‘I can’t discuss the details but Mrs Wixley suggested you were involved in that case.’
Selston fingered the rim of his glass. In one smooth movement he waved the waiter over with a confident jerk of his hand. ‘We’ll have two more G&Ts, thanks.’ He tipped an inquiring head towards Drake and Sara, who both turned down his offer.
‘I was the defence counsel on that case. Zavier Cornwell was convicted of four murders. He had tattooed onto the chest of the first victim the letter A and onto the second victim the letter B and so forth. The random nature of his serial killings was bizarre. They were all celebrities in different ways, having featured in various magazines, none of which, I hasten to add, I had ever read before taking on the case.’
Selston’s gin and tonic arrived, at least his third drink by Drake’s reckoning, but it could have been more. Drake couldn’t judge from his demeanour whether the alcohol was having any effect on him.
‘The killer had erected a makeshift board in each crime scene with newspaper clippings and magazine articles relating to the victim.’ Selston shivered and took another mouthful of his drink. Now he opened his eyes wide. ‘He was the most evil man I have ever encountered. Utterly devoid of emotion.’
A spasm of cold fear ran up Drake’s back at the possibility they had the wrong man behind bars or that a copycat killer was at large. He and the team would need to work fast. ‘How long ago was the case?’ Drake nodded at Sara and she reached for her pocketbook.
Selston turned the glass through his fingers before replying. ‘Four years.’
‘And what happened?’
‘Four life sentences, of course, with a minimum term of twenty-five years.’
‘Any doubt about his guilt?’
‘None whatever. The evidence was overwhelming and utterly unchallengeable.’
Kennedy appeared before Drake could ask any further questions. ‘We’re ready.’
Drake and Sara followed the two men through reception into a small private dining room. A quick headcount told Drake that fifteen members of chambers were present, all young with open, healthy-looking faces.
‘This must be one of the saddest days for our chambers,’ Selston said, continuing in the same vein for a few minutes as though he were practising the eulogy for Nicholas Wixley’s commemoration service. There shouldn’t have been a dry eye in the house, but there were only hard, determined faces staring at Selston. Perhaps this was another hallmark of a successful barrister, Drake thought.
‘Detective Inspector Drake and Detective Sergeant Morgan are leading the inquiry into Nicholas’s murder. If any of you have anything that might assist, then no doubt both officers will be available to discuss any details with you.’
Drake sensed the gaze of the young lawyers and became increasingly uncomfortable as Selston and Kennedy introduced him and Sara to more senior-looking members of the group. This wasn’t a social event – he was investigating a murder.
‘Is it true that his body was mutilated?’ An ardent-looking woman with dank, lifeless hair addressed Drake. The conversation of the barristers by their side stopped abruptly and their eyes turned to interrogate Drake. It was like being cross-examined.
‘The crime scene investigators are still at the house.’ What else could these barristers expect, Drake thought.
He drifted out into reception with Sara, reading the time on his watch, realising he needed to update Price, and that he anticipated an early start in the Incident Room the following morning with the rest of his team. He had already texted Annie, telling her he was going back to his own apartment that evening. He hoped a time would come when he could give up the flat in Colwyn Bay and move in with her permanently. His plans for her to meet Megan and Helen again over the Easter holiday were something he wasn’t going to change, no matter what. Even so, an irritating grain of doubt worked its way relentlessly into his mind. A murder inquiry always took priority over his private life and he had let police work ruin his marriage to Sian. Annie was different, more tolerant and forgiving of the demands on his time but, even so, he wasn’t going to let work ruin his chance of things working out with her.
Justin Selston and Michael Kennedy, both in conversation with one of the barristers he had noticed earlier, caught his attention and he joined them, Sara by his side.
‘This is Pamela Farley, Michael’s wife,’ Selston said.
Pamela reached out a hand. She had a strong and forceful grip. Drake had Michael Kennedy as being in his early fifties, but his wife was younger. Pale blue eyes looked at Drake and then at Sara. She maintained the detached, imperious stance barristers nurtured.
‘Did you find the murder weapon? It must have been an awful scene.’
Drake didn’t reply directly. ‘Officers will be calling tomorrow to take statements and contact details.’
Selston and Kennedy nodded, before Pamela added, ‘Do please reach out if we can be of any help at all.’
Drake and Sara made their way outside, pausing for a moment to watch the incoming tide flooding over the sandbanks. Two other guests jostled their way past Drake, and one of the younger barristers from the dining room earlier came up to him. ‘Glorious view isn’t?’
He felt a hand in his jacket pocket. It was there for a moment and he glanced at the blonde-haired lawyer. She gave him a conspiratorial look before glancing briefly at his pocket. A second later, she hurried away.
Drake dipped a hand inside and fingered a business card.
He walked over to Sara. Standing by her side, he eased the card out.
‘What’s that?’ Sara said.
On one side of the card was the name Holly Thatcher, Barrister-at-Law, with her contact details. On the other side, she had written, ‘Call me.’
Chapter 6
Monday 25th March
10.05 pm
After dropping Sara at Caernarfon police station Drake decided he had time to see Annie. He called her on his mobile.
‘I’m in Caernarfon.’
‘You’ve only just finished? You must be exhausted.’
‘I was going to call in to see you on my way back to Colwyn Bay, if it’s not too late?’
He had almost said ‘home’ instead of ‘Colwyn Bay’, but Annie’s house on the Menai Strait felt more like home each time he stayed there.
‘Of course not. I’ll make you something to eat.’
It was a short journey to her house and after she opened the door Drake pulled her close. As they kissed in a long, intense embrace it felt longer than breakfast time since he had last seen her, as though the activity of several days had been packed into a few short hours.
‘You look tired.’ She drew a gentle hand over his face, her welcoming smile matching the warmth of her voice on the telephone.
‘I know I said I wouldn’t call but…’ She put two fingers on his mouth to stop him continuing.
‘I don’t mind. It’s lovely to see you.’
She pulled away, but Drake drew her back. He enjoyed the simple pleasure of sensing her body close to his. ‘I’ll make you something to eat.’ She tore away from him and busied herself in the kitchen while Drake walked over to the window that overlooked the Strait. A yacht cruised by, its sails furled, a rib lashed to the tiller bobbing around on its wash.
After slumping on the sofa, he reached for the television remote and flicked through the channels before he found the local news. A reporter standing outside Northern Division headquarters shared with the world that a ‘famous barrister’ had been murdered in his holiday home on the Llŷn Peninsula and that his widow was a deputy chief constable in Manchester. Annie sat down beside him, putting a plate with a sandwich and a cold drink on the coffee table in front of him. He hadn’t realised how hungry he was until he started eating.
‘Is that your case?’ Annie said.
‘Yes. A barrister called Nicholas Wixley.’
‘And his wife is a chief constable?’
‘Deputy chief constable.’
‘Is she a sus
pect?’ Annie said. ‘Aren’t a lot of murders committed by loved ones?’
Laura Wixley’s reaction had hardly been that of the loving widow. But he couldn’t share that thought with Annie. ‘We’re pursuing our normal line of inquiries.’
Annie giggled but then turned serious. ‘We were supposed to take Helen and Megan out on Friday.’
His mind sagged as the prospect of having to explain to Sian, his ex-wife, that he’d have to postpone taking his daughters out for the day. Anticipating when he’d next have a day off was like divining for water.
Although he had known Annie for only a few weeks, he treasured their relationship, hoping it would develop, and was pleased that she had accepted the demands of his job.
He finished the sandwich and reluctantly got up to leave, knowing he had an early start in the morning. Annie held his face with both hands as he stood on the threshold before heading for his car.
Tuesday 26th March
8.05 am
Calling Sian first thing in the morning wasn’t the best timing. Breakfasted and caffeinated, Drake felt fuelled up for the conversation, however brief it might be.
‘Good morning.’
‘You know this is a bad time, Ian. I don’t know why you do it.’
‘I’ve got a busy day and it’s impossible to speak to you at work.’
The receptionist at Sian’s GP surgery saw to that.
‘What do you want? The girls are getting ready for school. Why don’t you call them tonight?’
‘I’m the SIO on the murder case on the Llŷn Peninsula.’
Sian said nothing, but Drake heard her breathing. And he sensed the tension down the telephone. She had heard this excuse for his non-attendance at weekend activities and school plays and ruined holiday plans many times before.
‘I suppose…’ she started, with a heavy voice. ‘That means you won’t be able to take the girls on Friday.’
‘You know what it’s like, Sian.’
‘Yes, Ian. I know what it’s like. I had made plans too, you know.’ She slammed the telephone down.
Great start to the day, Drake thought as he left the apartment for his car.
He toured around the car park at the hospital, getting more and more annoyed at the lack of a parking space near the mortuary. Someone should have had the foresight when they built the place to realise a multistorey was crucial. He crawled around in first gear, deciding eventually to mount the kerb and park on ground already churned up by car tyres. He fumbled in the glove compartment and found an official bilingual laminated sheet – ‘On Police Business/Heddlu – Swyddogol’ – which he stuffed above the dashboard.
A young slim girl with blonde hair in curls cascading over her shoulders was having a profoundly positive effect on the usually hostile and rude mortuary assistant, who actually smiled at Drake. ‘Good morning, Inspector. This is Sharon, she’s on work experience for a week.’
Sharon beamed at Drake, her courtesy and warmth displayed in the mortuary unsettling him. He scribbled his name on the relevant forms the assistant pushed over the table towards him. A door led into a long corridor where he heard symbols clashing and an orchestra thundering its way through a famous piece of music that sounded familiar.
‘What’s this?’ Drake raised his voice as he joined Dr Lee Kings by the slab with a white sheet covering what Drake assumed were the mortal remains of Nicholas Wixley.
‘Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Please tell me you recognise it,’ Kings said as he fiddled with a remote control. The noise subsided to a quiet background rhythm. Drake could hear himself think.
Kings got to work after removing the white sheet with a flourish. It always amazed Drake that a pathologist could look so pleased about carving up a corpse. The shape of the wound disfiguring Wixley’s chest seemed more pronounced now that the blood had congealed. Drake tried to imagine the lacerations the killer must have made – presumably it would have been the vertical downward slash followed by the three legs of the letter E. A ruler carefully positioned by Kings would record the precise measurements of each wound.
‘Have you established if there’s a significance to the letter E?’ Kings enquired, without looking at Drake.
‘It could be a copycat related to a serial killer from Manchester several years ago, where Wixley prosecuted the case.’
Kings gradually moved his attention towards Wixley’s face. After a few minutes he used a pair of well-used stainless steel forceps to extract something from Wixley’s mouth. He repeated this delicate manoeuvre half a dozen more times. And each time, the evidence removed was placed in a kidney dish gleaming brightly under the theatre-style lights.
‘Anything interesting?’ Drake said.
Kings raised an eyebrow and looked over at Drake. ‘It looks like pubic hair.’
‘In his mouth?’ Drake thought about the pink gilet and its wearer – the likely owner of the pubic hair.
Kings worked meticulously around Wixley’s head, swabbing his nose and eyes. At one stage he squinted to examine particles at the end of a cotton bud extracted from Wixley’s nose.
‘We’ll need to get some toxicology tests done but I wouldn’t mind betting he was snorting cocaine before he died.’
Drake nodded. ‘A bag from the scene is with forensics at the moment but preliminary tests suggest it could be cocaine.’ He folded his arms, wondering what else was likely to be uncovered. He had been a detective long enough to know that cocaine had no social barriers and it meant that Wixley had a supplier somewhere who had a dealer and that meant the criminal underworld. Not the usual company for an aspiring judge.
A deep ‘Y’ incision opened Wixley’s body. Drake was convinced Kings took pleasure in this final act of removing any semblance of dignity from the body. The heart and lungs and other organs were removed, weighed and inspected before being taken, in turn, to the counter for slicing and further examination. Once Kings had finished, he stood back, a contented look on his face. ‘I would say death was caused by haemorrhagic shock – massive blood loss in other words. There’s no indication he was bound or restrained in any way and no defensive wounds, all of which suggests he was drugged or incapacitated somehow before the killer was able to do his work. The toxicology test should help us.’
Drake stood patiently as Kings scraped what little material existed under Wixley’s fingernails, taking care to study his fingers and hands. Occasionally he made some comment about the condition of the body. It all suggested Nicholas Wixley had been healthy, well fed, perhaps too well fed from the mass of flesh forming his double chin. Drake grimaced as Kings started on Wixley’s genitalia.
The forceps were hard at work again. Kings gestured for Drake to join him as he inspected the contents of two kidney dishes. Minute particles of hair lay at the bottom of each.
Kings pointed to the first. ‘This is the pubic hair I removed from his mouth and as you can see…’ He tapped the second tray. ‘There is a similar sample from his genitalia. I’ll send the samples off for DNA analysis.’
‘And it’s likely he’d been snorting cocaine the evening before he died.’
Kings turned to face Drake. ‘He certainly made his last night on earth one to remember.’
Drake made moves to leave the post-mortem room as soon as Kings started suturing the ‘Y’ incision he’d made earlier, which looked like a large zip. Before he was able to escape, Kings sermonised on the dangers of cocaine, everything from heart attacks to a disintegrating nose. It was enough to bring on a nagging headache.
* * *
From the window of his office Wyndham Price followed the team of gardeners busy around the parkland surrounding Northern Division headquarters. Next week there would be an hour of extra daylight and it made him realise that winter was behind him. He could look forward to longer days and warmer temperatures. But lurking at the back of his mind was a recent email from the human resources department at Wales Police Service headquarters in Cardiff, who wanted to ‘discuss his retirement planning�
��. It meant that soon enough one of the assistant chief constables would call him and sound affable and friendly as they sought his agreement to a date.
Retirement loomed in Wyndham Price’s mind like a storm-laden cloud heading towards the shore. He knew it would happen but somehow hoped to avoid its consequences. The prospect of not working filled him with irrational terror. Whenever he did take time off he pined for the routine of work. Breakfast at six-thirty, arriving at headquarters at seven, and leaving only after twelve hours had passed. He would miss the paperwork, the reports to read, the decisions to be taken.
His wife had dropped hints that she wanted to go on holiday more often and brochures for cruises had recently appeared at home. Sticking needles in his eyes would be preferable to being stuck on a ship with strangers, Price thought. His wife’s interest in holidaying came as a surprise as throughout their married life her aversion to people and social events and all of his immediate family had meant a lonely existence.
Putting off the decision wasn’t going to work long term but the death of Nicholas Wixley and the fact that his widow was a deputy chief constable gave him the perfect reason to ignore HR, at least for now. Had he been right to let Inspector Drake be the senior investigating officer on the case? Perhaps he should have taken the role himself. It focused his mind on Drake’s past. Price pondered if Drake really had got over a previous case in which two officers had been killed. The counselling that followed helped Drake, but Price knew that Drake’s determination could be a hindrance when the OCD he suffered from overwhelmed him. Price chided himself for doubting Drake’s ability, reminding himself that recently he had appeared more relaxed; the divorce was behind him and office gossip told Price he had a new girlfriend. Even so, Drake could be annoying and pedantic and sometimes a bit charmless.
The Wixley murder inquiry gave Price the perfect reason to be more hands-on with Drake and his team. He reached for his telephone and called Drake.
Written in Blood Page 4