by Celina Grace
“Rather unlikely, I would have thought. It’s a clean cut and the position of the wound means it wouldn’t have been easy to do accidentally.”
Kate crouched down herself. “Could it have been post mortem?”
“Again, it’s unlikely.”
Kate frowned. “So you don’t think he died from blood loss, then?”
“I really couldn’t say with any surety, not without a post mortem. He’s lost blood, you can see that from his colour, but whether that was enough to kill him – I just can’t say.”
A thought occurred to Kate. “Besides,” she said, staring at the crushed grass beside the corpse. “If he did die from blood loss, where is it all?”
Anderton, Theo and Gatkiss all stared at her. The student, Joshua Garton, was busy scribbling in a notebook.
“That’s a good point,” Anderton said slowly. “Even if it was just a vein, he’d be lying in a pool of blood. Wouldn’t he?”
As one, they stared at the body and at the unstained grass that surrounded it. Kate felt something she was unused to feeling in this situation – a kind of superstitious dread.
“It’s not—” began Theo. The strangled quality of his voice made them all look at him. “It’s not a bite mark, is it? In his neck?”
For a moment, the implication hung in the air and the stuffy interior of the tent seemed to chill and darken. Anderton shook himself, quite literally. “Come on, you lot. Don’t know what’s the matter with you all, this morning.”
“It’s not a bite mark,” said Doctor Gatkiss, in his quiet, matter-of-fact voice and that seemed to bring them all back to normality. “As to the blood loss, well, I can’t say for certain why that appears to be the case, at the moment. We’ll find out more at the post mortem.”
“Quite,” said Anderton. “So let’s not start getting hysterical. As it stands, this death is unexplained and suspicious, and that’s the statement I’ll be giving to the press.” He sighed and added, “No doubt they’re massing at the gates as we speak.” He clambered to his feet with a groan. “Given that the victim appears to have a knife wound to the neck, these grounds are going to have to be searched right now, once everything’s been cleared from here. Theo, can you start organising some uniforms to get started on that?”
Theo nodded. He was frowning, his black brows drawn down, and was staring fixedly at the body.
Kate raised her hand. “What shall I do?”
Anderton’s eyes met hers. His tone, when he answered, was utterly professional, but there was a look in his eyes that was not. Half pleased at the depth of feeling shown, half alarmed that somebody else might notice, she looked quickly away.
“I’d like you to make a start of the preliminary interviews, please, Kate. Particularly the houses at the back, here.” He gestured beyond the back wall of the forensics tent. “Ah, great timing, here’s Rav.” DC Ravinder Cheetam, Rav to his friends and colleagues, had just entered the tent. “Take him with you and bring him up to speed on the way.” A thought seemed to strike him. “Where the hell is Chloe?”
“On holiday,” said Kate, amused. “As she has been for the past week.”
“Oh, yes. Forgot. Must have a lot on my mind.” Their eyes met again, and Kate bit back a smile. “Anyway, we’ll have to manage without her and Mark as best we can. Right, let’s reconvene back at the office and see what’s what later on.” He adjusted his tie with the air of a man fortifying himself against an approaching unpleasant experience. “Right, off to face the press I go. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” came the subdued chorus as he walked away. Kate turned to Rav who regarded the body with a frown.
“You ready?”
“Sure. Actually – hang on a sec.” Rav bent down to Doctor Gatkiss’ level and murmured a question too low for Kate to hear. She was thinking again about Mark – poor Mark – and how he must be feeling. Would he be able to even be on this case? She was so lost in speculation that she jumped as Rav touched her arm.
“Okay, let’s go. Ivor says if we get a chance we can pop back to check if there’s any developments, but otherwise he’ll see one of us at the PM tomorrow.”
“Great. Let’s go, then,” Kate said briskly, trying to snap back into professional mode.
*
They walked along the graveyard path, veering away from the front of the churchyard and the pack of journalists and photographers that Anderton was even now addressing. The sun was hot, and Kate wished she’d worn a short-sleeved top. She’d packed her overnight bag for bad weather. Perhaps she could leave a couple of bits at Anderton’s next time she was there? Or was it a bit soon to be doing that?
She dismissed the thought and turned her attention to what Rav was saying.
“—a bit weird, don’t you think? I mean, the way he was lying. Like a bloody vampire or something.”
“Oh, don’t,” said Kate, surprised at the sudden jolt in her stomach. “He was almost certainly posed like that.”
“By his killer?”
“Well, yes.” Even as she spoke, Kate heard the doubt in her voice. Perhaps he – Joe, she reminded herself, aware that she’d never known his surname, had never heard it from Olbeck – Joe had died a natural death. Or at least an unsuspicious one. But how could that be the case, with the way he was lying and the knife wound in his neck?
Rav chuckled. “I don’t think I’d be hanging around in the morgue after dark, even so.”
Kate laughed too, reluctantly. “Come on, you’ve seen too many bad horror films.”
“I love horror films. Especially really bad ones.”
They had reached the tiny road that ran alongside the churchyard wall, where the side entrance to the graveyard stood.
“Is it down here, to the houses?” Kate answered her own question as she peered up and down the road – so tiny it was almost a path. “Yes, there they are.” As she and Rav walked up the road, she looked around for CCTV cameras but, as she expected, found none.
There were only two houses at the end of the lane. The house nearest the churchyard was a nondescript semi-detached brick building, probably built after the Second World War. The number ten showed in tarnished brass numbers on the front door. The small, scrubby front garden was thick with litter – plastic bottles and bags, cigarette butts, a shattered glass bottle that lay in glinting shards in the sunlight. The curtains in all the windows were drawn. Kate and Rav rang the doorbell several times, then knocked and called for good measure, but nobody answered.
Kate stepped back to look up at the shrouded windows. “Think there’s anyone actually in there, avoiding us, or is it just empty?”
Rav shrugged. “Hard to say. We don’t have a warrant or anything—”
“Yet.” Frustrated, Kate knew what he was saying. They weren’t going to be able to force an entry – not at this point, anyway.
“Excuse me? Excuse me? Are you the police?”
They both turned at the voice coming from over the hedge that ran along one side of the tiny front garden. Its owner was unseen but the voice was female and its tremor and hesitation suggested someone elderly.
“Yes, that’s right, madam,” answered Kate, chancing a guess. “Can we help you?” As she spoke, she walked back out into the road to look into the next door garden.
The woman standing there wasn’t as elderly as Kate had expected but she looked both upset and excited.
“Has something happened?” The woman was dressed in bottle green cord trousers and a dark blue fleece, her grey hair cropped short. “Are you the police?”
Kate was often asked this question – CID didn’t wear uniform. She nodded and held out her warrant card for inspection. The woman barely glanced at it but nodded towards the house next door. “Has something happened?”
“Do you have a few minutes to talk to us, Mrs—” Kate said with a question in her voice.
&
nbsp; “Mrs Chiltern, Fiona Chiltern. Yes, I can talk to you if you think it would help. Do come in.” As Kate and Rav filed through the garden gate into her front garden, Mrs Chiltern added with some bitterness. “I’m not surprised, you know, not surprised at all. What was it, a drug overdose?”
Kate and Rav maintained a discreet silence as they followed the old lady into the house. It was comfortably but drably furnished. The overriding colour was beige, the blandness only relieved by a vast array of flourishing houseplants.
Mrs Chiltern offered tea, and then coffee, which was refused. She sat, looking nervous but excited, on the armchair of the beige three-piece suite, while Kate and Rav took the sofa. “Was it a drugs overdose?” she asked again.
“Why do you say that, Mrs Chiltern?” asked Kate.
Mrs Chiltern rolled her eyes. “Oh, my dear, the things that go on over there are just shocking, quite shocking. It’s been like that ever since Mr Harborough, Arthur Harborough, died – he was the owner – and since he passed away, his son’s been renting the house out to all and sundry, it seems. I hoped we’d get some nice tenants in there, people who actually want to live here, you know, but it’s been a stream of – well, I don’t know – terrible people, blaring music and wild parties on all day and all night—” She paused and clasped her hands. “I’m not prejudiced, I’ve got nothing against homosexuals, in fact my nephew is one and he’s a lovely boy, he’s got a wonderful job in hotel management, but these people—“ She jerked her grey head to indicate the house next door. “It’s nothing but drugs parties and – and, well, sex parties – such a terrible racket, all night sometimes—”
“There was a party there last night?” Kate asked, knowing that there had been but wanting witness confirmation.
“Yes – the usual thing – hideous thumping music and people breaking glass and shrieking and, oh, it’s just terrible—“
Mrs Chiltern continued in this vein for some time. Looking at her closely, Kate could see the shadows under her eyes, and the transparency that exhaustion gives to human skin, and felt a stab of pity for her.
“It sounds very hard,” she said when Mrs Chiltern finally paused for breath. Kate glanced across at Rav who nodded very slightly. Kate went on. “I can’t give you many details but I can confirm that the body of a young man has been found in the vicinity. The investigation is ongoing.”
“A young man?” Mrs Chiltern put a hand to her throat. “Who was it?”
“He hasn’t been identified yet, Mrs Chiltern,” said Kate, mendaciously. After all, Olbeck’s identification hadn’t exactly been official. For a moment, as she was talking, Kate felt a stab of doubt. Had Olbeck been mistaken? As he’d said himself, it was years since he’d seen Joe. She brought herself back to the present. The body, Joe or not, would be identified in due course, and they’d take it from there. “Is there anything you can tell us about the events next door last night that gave you cause for concern?” She saw Mrs Chiltern roll her eyes again and added hastily, “More cause for concern, I mean?”
The woman hesitated, clasping her hands again. Kate noticed she wore an ornate gold and ruby engagement ring as well as a heavy gold wedding ring. “Well,” Mrs Chiltern began, uncertainly, “I can’t say I noticed anything untoward. No – no arguments or anything like that. It was just the usual noise, the terrible music… I took a sleeping pill in the end, otherwise I would have been awake all night.”
Which probably meant she’d heard and noticed nothing. Kate sighed inwardly and asked if Mrs Chiltern had any contact details for the landlord of the house next door, which she did, at least. “Not that it makes any difference. I’ve sent him no end of letters and emails, but he’s never once had the decency to reply.”
A few more questions revealed that Mrs Chiltern had very little else to contribute. Kate and Rav thanked her, handed over their cards, commiserated with her once more about the neighbour problem, and then left. They tried the door of number ten once more but again, nobody answered.
“I’ll get on to the landlord,” said Kate. She consulted the details that Mrs Chiltern had given her. “This Miles Harborough. Doesn’t sound like a very socially minded citizen, does he?”
“No, he sounds like a git.” Rav jerked his head back towards the hubbub of the churchyard. “Come on, we’d better get back and check to see if Doctor G’s discovered anything. Like a stake through his heart.”
“Ha, ha,” said Kate and followed her colleague back down the dusty lane towards the entrance to the graveyard.
Chapter Four
“Joseph Simon Vickers,” Anderton said at ten o’clock the next morning, indicating a photograph of the dead man where it had been taped up on one of the noticeboards in the office. The Abbeyford team, minus DS Chloe Wapping, were assembled in the incident room, straddling chairs, perched on the edge of desks and leaning against tables, watching their boss stride up and down in front of the bank of whiteboards. Anderton went on, “He was carrying a wallet with sufficient identification in it for us to be able to contact his next of kin, who have now officially identified him.”
Kate, who was sitting next to Olbeck, felt him make a minute movement beside her, a tiny flinch. Anderton, who must have subconsciously noticed the same, gave him a kindly glance. “Mark, here, as you all probably know, was once the partner of the deceased and made a tentative identification at the scene when he realised.” Anderton paused in his pacing, one hand rumpling his hair. “I’m sorry, Mark. I’m sure that goes for all of us.”
“Thanks,” Olbeck replied stiffly. “I appreciate the sentiment but – well, it was a long time ago. It was a momentary shock, that’s all and I – it’s not going to affect how I approach the investigation.”
“Fine.” For a moment, Anderton looked as though he was going to say something else but clearly thought better of it. “If I could just have a quick word after this debrief, though? In my office?”
“Fine.” Olbeck folded his arms across his chest. Kate could feel the rigidity of his bicep as his arm touched hers. She gave her friend a quick, sympathetic glance, which he didn’t notice.
“Anyway,” said Anderton, resuming his pacing. “This remains a suspicious death and I’m hoping the post mortem will throw up some definite answers as to exactly how Vickers died. As you all know, there was a knife wound in his neck, although whether that was made pre or post mortem hasn’t yet been ascertained. There are a few other anomalies around the condition of the body.” He turned again to the whiteboards and to a set of crime scene photographs. “The position of the body, here.” His finger alighted on the pale figure on the grass, the arms crossed on the chest, the hands loosely curled together. The pallor and rigidity of the body and the pose recalled a marble statue, perhaps of a dead knight clasping his sword. “This is odd. Ritualistic. Now, I suppose it’s just possible, although bloody unlikely, that Vickers committed suicide. But the chances of remaining in his position through dying, and after death, I would count as extremely slim indeed.”
Rav raised his hand. “The blood, sir.”
“Yes, I was coming to that. The body seems to have lost a lot of blood – indeed, that may well be the cause of death – but the odd thing is that there isn’t a lot of blood at the scene. Hardly any soaked into the ground around the body, the clothes are relatively clean. It’s odd. Very odd.”
Anderton paused for a moment, rubbing his chin and observing the photographs. The team waited. After a few minutes, he shook his head briskly and turned back to face them. “Right, well, as I said, the PM should give us a bit more to go on, I would have thought. Who’s going to attend that this afternoon?”
Kate opened her mouth to volunteer and got a shock when Olbeck spoke up next to her.
“I will,” he said.
Anderton and the rest of the team looked at him. After a moment, Anderton answered. “Mark, are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“I wouldn
’t have said so if I didn’t.”
Kate winced inwardly at his tone. She could understand it but it didn’t sound much like the Mark she knew and loved.
Anderton regarded his DI for a moment without expression. “Fine,” he said, eventually, turning away. “As I said, let’s have a quick catch up after this. We’ll discuss it then.”
He began pacing again and talking about the preliminary interviews that had been conducted but the concentration of the group had waned momentarily. There was that prickly feeling of embarrassment in the room and a few uneasy glances from one person to another. Theo caught Kate’s eye from across the room but she refused to raise her eyebrows back at him.
“Anyway,” Anderton said, his back to them all as he looked at the whiteboards. He picked up a marker and added a few notes. “I want someone to get onto the landlord of that property, number ten, and find out all you can about who he’s letting it to. If you can’t find him, I’ll swear you a warrant to get in there yourselves anyway. I need interviews with Vickers’ nearest and dearest to see what background we can gather on him. His brother was the one who identified him – he needs to be talked to. Rav, you’ve got his details, right?” Rav nodded. “Okay, what else? I want CCTV from the area, what little you can find, anyway. What else?” He rubbed his chin again. “That’ll do for now, unless anyone else has got something to add?”
Kate looked around the room to see if anyone would volunteer. She wondered for a moment whether Rav was going to crack another joke about vampires – she saw him start to grin and open his mouth – but he clearly thought better of it and shut up again. Wise move. By the grim set of Olbeck’s face, he was not in the mood for any kind of humour, least of all morbid jokes about his dead ex-boyfriend.
“Right,” said Anderton, dismissing them. “Any questions, I’m in my office. Mark, step this way for a sec—”
Kate watched both men walk out of the room before trying to bring her attention back to the job. Interviewing the landlord, that was something she could make a start on, wasn’t it? What was his name? She found her notebook and searched through it until she found his details. A quick search easily brought up his name, telephone number and address.