“Don’t mind me,” I grinned awkwardly. “Carry on.”
After putting on a pair of sterile gloves, I inspected the series of cuts across her arms. Both wrists were sliced, for lack of a kinder word, the cuts unforgiving. They lined up almost perfectly with each other on the two wrists. A bit of bruising flattered her forearms too, something which always looked perfectly natural from suicide but not so much if foul play was involved here.
“What could that be?” I vaguely circled the area without contacting Laura’s skin for the pathologist’s sake.
“Cord or rope of some kind, possibly tied together for one reason or another.” He pointed out some deeper bruising. “Tightly too, not completed without resistance, I shouldn’t think.”
“Could her hands have been tied together before making the cut? Both cuts match up exactly. Do you reckon her hands were tied then cut in one motion?” I considered many possibilities.
“I’d say that’s plausible,” he mused.
I sniffed casually. It didn’t smell of stale flesh and blood, instead of fresh candles. Quite pleasant actually. My attention diverted to the bathroom lock, tracing it with my gloved fingers. It looked broken this time.
“Blimey, it’s hot in here.” The pathologist heaved his body up, stalking to the bathroom window and propped it open further.
A cool breeze escaped through, hitting me directly in the face and waking me up. I peeked outside the frosted window, and a drainage pipe ran right beside the window. I tested out the width of the window, seeing if my body could squeeze through.
It could with a pinch.
The pathologist stared at me as though I was mad.
“Please, do stare,” I barked.
“You lot are deluded.” He shook his head in referral to CID.
I ignored him. McCall had to hear this. Firmly deciding against trying the window route, I was forced to pass forensics, grimacing at the sight of their grubby fingers scrubbing around Laura’s floor.
Laura’s ornate Bible caught my attention. It was thumbed through a lot. Most of the page corners were either worn down or weathered. Unfortunately, religion wasn’t my strongest point. Working for CID gave us slim reasonings to believe in saving graces. I mean, look at Laura. Where did those prayers get her? Lugged off by a coroner. I was about to turn away when I noticed a bright yellow post-it note tucked in. Carefully to cause the least disturbance, I flipped the Bible open so I could read the note.
Staring me in the face was the number nine again. Could Laura have written this nine herself? Now that the book was potential evidence, I tucked the book under my arm, hoping a handwriting match could tell us more and whether it was significant.
Next, my searching eyes caught the waste bin sitting dully in the corner. Curiosity got the better of me. What better way to find out Laura’s background efficiently, then sifting through her waste bin? People chuck away things they’d or prefer to remain hidden. Secrets were sent into bins, which is why we shouldn’t trust binmen.
Laura threw away plenty of shopping receipts, showcasing reduced bargains and cheaper on sale items. We all love a good bargain, aye? Under all that, a broken dummy rolled around nearer the bottom of her bin. When I pulled my fingers back, I found the gloves coated in some sort of ashy textured dust, fine and purple. I rubbed my fingers together in an attempt to brush some off without staining any of my clothes.
“What are you?” I mumbled to myself.
I dragged the bin closer to me, finding another strange object rolling with the dummy. My heart pulsed, convulsing faster than before with a twisted excitement that couldn’t be stopped. The shiny object felt cool to the touch, metal rusted down and worn. It was a ring, a large one. Not a wedding ring, though, more of a costume jewellery item.
“Cooper?” McCall shouted from downstairs to get my attention.
I hurriedly tucked the ring into an evidence bag from my pocket and into my jacket to show her. As I stood, I pulled off the stained gloves and headed downstairs. Some officers surged out of the way to let me graciously through, my pulse racing from jogging downstairs.
“Hmm?” I replied to McCall, who situated herself outside, immersed in the night. Ebbs of professionals flowed, milling around as they did their work.
“What were you doing up there? You were ages,” she quizzed distractedly, holding her ponytail away from the wind.
“I found something in the bin,” I started.
“I hope you washed your hands afterwards, dirty sod.” McCall grimaced in distaste.
“Don’t worry. I used gloves.” I was about to press on when a quiet sniffle threw me off-kilter. My gaze followed this new heartbroken cry, not one emitted from Laura’s baby. No, this one sounded older.
The woman who phoned our team out, sat demurely on a red-bricked wall, low enough for anyone to reach. She perched there as though she hoped to be invisible. An unexpected sob tumbled from her mouth and started her off again. Her hand fumbled through three different pockets in search of a tissue she did not possess.
“Sorry, McCall, I’ll tell you in the car,” I apologized as I nodded toward the blonde. That brought a faint smile from the DS’s lips, and she nodded in agreement. With that, I headed over to the crying woman.
“Here,” my voice muffled, and I was surprised the blonde woman even heard me properly.
I scared her, that much was obvious. She jumped out of her skin with a feeble cry.
“Sorry,” I quickly apologized.
“No, no. It’s alright. It was me. I was in my own world. People always tell me off for that,” she regretfully admitted.
“They’re probably right. This world is tougher than the one inside here.” I tapped my head in conjunction with my speech. “Uh, tissue?” I held out a packet of Kleenex at the ready, which she accepted gratefully.
She’d been through a small war with her glasses. Tear stains covered the entire lens, a real nightmare to see out of. No matter how hard she wiped them with the hem of her shirt, they just got damp again with fresh tears.
“Uh, I could—?” I offered my services gently, gesturing to a phone lens cleaner I pulled from my pocket.
“No, thanks. They’ll be fine,” she declined, shaking her head.
I felt a bit of an idiot now. I didn’t know how to do all this nice malarkey.
“Right.” I stuffed the lens cleaner back into my pocket. “Uhm,” I began, but she continued crying. I decided to start anyway. “DI Cooper,” the usual flash of my badge occurred.
Her nose had become bright red from a mixture of cold and a tear stains. Both eyes puffed underneath as a direct result. She didn’t reply straight away and analysed her answer carefully. A prime example of thinking before you speak. “You’re not very tactful for a detective, are you?”
My hand gawkily scratched my neck in a comforting motion. “I, uh, I thought my tact was fine, considering. Aren’t they?”
“Not really.” She let out a faint chuckle which was better than more tears, I supposed. “I know you want a statement. I’ll give one. Anything for Jimmy.” Her words were soft-spoken with a slight middle-class accent.
“And you are?” I asked, and she stared back cluelessly. “To Jimmy?”
“Oh. I’m his teacher. English teacher,” she clarified.
I wished I could fall off the face of the earth so I could end this awkward interaction. My head told me to rationalise and press on with my questions. My heart, however, forced me to do exactly what McCall would have done.
I stepped closer to the garden wall and hoofed myself up to sit beside her, grunting with effort. For a short wall, it wasn’t the easiest to sit down on. My shoes scuffed on the brickwork.
“Thank you,” the blonde woman said sincerely. “For helping Jimmy. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you. All of you.”
“I’m trying to help you too,” I spoke quietly to the lady, roughly in her early thirties. “Shock is a real thing. Not many people think it could happen to them, but
it can happen to anyone.”
“I think walking in on a dead woman allows me to be in shock, doesn’t it?” the woman snapped snarkily. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this sensitive mush.
“Well, uh, yes. Of course. I wasn’t suggesting otherwise—” I stopped still, not wanting to put my foot in it again. I tapped the brick wall for a distraction, to come up with a tune. Anything to take me away from this conversation.
“I’m usually a lot more fun than this, I promise,” she apologised, a tear dropping down her cheek. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Act so... unbothered. You’re not crying, or even upset. Yet you didn’t cry or even show any sign of remorse. How?” she asked, brown eyes full of sorrow and confusion.
“A detective, crying?” I scoffed. “I’d be the laughingstock of the town. Even more so than before. It's my job to remain under control, to stay calm. Plus,” I struggled to word this next sentence in a kinder form, “I didn’t know these people. There’s no emotional connection. That makes my work slightly… easier to manage.”
“But what if it was your family?”
“What do you mean?”
“Would their death upset you? Or have you seen too many… dead people to be in shock, like me?” The bobbed woman pried curiously.
It was a question nobody had ever asked me before. Honestly, I didn’t know how to answer. She hauled her glasses higher onto the bridge of her nose.
“Uhm, I don’t know.” She recoiled in surprise from my honest answer. “What I mean is…” I paused, thinking about what family meant to us. “We don’t see each other all that much. If it was my sister, then yes. I’d be… angry. But I don’t think I would cry.” The woman looked visibly shocked but by me now, rather than Laura’s death. “I’ve seen too many awful things. I haven’t cried in ten years.”
She made me second guess whether I was right or wrong, and I loathed it. My jacket collar rubbed unpleasantly against my jawline.
“Then you don’t understand grief,” the woman silently clumped my tissue into a ball, knuckles slowly turning white.
“Perhaps I don’t,” I finally admitted. At long last, that blotchy face met mine, displaying a disappointed smile. Her wrapped-up body tinted a light shade of blue.
“Clearly, we were brought up very differently,” she recognised. Laura was playing prominently on her mind, I could tell by the way she daydreamed every so often. I knew exactly how she envisioned Laura in the bathtub, and it wasn’t a pretty sight.
“I’ll say,” my bigmouth opened by accident.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She frowned, creasing her delicate features into those which conveyed irritation. Uh oh. It’s that thing women do, where they take something harmless and twist it into a bigger meaning than it actually was.
“Nothing.” My attempts to cover up my meaning were futile, and she was already on the warpath. “Well, it’s your accent,” I gave up resisting and went with our natural flow of conversation.
“My accent?”
“You’re posh.” Insult one. “I’m guessing you have well-off parents who could afford things,” and there went insult two, “whereas mine couldn’t. I had to work and save up a bit of money to move here, to make a life for myself.”
“They might have been able to afford things, but I too wanted a life of my own.” She barely had enough energy left to get angry at my words. Instead, she used a calm and educational voice. It made me sit up and listen, having a quality that had a way of sucking people in. “Just because people come from different backgrounds, doesn’t mean we don’t all desire for similar things.”
Our heated discussion swivelled into quietness, and we both took heed to the surrounding sights.
“It’s Lucy, by the way,” she interrupted our small amount of silence first.
“Huh?” For a detective, I was a tad clueless in everyday life.
“You introduced yourself but didn’t ask who I was. I would’ve thought that part was important, seen as I’m your only witness.”
“Right. Yes. Very important. Lucy.” I nodded, letting the name roll off my tongue. The name suited her immensely. “Well,” McCall motioned at me a ten-minute sign from across the street, to which I agreed with, “is it alright if I ask you a few questions?”
She kept quiet but bowed her head gracefully to signal that indeed it was. “Yeah.”
Laura’s body was carried out at that exact moment, capturing everyone’s attention. Laura’s neighbours gathered behind the line, increasing their frenzy. Jimmy couldn’t understand that his mother's body lay on the stretcher, but it also captured his attention.
I noted down Lucy’s behaviour as she became an onlooker to a rather grim task. I couldn’t gauge her reaction from the back of her head, but before long, she sobbed again. This time, she could barely speak.
“Shh,” I comforted Lucy as best as I could. A heartbroken whimper left Lucy in pieces, and it reminded me of McCall earlier in the bathroom. This death had made too many people in the bay cry today, and I didn’t appreciate that.
I was protective of the town I called home and the good people who remained in it. I wrapped a comforting arm around Lucy’s heaving body, and she flew into my jacket of her own accord. Just like McCall, Lucy buried herself into my chest. It must be something about this jacket.
“D-Do you have any water?” Lucy croaked and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“I, uh. I’ll find some.” I longed for a break, anyway. The surge of emotions on that wall was too much for a guy like me to handle. We always kept a stash of water in our Volvo, in case of emergencies.
The wheels wonkily clipped the pavement, and the car itself was parked at a diagonal. My third-rate parking skills. Sure enough, a stray bottle of water rolled about the floor nearest where McCall sat.
Our bottled water had gone warm from being held in the car all night long, but I was sure Lucy would appreciate the gesture. A disruptive scream filled the night air.
“Laura! Laura?” a new woman cried out, pushing past several constables. Her nimble figure ducked below the tape, surprisingly agile for someone roughly older than me. Her mousy, brown hair barely flowed, no life left inside and her face coloured a grey tinge at the sight of the coroner's vehicle.
“That’s my aunt!” I could hear Jimmy’s declaration from miles away. The officers allowed the plucky woman through, and the first thing she did was envelop Jimmy in a huge hug. McCall would have that problem covered.
“One water,” I handed over the plastic bottle to Lucy, who watched their family reunion guiltily.
“Thanks.” Lucy did appreciate it. Exactly how I imagined she would. It took a while for Lucy to reserve her tears to the point that we could hold a conversation. Once Lucy was stable enough to give me a run-down report of the night, I fired away.
“Right.” I altered my stance accordingly. “Did you see anyone leaving the building, or ever notice Laura showing up at school with anyone odd? Preferably a man with size nine feet.” I muttered the last part to myself.
“No, not since she and her husband split. I only found out earlier. Laura worked with the church, so that’s where she’d should have gone before collecting Jimmy from school…” Lucy trailed off, a downcast expression flattering her lips.
“Do you need a minute?” my rare compassionate side sowed.
“I’ll need a lifetime,” Lucy comprehended the full consequences of her night.
“So Laura went to church. Then what?” I pressured eagerly.
Although Lucy didn’t know exact answers to my questions, she did well to build an overall depiction of Laura. Her daily habits, leads to check out, people to ask.
“I don’t know. She’d probably walk down to school.” Lucy’s voice wavered momentarily. “They don't have a car. Jimmy, the little boy, told me.”
“Which way would Laura normally walk?”
“I have no clue. I tried calling Laura before I came over. I had no
idea she would be—" Lucy composed herself.
“Okay. How did you discover her body?” Lucy’s eyes widened at my question.
“I’m not guilty, if that’s what you mean!” her voice squeaked, worried that I could suspect her.
I certainly did not as the woman had fallen to pieces about three times now. No killer is that good at acting… I hoped. Lucy looked like she’d never told a lie in her life.
“I didn’t. Merely a question to walk me through what happened before our teams arrived on the scene,” I assured gently.
“The door was already open. Erm, Jimmy pushed his own way through, the typical cheeky kid.” Lucy laughed. Probably the first time all night. It sounded soft and relaxed me immensely. “I heard the young baby upstairs, screaming and crying. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t burst in. I knocked on every door before I entered.” Lucy admitted frankly.
“To which you found Laura in the bathroom,” I finished the sentence off for her. Lucy’s knees probably would have buckled if she were not sat down.
“Hold on,” I had a second realisation. Lucy drank a large sip of water to soothe her aching throat. “You mentioned over the phone that you didn’t think it was suicide. Why?”
“I don't know, too many years of reading dodgy murder mysteries. Probably.” Lucy shrugged in hindsight. “Laura’s shoes were left downstairs, caked in mud, but when I checked upstairs, another muddy boot print had been left on the bedroom floor. It didn’t make sense that Laura would take her shoes off downstairs, after being upstairs. Logically.”
“Well, you’re right.” I nodded. “We’ve got a team sampling the boot print. It’s not hers. Laura’s, I mean.”
“Her husband?” Lucy pondered aloud, staring at me with hopeful eyes.
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so yet, because of—” I cut myself off with a tight-lipped grimace, scolding myself for sharing our investigation too easily. Even though I didn’t believe Lucy capable of murder, she could be covering for someone who did. “I, uh, don’t think we should be talking about this.”
“Of course. Private information, I’m sure. I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of your findings,” Lucy apologised sincerely.
The Devil's Due: A Cooper and McCall Scottish Crime Thriller Page 20