The Blood Whisperer

by Zoe Sharp

  Usually Kelly was good at spotting confrontations early enough to divert or avoid them but sometimes she was glad of Tyrone’s bulky presence on the job.

  This time Tyrone was the one taking flak. He hovered awkwardly in the doorway to the suite, head ducked as if to protect his ears against the verbal blows.

  Not that the man with him looked set to get physical. Kelly read anger in the tight lines of his body, yes but not that dangerous boiling rage. She willed herself to relax knowing calm reason was the best form of attack.

  “Can I help you?” she called aiming her voice low and pleasant.

  Both men twisted in her direction. Kelly kept her body language neutral as she closed the distance between them.

  The quick relief in Tyrone’s expression would have been comical in other circumstances but Kelly’s eyes were on the newcomer.

  She’d initially thought he must be a member of staff. The comfortably middle-aged housekeeper had let them in. She showed them as far as the right corridor before she fled but a property this size needed more than one domestic to keep it in shape. It would be no surprise if the Lyttons employed a major-domo—the kind who’d get shirty on his employer’s behalf for a job running behind.

  The man turned. She caught the way his suit moulded across his back, the fabric draping casually back into place and she didn’t need to spot the exclusive watch and handmade shoes to know she was dealing with serious money.

  Uh-oh.

  He stood with feet braced apart but arms folded in an unconscious contradiction of gestures that piqued Kelly’s interest.

  “You must be Mr Lytton.” She held out her hand so that good manners compelled him to uncoil long enough to respond, turning his upper body away from Tyrone as he did so. The man nodded as he treated her to a fleeting handshake. She said, “We apologise for any distress caused by the delay.”

  He studied her for a moment without speaking. There was a compressed energy to him that was not simply anger but also contained more than a trace of shock. It made her suddenly very wary.

  “I was just explaining ’bout the blood Kel,” Tyrone put in nervously over Lytton’s shoulder. “I didn’t see it right off but then I spotted it, yeah? The bit you said—”

  “It’s all right Tyrone,” Kelly said softly, her eyes still on the client. Lytton had dark hair a little on the long side, styled but not too fancy, a strong nose and eyes the colour of old Welsh slate—dark grey with a hint of green. “I’ve just spoken to the boss. Wait in the van would you?”

  Tyrone hesitated. “You sure?”

  A brief smile flickered across Kelly’s face. “I’m sure.”

  Reassured, he loped off along the corridor with his oversuit rustling as he went. The man watched his hasty exit with an expression that was now hard to discern. Kelly wondered about her earlier conclusions. Had she been wrong about the shock?

  “Bit young for this kind of job isn’t he?” he demanded as if Kelly had a say in it. His accent was not the cut-glass she’d expected. So he probably made his money rather than inherited it. She stifled an inward groan. Sometimes with self-made men it was nice of them to take the blame for what they’d made of themselves.

  “Tyrone’s a good worker,” she said. “Very competent.”

  “I’ve no doubt but is this—” he jerked his head towards the doorway, “—the sort of thing a kid his age ought to see on a regular basis?”

  Kelly put her head on one side. Hmm is that a social conscience I detect?

  “He makes good wages. They help support his family. And some of us don’t have the luxury of being shielded from the harsh realities of life Mr Lytton,” she murmured. “Tyrone saw his first OD while he was still in primary school.”

  A muscle clenched in the side of his jaw. “And that makes either of you experts at distinguishing suicide from . . . something else does it?”

  Kelly felt the jolt of his words go through her but she’d taught herself not to let her emotions show outside her skin. Learned it in a hard place where any sign of weakness got you beaten or killed.

  So she merely raised an eyebrow at the hesitation and didn’t pursue it. “It wasn’t our call to make,” she said instead which was the truth—as far as it went. “My boss has told us to hold fire until he’s double-checked certain disparities in the scene with the investigating officer. Until then everything needs to stay as it is. I’m sorry.”

  He sighed, a thin hiss of pure exasperation. “The police told me as far as they’re concerned the case is closed. She killed herself. End of story,” he threw out. “And believe me, they looked hard.”

  Not hard enough. Kelly shrugged and dug a business card out of her back pocket, held it out. The cards held the firm’s name and contact details but no personal information. “You’re welcome to speak to Mr McCarron directly if you like.”

  He took the proffered card and fingered it for a moment but made no moves towards a phone. His next words surprised her. If the look on his face was anything to go by they surprised him too.

  “Show me.”

  She arched an eyebrow.

  He gave a shrug of frustration. “You must have seen it first,” he said. “The kid—Tyrone? He mentioned something about the blood.”

  Kelly hesitated. Ray insisted that they were efficient, professional, neat and respectful at all times but she’d never encountered this kind of morbid curiosity from the deceased’s nearest and dearest before.

  “The blood spatter is inconsistent,” Kelly said at last, keeping her tone neutral.

  “Inconsistent,” Lytton repeated flatly. “What does that mean?”

  All Kelly’s instincts warned her not to get into details. She’d said too much already. If there was the slightest chance the case might be reopened she needed to stay as far away from it as possible. To say anything else was self-destructive madness.

  Kelly shifted her stance. “I’m sorry but I can’t say more,” she said. “It’s not my call. Until I’ve had absolute confirmation we can’t disturb the scene.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” His eyes narrowed on her face, the scrutiny uncomfortable. She’d met people before with eyes like these. Mostly the wrong sort of people in the wrong sort of places. It had rarely ended well.

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated, “but I’m afraid you need to speak with—”

  His step forwards was enough to cut her off in mid-sentence.

  “No,” he said quietly, “I believe the person I need to speak with is you.” His head tilted a little as he looked down into her face. “You suspect I had something to do with it? I wasn’t even in the country when Veronica died.”

  Kelly felt the angry intensity, the urgency behind his words. It mattered to him that she believe him but she didn’t know why. She suppressed a shiver and hated it. Not the shiver itself but the reason behind it.

  “We’re not accusing you of anything Mr Lytton,” she said carefully. She was suddenly aware that she was alone with the guy in part of a house big enough so that a scream from one wing could hardly be heard in another. And she’d stupidly sent her back-up well out of earshot in a misguided attempt to protect him.

  He stepped back abruptly and Kelly tensed in automatic response but he swung away from her, staring down into a pit of his own making.

  “I did not kill my wife,” he said quietly. “I had no desire to do so and no need.”

  He glanced back at Kelly’s expressionless face but she gave him nothing in return. He gave a brief nod as if he’d expected that and turned away.

  She let him make it almost to the doorway then said, “How much do you know about high-velocity gunshot wounds?”

  He turned back, stuffed his hands casually into the pockets of those well cut trousers.

  “I hunt,” he said shortly. “Mate of mine has to cull the local deer population every now and again or they strip his plantation. He doesn’t always choose his marksmen . . . wisely. So yes, I’ve seen what the odd wild shot can do.”

  Kelly
recalled, perhaps too late, that it was one of the man’s own hunting rifles his wife had apparently chosen for her demise. Or someone else had chosen for her.

  Damn. Ah well too late now.

  “Then you’ll know there’s always blowback spatter from the entry wound and forward spatter—projected spray and debris—from the exit.” Her voice matched his own, cool and dispassionate.

  “But?”

  She hesitated again. Ah well, in for a penny.

  “You’d better see for yourself,” she said and moved over to the bathtub.

  He joined her with only fractional reluctance. Kelly wondered if she thought more or less of him for that.

  Side by side they stared down into the carnage left by violent death, smeared by the paramedics and the forensics teams that followed. What remained was somehow damaged, dirty and sad.

  “How can you see anything inconsistent through all that?”

  “Because I know what to look for.” She crouched careful not to touch anything and used a pen as a pointer. “Void patterns in the spatter confirm the position of the . . . of your wife at the time of the shooting,” she said choosing her words with great care.

  “You can refer to Veronica as ‘the victim’. The police certainly did damn well often enough,” he said tightly. “I won’t bite.”

  Kelly gave a faint smile, recognising the grim humour for what it was. “You can see here the back spatter from the entry wound. It’s very fine, almost a mist, travelling in the opposite direction to the bullet.”

  “And you can tell that how, exactly?”

  Kelly rose, reached for her camera and flicked through the stored images. “Look at this one,” she said. “You can see it’s teardrop-shaped—rounded at one end and with a streak at the other. The streak always points in the direction of travel. See?”

  She zoomed in and tilted the camera screen towards him without thinking. He stepped in close to look and Kelly suddenly felt crowded, hot, trapped. Her fight or flight response tried to kick in. She had to stamp on it firmly before she either belted him or ran. Or both.

  “So, the opposite of something like a comet tail?”

  “Exactly. As the droplet hits a hard surface the back edge holds its form while the front edge breaks into what looks like a tail. It’s how we can fix the directionality of the spatter.”

  Lytton straightened without apparently realising how near he’d been to serious injury. He was frowning.

  “And you think there’s some problem with that directionality?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Look just spit it out will you?”

  Kelly took a breath and said in her best evidence-giving voice, “I observed an additional void pattern on the side of the bathtub in this area here.”

  Lytton leaned over the bath holding his tie flat to his chest with one hand to prevent it dangling.

  “I don’t see this void you’re talking about.”

  “You won’t,” Kelly said. “It would appear to have been filled in.”

  “Filled in.” Again that dead flat sceptical delivery. Again the command: “Show me.”

  Kelly indicated with the pen. His face stayed expressionless.

  “I can’t see any difference.”

  “It appears correct at first glance but when you look closer you can see the directionality is actually totally opposite,” she allowed. “My guess would be someone dipped into the spilt blood and flicked it across the void to cover it. If it wasn’t for the difficulty of flicking it upwards instead of down I might not have spotted it.”

  For maybe ten long seconds he said nothing. Then he stepped back as if to distance himself from her.

  “That’s it?” he demanded. “That’s the reason you’ve put this whole job on hold? A tiny patch of blood sprayed so fine you can hardly make it out with the naked eye, when I’ve had half of Thames Valley and the Met crawling all over this place for days? And that’s all you have?”

  His hands twitched in a gesture of frustration or despair. Kelly refused to cringe in the face of his anger. She kept her head up, aware she came barely to his chin.

  “Once this is gone it’s gone,” she said indicating the bloodied bathtub. “I just need to be absolutely sure I’m doing the right thing.”

  Lytton snorted. “Yeah of course you do.” He passed a tired hand across his face. “I . . . apologise. I’m sure you can appreciate that I’m anxious to get this over with—try to put it behind me.”

  “Of course. Just as I’m sure you can appreciate that we have to work strictly by the book.”

  He tensed, mouth flattening. For a moment she saw the swim of mixed emotions in his face, his eyes. Instead of the sorrow she’d been expecting there was only anger and confusion and a fleeting trace of something Kelly recognised as guilt.

  Whatever else had been part of Veronica Lytton’s life she considered, that didn’t include a happy marriage.

  She forced a smile to soften the blow and put a placating hand on his arm. “I’m very sorry for your loss Mr Lytton but I can’t ignore what the evidence is telling me.”

  Lytton withdrew his arm fast, almost jerky as if he felt tainted by her touch. He was at the doorway before he delivered his Parthian shot with unknowing but deadly accuracy:

  “This evidence you set such store by—suppose what it’s telling you is wrong?”

  3

  Matthew Lytton stood in the shadows by his open study window and stared down into the rear courtyard where the crime-scene cleaners’ van stood parked.

  He could see the pair of them lounging in the front seats—doors open, waiting—and was aware of a ticking resentment at their idleness, however involuntary.

  Lytton had made his considerable fortune in construction, demolition and renovation. Casual labour was a necessary evil that all too often lived up to its name. He’d become adept at turning up on site when his guys least expected. If he’d found any of them sitting on their backsides reading like this pair he’d have fired them so fast they would’ve left scorch marks.

  Now, from his vantage point on the upper floor, he could see the big black kid was engrossed in a sports magazine. The woman was reading a book. Not a cheap paperback but a hardcover. When the distant trill of her cellphone drifted up to him she held her place with a bookmark rather than dog-ear the page before answering it.

  As a man who’d grown up without books Lytton had come to treat them with respect. Grudgingly he found himself thinking better of her for doing the same.

  When he first saw the woman striding along the corridor towards him with her choppy black hair and her pierced nose he’d thought she was just a girl. Something about the petite frame, the easy way she moved despite the unflattering garb, spoke of youthful vitality.

  But where he’d expected truculence she’d responded only with reason. And when he looked deeper he saw she was nearer his own age than that of her young apprentice. That had thrown him as much as her stubborn refusal to be riled. Even if his overriding impression remained one of suppressed energy behind the calm facade.

  His late unlamented wife had been the epitome of calm, cool and collected. He once swore that it was unnecessary to put ice in Veronica’s afternoon Pimm’s. One touch to her lips and the glass would be laced with it. But what you saw was what you got. The only fire that burned inside that perfectly stage-managed body was ambition. First for him and—when that was achieved without apparent satisfaction—for herself.

  He glanced down and realised he was holding their wedding photograph. Slowly, he smoothed his thumbs across the ornate silver frame. He’d come across the picture while he was sorting through his wife’s things and been almost surprised she’d kept it.

  Mind you she kept everything else. There seemed to be endless notes, shorthand reminders of conversations, social engagements, names and dates. Deciding what was rubbish and what was important had begun to give him a headache. And that was before he’d had his run-in with the cleaners.

  Finding
the photo gave him an excuse to pause a moment and reflect. It hadn’t been a big wedding but Veronica had still insisted on something overly lavish for their finances at the time. Looking at their frozen expressions with the benefit of twenty years’ hindsight he reflected that neither of them looked particularly ecstatic at the union.

  He’d had no illusions he was the love of her life of course, just as she had not been his. They’d discussed their proposed marriage in coolly practical terms before the announcement was drafted for The Times.