by Luca Veste
‘You know, the one who was always on Sky News and that. Turned out to be a paedo rapist or whatever . . .’
‘Max Clifford?’
Rossi clapped her hands together. ‘That’s the one. Would have annoyed me all day that.’
‘What about him?’ Murphy said, after waiting a few seconds for her to speak first.
‘That’s what I was expecting. Bit more gregarious, you know what I mean?’
‘Not really,’ Murphy replied, looking back towards the house. ‘Anyway, I think we’ve got work to do. We start now. Suggestions?’
‘Two things. The house and the victims.’
‘Good.’ Murphy nodded, wondering how infamous the house was about to become. ‘But that’s actually three things. Plus, you’ve forgotten about witnesses.’
Rossi tutted then shook her head. ‘There’s no one here really. All these houses are being pulled down.’
‘Maybe,’ Murphy replied. ‘But I guarantee there’ll be at least someone who hasn’t left yet. Always is. And it’s usually the one person who takes notice most of what happens around them.’
‘Fiver says you’re wrong,’ Rossi said, extending her hand. ‘Bet you there’s no one here.’
‘You’re on,’ Murphy said, gripping Rossi’s hand in his and shaking once. ‘A fiver on someone being here, who saw something suspicious.’
He lost the bet.
Chapter Four
Murphy and Rossi left DC Hale at the scene, along with a number of other officers, to finish up as much as was possible at that point. The scene would be cordoned off for a while yet, but most of the work would be down to forensics – the detectives’ work now focused on a multitude of different lines of enquiry. Most turning out to be dead ends, but requiring investigation all the same.
The familiar building on St Anne Street loomed into view as Murphy drove towards the station, wiper blades swishing across the windscreen as rain battered down on the car. Rossi was silent beside him, fingers flying across her phone screen.
‘Do you ever stop texting him?’
‘Of course I do,’ Rossi replied, turning a shade of embarrassed red, despite her angry tone. ‘I’ve got to sleep some time.’
‘This could be The One . . .’
‘Do you want there to be three murders for the team to deal with today?’
‘All right, all right, I’ll let you get back to the modern version of whispering sweet nothings to each other.’
‘Anyway, I had to put up with it when you got back with Sarah and she’s your wife. Surely once you’re married that sort of thing stops.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Murphy said, slowing down as they approached the entrance to the car park. ‘I won’t tell you any of the text messages she sends me now . . . far too racy for such a young woman to hear.’
Rossi made a sound like she was going to throw up. Murphy snorted and slowed the wipers down as the heavy rain subsided a little. He went back to letting his mind wander. In his head, he began delegating jobs to the team, hoping the restructure was going to work as well as had been intended.
The team. Murphy was still trying to get used to the new set-up. The Murder Squad as they were known colloquially – although their official title was the Major Crime Unit – had been established in the wake of a busy couple of years in the city of Liverpool. A serial killer, then a mass murderer months later, had finally had an effect on those with their hands on the purse strings. A specialised section had been created to meet a seemingly growing demand – with a public outcry helping it along. It allowed the Matrix team to concentrate on what they were good at, leaving the detectives in the Liverpool North division to focus on what seemed to be a never-ending parade of serious crimes.
‘You know, for a team nicknamed the Murder Squad, we’ve had very little murder. It’s been all domestics, assaults, robberies . . . that sort of thing lately.’
‘It was only a matter of time,’ Rossi replied, not looking up from her phone screen. ‘You’re a bloody death magnet usually.’
‘Shut it, you,’ Murphy said, hiding a smile. ‘I could still throw you over the water to work with our mate Tony Brannon.’
‘I’ll shut up,’ Rossi said, miming a zip going across her mouth.
Murphy smirked, thinking of Brannon briefly. The misogynistic, opinionated ball-ache, who had made his life a misery on a daily basis. Right up until Murphy had him transferred to Wirral CID.
Murphy indicated right and waited for a van to pass before pulling into the car park. St Anne Street station looked like a retro office building from the eighties at first glance. It didn’t get much better on the second either. It wasn’t one of the glass-fronted modern structures which were seemingly being built every week in the city, but distinctly old-fashioned-looking.
Murphy liked it that way.
Leaving Rossi talking to a new DC outside, Murphy was in the office within a few minutes. Might have been sooner if he hadn’t paused at the top of the stairs to catch his breath. He could have used the lift, but he was forcing himself to do a little more exercise. Anything to slow his march towards the dreaded age of forty and the increasing threat of a middle-age spread. He drank occasionally, but it wasn’t alcohol he was worried about. It was the takeaways and bacon sarnies that were going to catch up with him. His rapidly thinning hair was made palatable only by the fact he’d never known what to do with it anyway – but its loss compounded the feeling of getting on. Sarah said it was his beard that made him look older, but he thought it was life which was doing a fine job of things.
The office, with its bank of desks, would look indistinguishable from any call centre in town, if it wasn’t for the murder boards which headed the room. Pictures of victims and lists of places, people, things – information they hoped would bring a close to the cases. Not that it mattered of course. Justice was supposed to be the most important part of getting past a death. You got that and moved on. It didn’t happen that way, of course. Not with the thankfully rare cases of serial killing and mass murder. Nor the domestic cases that happened almost constantly. Over one hundred deaths per year; people murdered by partners or exes. People gone in an instant, but for those left behind, the deaths would linger for an interminable amount of time.
He knew that only too well.
Murphy shook his jacket off, placed it on the back of his chair and sat down, switching his computer on as he did so. He looked round for someone he knew the name of to ask them to make him a cup of coffee, but saw only strangers in smart clothes. The few detective constables left behind to deal with the other cases the team had on consisted of an interchangeable cast of faces. Rotating in and out of the squad, leaving Murphy with no one he could remember the name of.
He settled for the warm, half-empty bottle of water left from the previous day, swigging back most of what was left before instantly regretting it.
The house would be easy. All records for those on the street would be held by the council, along with a list of previous occupiers, he hoped.
‘What are you betting then?’
Murphy tore his eyes away from the screen on his computer and looked towards an approaching Rossi. ‘At the moment, I’m betting there was someone else in the room.’
‘Well, if it’s not murder–suicide, I reckon a spurned ex. Of his, I mean.’
‘Really? Something that simple?’
‘Yeah,’ Rossi replied, retying her hair back up into a ponytail. ‘If this Joe was playing away from home, it wouldn’t take long until he was found out. Or, to meet some bunny-boiler type. Imagine having to see pictures of them both out there all the time. They’re in the papers constantly. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s had a bit on the side and it’s come back to haunt him.’
‘And her?’ Murphy said, not buying the theory.
‘Chloe? That’s just simple jealousy. Whoever it was couldn’t handle the fact that Chloe was the one who got all the attention.’
Murphy pursed his lips, then scratched at his beard. ‘It’s a lea
p. It just doesn’t feel right. Could be a murder–suicide as you said. She kills him or vice versa.’
‘I’m not so sure of that now. How do they end up in that house?’
‘I think we need to actually spend a bit of time on this before trying to solve it. We’re quite obviously not frigging Sherlock Holmes.’
‘You’d be Watson anyway . . .’ Rossi said, under her breath.
‘I heard that.’
The start of every case was much the same. Called to a scene, have a look at a dead body or two. Interview whoever found them and then start to build a picture. Murphy liked to see the whole thing laid out before him and then he could view it as a complete story. To be able to look at what fit and discard what didn’t. He enjoyed talking to people – or rather it wasn’t so much the people he liked but the actual talking, teasing out details and information. Rossi was different. They had been working together a few years, but the differences were still stark to Murphy. He saw her as more analytical, looking for reasons and meanings behind everything.
They worked well together, he thought. The two most high-profile cases the city had seen in the past few years had shown him that.
The Sherlock Holmes jibe had been correct though. The resolution of a case never seemed to happen like magic, as it did in those stories. It was solved by relentless investigation and hopefully a mistake made by a perpetrator. Asking questions until you found an answer that made sense. Or a killer who left behind clues to their identity.
‘Start drawing up a list.’
‘Of what?’ Rossi replied, her eyes not leaving her own computer screen as she did so.
‘People we need to speak to. Family, friends, that cleaner who went in the house . . . the usual.’
Rossi gave him a half-hearted thumbs-up and got to work, leaving Murphy to get up from his desk and cross to the murder boards. He lifted the marker pen and began afresh.
* * *
‘I knew he’d be the death of her. I knew it.’
As introductions went, Murphy thought it was solid. Chloe’s mother had ushered them in, showing two women around the same age as her out of the living room as she did so.
‘I always said he’d do something to her. Never liked him. I said that to her. Why didn’t she listen?’
They’d had to travel to the other side of the water to visit Chloe’s mother – the water in question being the River Mersey. A mile wide, separating Liverpool from the peninsula on the other side of the Wirral, the two sides bonded together by tunnels which ran underneath the river bed.
‘Where did you use to live again?’ Rossi had asked as they drove through the Wallasey tunnel which ran from just outside the city centre into the east side of the Wirral.
‘Moreton. Nice enough place. Well, where I was living was anyway. Gets a bit rougher the closer you get to the old estates.’
‘Never fancied it myself. What’s that place over here where all those footballers live?’
‘Caldy, I think.’
‘If I had that kinda money I’d still be looking at Formby and the like. Something about the Wirral just puts me off.’
Murphy laughed and wagged his finger at Rossi. ‘You’re an old-school Scouser. Next thing you’ll be moaning about woollybacks and posh gets.’
‘Vaffanculo,’ Rossi said, shaping to give him a smack on the arm before thankfully realising he was driving.
‘It’s not that bad over here. Once you get used to it, it’s just like anywhere really. It’s not Liverpool, but then, where is? Liverpool isn’t like anywhere else really.’
‘I’m not convinced I want to find out if that’s true.’
‘What was the name of this road again?’
Rossi took her notebook out. ‘Broadway Avenue. You’ve told me to write down Off Belvedere. Don’t know why we don’t just use the satnav . . .’
‘Don’t need it,’ Murphy said before Rossi could moan any further. ‘It’s a straight run from here.’
A stretch of main road led from the tunnel exit, once Murphy had navigated a somewhat confusing roundabout. Houses lined the widened roads, with buses and traffic passing almost constantly.
Broadway Avenue was in the more expensive part of Wallasey. The road was dominated by large semi-detached houses, almost all with their own drives, many with new, expensive cars parked on them. Trees beginning to finally accept that spring had begun, almost blocked the view of the homes behind them.
‘Okay,’ Rossi had said as they’d left the car parked outside. ‘I’d live in a place like this if we got a pay rise. Would have to be a big raise, but I could have one of these places.’
Then they were inside. The smell of leather and some type of air freshener emanating from seemingly every corner of the room. The black of the armchair Murphy had perched himself on was darker and richer than he’d ever seen.
A glamour shot of Chloe, tasteful, almost fully clothed, adorned the wall over the modern marble fireplace to one side of the room. An obscenely sized television overpowered the corner.
‘I’m telling you now, if he wasn’t already dead I’d have done it myself.’
Murphy allowed Chloe’s mother to talk herself out. Karen Morrison was the epitome of someone who looked good for her age as he’d heard Sarah say often about someone on TV. Murphy knew she was in her forties at least, but would have put her as younger than himself. The only betrayal was in her eyes, which even without the puffiness of crying, were dark with age and life.
‘She should never have gone on that show . . . my poor baby.’
Rossi leaned over and patted at Karen’s hands, now clasped on her knees as her head bowed forward. ‘We’re really sorry, Karen. We’re going to do everything we can to find out what happened to Chloe, okay? We just need to know as much as possible at this point. Can you tell us a bit more about her?’
As Karen Morrison began to talk about Chloe’s childhood, Murphy’s attention moved from the woman’s words to the room around them. Aside from the large picture above the fireplace, the room was dotted with more photographs of Chloe. A couple of pictures stood on a sideboard in an alcove. More were displayed on a bureau which held a range of alcohol within.
It was almost a shrine.
‘She wanted to be famous,’ Karen said, shaking her head. ‘That was her goal and nothing was going to stop her. When that show came up, she auditioned again and again for it. Honestly, I didn’t think she’d do it when they picked her but she was determined. Told us that it was what she wanted, so we went along with it.’
‘After the show finished,’ Rossi said, her voice still low. ‘What was it like for her?’
A breath from Karen. ‘She changed. Not that most people noticed, of course, just people who knew her. Little things. The way she talked, the things she said. That kind of stuff.’
‘Like what?’
‘Her accent, for one. She was brought up over here, on the Wirral, but all of a sudden she had this broad Scouse accent, like she was from one of those council estates over there. I suppose if you’re on a show about Liverpool it’s required, but I never liked it. She went to nice schools over here, we made sure of it. Not that she ever did very well academically. Always had her head in the clouds.’
Murphy had become bored of looking round the room. ‘What did you think of her relationship with Joe?’
There was a change in the atmosphere then as the temperature dropped a degree or two.
‘That one,’ Karen said, her voice different to the soft, lyrical one she used when she spoke of Chloe. ‘He was never right for her. I’m telling you now . . . it’s his fault. He will have done this to her.’
Love
Here’s the thing they don’t tell you about love.
It kills you.
The death which follows love around, as if it’s a constant companion, it is the worst of them all. It hurts the most. The feeling of utter desolation, the loneliness that follows. When love dies, a piece of you goes with it.
He used to w
allow in that feeling. Every relationship he had, destined to end in the same way. Bitter acrimony and regret. The endless days which stretched out into his future, alone and isolated.
Livid. A growing sense of irritation which became anger, acidic as it became bile in his throat.
Love is violent.
It was never his fault.
‘Have you seen the way they’re falling over themselves to talk about this shit? You would think it was Kate and Prince bloody William that had been murdered.’
He turned the laptop screen towards her, shaking his head as she turned away with a sniff.
‘Do you think they really loved one another . . . you know, deep down? Or were they just stuck with each other. In it for the money.’
He didn’t get an answer. Just a pathetic look. The one she gave him more and more these days.
She was Number Four on his list of great loves. He numbered them, wanting to make them something more than just simple names. They deserved more. They deserved their own significance.
The first one, she had been his favourite. His first love. Number One. Two decades later and he still remembered the way she smiled, white teeth glittering back at him. The front two jutting forward just a little. You never forget your first love, that’s what they say.
Alison King. The name came forward in his mind, jarring him. He erased it and thought of Number One. That’s all she was now. A number.
They had met in high school, the first day, eleven years of age and weary of the new environment. She was small in stature but big in everything else. Loud, funny, popular.
He had loved her before he even knew what the feeling was.
For three years she had no idea of his intentions. He engineered time to be spent together, lesson projects that he could work on with her, made friends with people who could get him closer to her. Found out all the things she liked and mirrored them.
He played the game.
At fourteen, they were almost on speaking terms.
He pined for her, a yearning deep inside he couldn’t get over. Would think of nothing but her for endless hours. At first, it was just to spend time with her, to be in her company, her presence and nothing else. As his voice began to break and hair began to grow in new places, he thought of other things. What it would be like to brush her lips with his own, to run his fingers through her hair. To stroke her back softly, gently, with his fingertips.