . . .?’
‘Get your arse moving. If I’ve got to look at dead children, then I need back-up.’
They made their way downstairs to the games room in the basement. There was a pool table, a table-tennis table, a football table, a bar with a locked drinks’ cabinet and plenty of bench seating and shelving around the edges of the room. Hanging on the walls were signed Arsenal and Tottenham football shirts in glass-fronted frames.
David Boyd was sitting on a beanbag dressed in his pyjamas in front of an enormous widescreen television showing a FIFA 17 match between Real Madrid and Barcelona on pause. A game controller was resting on his lap. The right side of his face and the earphones he’d been wearing had disintegrated from the shotgun blast, and his right upper arm was barely hanging onto the shoulder joint by a few sinews.
‘I can’t believe that a father would do this to his only son?’ Stick said.
‘Don’t be so naive, Stick. You’ve seen the statistics. Humans will do what humans do best, regardless of any family relationship, they’ll kill each other. You know very well that the people most likely to kill us are members of our own fucking family. I’m just glad I haven’t got any relatives.’
‘And me.’
‘You have Jenifer.’
‘She’s not family.’
‘She soon will be when you ask her to marry you.’
‘Maybe I won’t ask her.’
‘You think she’s going to go along with that? Especially when you explain that you’re not getting married because you don’t want her to murder you. And then, of course, there’s all the children Jenifer wants you to father.’ Xena pursed her lips and shook her head. ‘You’re a dead man walking, Stick.’
‘Maybe the statistics are wrong?’
‘You can certainly use that thought to keep yourself warm at night while you’re waiting for your crazy wife, or one of your psychopathic rugrats, to creep into your bedroom and claim their inheritance.’
‘I’m really looking forward to being a husband and a father now.’
‘Glad I could help. So, the killer came down the stairs, stood here on the boy’s right side and blasted him.’
‘Shotguns really leave a mess.’
‘Especially when they’re fired at close range.’ She looked around the room. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
‘What doesn’t?’
She moved to the place where she imagined the killer would have stood. ‘If the killer was standing here pointing a shotgun at his head, do you think the boy would have seen him?’
‘I imagine so.’
‘Why didn’t he move?’
‘Maybe he was so focused on the football match that he didn’t turn his head. He might have been aware that someone was there, but decided to ignore them. Let’s face it, none of the family were expecting someone with a shotgun to appear, were they? Also, why would he be afraid of his father, even if he was holding a shotgun?’
‘Why is the game on pause? If the game is on pause, then it suggests he’d stopped playing the game. In which case he should have slid the headphones off and turned his head.’
‘Unless the killer paused the game.’
‘That’s a definite possibility. Pecker’s people need to check that controller for DNA and fingerprints . . .’ She leaned over to examine the buttons. ‘Which one is the “Pause” button?’
‘I have no idea. I’m not a gamer type of person.’
‘No, I don’t suppose you are. Okay, let’s go with the idea that the killer was the father – why would he kill his own family?’
Stick turned his back to the gory mess on the beanbag, and took out his notebook and pencil. ‘Maybe his wife was threatening to leave him and take the children with her?’
‘Why?’
‘He was having an affair?’
‘Okay, that’s one possible motive. We need to find out whether he had another woman in his life – write that down.’
Stick wrote it down in his notebook. ‘Maybe he was mentally unstable.’
Xena nodded. ‘If that was so, what could have triggered him to shoot his entire family?’
‘I don’t know – something?’
‘Very helpful. We need to check on his state of mind – any visits to the doctor, any medication he might have been taking, maybe he – or his side of the family – had a history of psychiatric problems?’
He scribbled the notes down. ‘She could have been threatening to divorce him, which might have meant that he’d have had to sell the farm to pay the divorce settlement?’
‘Could be. Pecker is already checking their financial records, so we’ll wait and see what comes out of that. Maybe we also need to investigate whether either of them visited a solicitor in the past three months.’
Stick looked around. ‘This games room is new.’
‘And the kitchen. They must have spent a fortune refurbishing this place.’
‘Maybe they’re in debt up to their eyeballs. Maybe Martin couldn’t cope with the escalating debt, and decided that the only way out . . .’
Xena’s brow furrowed. ‘. . . Was to kill his family and run away?’
‘We’re only assuming that he ran away. Maybe he killed himself somewhere else on the farm, but we just haven’t found him yet?’
‘If he was going to take his family with him, he’d have to go as well. As far as we know he hasn’t killed himself.’
‘Maybe he went somewhere else to do it?’
‘It’s possible. Okay, if they were in debt then Pecker will find out. What else?’
‘An affair? Melissa Boyd might have been having an affair. He found out . . .’
‘Why kill the kids? I could understand a husband killing an adulterous wife, but he had no reason to kill the kids.’
‘It’s a motive.’
‘It is. We’ll need to find out her movements as well. Okay, let’s go and take a look at the girls.’
‘I’d rather not.’
‘Me neither. Get going.’
They climbed the stairs back up to the kitchen, and then snaked their way along the central hallway where they found the main stairs.
There were two bedrooms on the second floor – the master bedroom and the second was for the youngest daughter – Diane. Why Mary was there wasn’t particularly clear. Mary’s body was a bloody mess on the bed. Diane was in the en suite bathroom sprawled on the floor in the entrance.
‘I’ll be having nightmares about this for weeks,’ Stick said.
‘Compartmentalise,’ Xena advised him. ‘Men are supposed to be better than women at compartmentalisation.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. Lock it away somewhere dark inside your mind and never let it out.’
‘Is that what you do?’
‘It’s no good having a defence mechanism if you don’t use it when you need it. You have to file all this away under FORGET, so that you can continue to function. Not just as a police officer, but as a human being as well. If you don’t, it’ll overwhelm you and you’ll be no good to anybody – least of all me. And you know what will happen then, don’t you?’
‘What?’
‘I’ll have to post you back to the fa
ctory as a reject. Of course, they’ll send me someone else by return of post, but it won’t be you.’
‘I didn’t know you cared so much.’
‘I don’t. All I care about is the amount of time I’ve wasted teaching you how to be a half-decent detective and partner – all that would be lost and I’d have to start again.’
‘Of course.’
‘Now, what do you think happened here?’
‘The killer came into the bedroom. He shot Mary in the chest and face on the bed – she’s lying on her back. The youngest – Diane – tried to run to the bathroom. He shot her in the back and the back of her head and the force of the blast sent her crashing into the bathroom wall opposite the door.’
Xena turned away. ‘If the father did this he’s mentally deranged. I agree with you – I’m not convinced the killer is the father either. Okay, let’s assume for a nanosecond that the killer was someone else – why?’
‘Revenge?’
‘For what?’
‘It could be anything,’ Stick suggested. ‘It’d have to be pretty serious though.’
‘Such as?’
‘Like for like. Maybe Boyd murdered the killer’s family.’
‘Now we have two murderers.’
‘Maybe it was an accident . . . a traffic accident?’
‘Mmmm! Interesting idea. What else?’
‘Money – an unpaid gambling debt? Maybe he was into drugs and the Donkey Sanctuary was merely a front for an import-export business.’
‘You’re on fire this morning, Stickamundo.’
‘I am, aren’t I?’
‘Anything else?’
‘Maybe somebody wanted the land and Boyd refused to sell.’
‘Good.’
‘That’s all I have.’
‘It’s enough to be getting on with.’
‘There is one other possibility,’ Stick said.
‘Go on?’
‘A random killing. Someone just wandered in . . .’
‘I might believe a burglary gone wrong, but there’s no evidence of a burglary.’
‘Should we go and see the donkeys now?’
‘That seems like a good idea.’
After looking in all the other rooms they concluded that the murders weren’t the result of a burglary gone wrong.