by Michael Wood
She sat down and powered up the computer. Woody assumed the position at her feet, circling a few times before he found the right spot for him.
On the desk were several framed photographs of Carl. She often looked at them, remembered the exact moment when the picture was taken, what they were doing, what she said, what Carl said, and shed a little tear. Why was this happening to them?
Her first job was to check the emails. There were none. This was the ninth day in a row without a new email. Several people had contacted her from Sweden in the past few months with a possible sighting. She wondered if it would be worth going out there, maybe visiting a few schools. Philip and Matilda didn’t think it was such a good idea, and she didn’t fancy going to a strange country on her own.
Last year, a former detective with South Yorkshire Police had done some digging of his own. He had an ulterior motive, of course. He wanted to solve the case DCI Darke couldn’t. What he’d uncovered made no sense to her, but Matilda was working hard to salvage order out of the chaos of paperwork. If only she didn’t have her day-to-day police work getting in the way of finding Carl. It was a selfish thought, Sally knew that, but …
Her mobile rang, making her jump. She didn’t look at the display. She knew it would probably be Philip asking her if she’d made the changes to the menu she had been promising to do for the past week.
‘Hello,’ she answered. Her voice was tired and lacked emotion.
‘Mummy?’
‘Carl?’ Sally shot up out of her seat, frightening Woody. ‘Carl? Is that you?’
‘Mummy?’
‘Oh my God.’ Tears fell from her eyes and she didn’t wipe them away. Her entire body shook with fear, adrenaline. She gripped the phone tighter. ‘Carl, sweetheart, it’s me. It’s your mummy. Where are you?’
Silence.
‘Carl? Carl?’
‘I’m scared, Mummy.’
‘It’s all right, Carl. There’s no need to be scared. I’m here. I’m going to find you. Can you tell me where you are? Look around you. What do you see?’ Her words were tripping over each other as she panicked to find her son.
The line went dead.
‘Carl? Carl? Are you still there? Answer me.’
She looked at the phone, but the call had been disconnected. In the call log, she saw a number she didn’t recognize. It was a mobile number. With a shaking hand, she picked up a pencil and quickly scribbled it down on a scrap of paper. She then looked up her husband’s number and called him.
‘Philip, it’s me,’ she said. She spoke quickly. Her voice was high-pitched. There was an urgency behind it. ‘You need to come home right now. I’ve just had a call from Carl. He’s alive, Philip.’
She looked down at Woody who was sitting bolt upright. His ears were pricked, and his tail was wagging.
‘Carl’s alive.’
Chapter Three
Monday, 15 January 2018
09.45
Rose Bishop diverted from her journey in to work to head for the Mercer house in Fulwood. She had drunk so much at the wedding reception yesterday that she hadn’t realized she had gone home wearing only one shoe. She had tried to call Serena this morning to make sure the shoe wasn’t casually thrown away with all the leftover food and empty bottles, but she wasn’t answering her mobile or the landline.
She pulled up at the top of the drive and trotted down it. She knocked on the door, rang the bell and stepped back, looking up at the house. The curtains were drawn in every room. Serena had been just as drunk as she was, but Clive wasn’t a big drinker. Surely they should have been up and getting ready to go to work by now. She knocked again, louder, and leaned into the door to listen for the sound of footsteps. It was deathly silent.
She went around the back of the house and entered the marquee. Rose vaguely remembered complimenting Serena on how gorgeous and elegant everything looked when she first saw it after the church service, but, looking at it now, you would be forgiven for thinking a group of eight year olds had held a birthday party here. It was a mess. She made her way through the tent, and, surprisingly, she found her shoe on a table near the wedding cake. She picked it up and headed for the house. It would be rude to leave without saying hello.
Rose was shocked to find the back door wide open. Clive and Serena were so security conscious. They wouldn’t have gone to bed and left the house exposed like this. Maybe Clive was already up and had gone out for a newspaper or something.
‘Hello? Clive, Serena, are you up?’ Rose called out from the kitchen. She looked at the remains of the food on the island. She picked up a smoked salmon canape and popped it into her mouth. It was as delicious as she remembered. She had eaten dozens of them. She made a mental note to ask Serena for the recipe.
‘Jeremy? Rachel? Anyone awake?’ Rose asked as she made her way along the ground floor.
She poked her head into the living room but it was empty. This had been off-limits to party guests yesterday and it was, as it always was, spotlessly clean and tidy.
Rose stopped in her tracks at the bottom of the stairs. It took her brain a few long seconds to realize what it was seeing. Jeremy Mercer was slumped against the wall. His eyes were closed and there was so much blood surrounding him.
‘Jeremy,’ she whispered. It didn’t seem real. This was a practical joke, surely. She leaned down, and, with shaking fingers, felt for a pulse on his wrist. He was freezing cold and there was no beat coming from the vein. ‘Oh my God.’
She looked up the stairs and saw the trail of blood on the cream-coloured carpet. She stumbled back and almost tripped over the remains of the hall table. On the floor, the cordless phone was out of its cradle. She reached out for it and saw her hands were covered in blood. She silently screamed, picked up the phone and dialled 999.
‘999. What’s your emergency?’
Rose was about to speak when she heard the sound of barking coming from upstairs.
‘Oh my God. Rachel.’
‘I’m sorry?’ the operator asked.
‘You need to come quickly. Someone’s been killed, and I think there may be more bodies.’
She tried not to look at Jeremy as she stepped over his lifeless corpse. The carpet on the stairs was full of bloodstains in the shape of paw prints.
‘Where are you calling from?’
‘Rachel?’ Rose screamed, ignoring the 999 operator.
Rose reached the top of the stairs, stepped onto the landing and saw more horror before her. She screamed and continued to scream until her voice was hoarse. The operator was asking questions, but she didn’t hear them. She fell back against the wall and slid down it. She clutched the phone firmly against her chest and couldn’t take her eyes off the nightmare inches away from her.
Chapter Four
‘According to Rory, it’s the worst crime scene he’s ever seen.’
‘Bloody hell.’
DS Sian Mills was driving; DCI Matilda Darke was in the front passenger seat. They had been informed of a triple murder in an affluent part of Sheffield. Uniformed officers were on the scene and forensics were en route.
‘Do we know who the victims are?’
‘We think so. Ranjeet is looking them up for me back at the station.’
Sian’s mobile beeped an incoming text message. It was in a cradle attached to the dashboard. She opened it. ‘It’s from Rory. He says, “I hope you haven’t had your breakfast yet”.’
‘Jesus,’ Matilda muttered as she looked out of the window.
It was another cold morning. Winter had started early in Sheffield with the first snowfall way back in mid-November, and despite there being no white Christmas (again), snow had returned in the new year. The days were cold and the nights were colder. As Sheffield passed by in a blur, Matilda looked at the bare trees. The branches were white with a thick layer of frost. Grass looked beautiful as each white blade sparkled in the glint of the cold sun. Pavements were tricky to walk on and pedestrians took their time over the patches of black ice.
Despite the heating being on in the car, Matilda shivered just watching people as they braved the elements.
‘Are you all settled in to your new house, now?’ Sian asked, filling the silence with a safe topic of conversation so neither of them had to think about the horror that awaited them.
‘More or less,’ Matilda said with a smile. ‘Just one more room to sort out.’
‘I bet you’re glad. There’s nothing like your own home, is there?’
‘No,’ Matilda replied. She returned to looking out of the window. She had only officially moved in a week ago. It was a bit early to be calling it her home. When she thought of home, she thought of the house her husband built; the one they both agonized over the plans of: how big the kitchen should be, where the downstairs toilet should go, the colour of the tiles in the bathroom. James had put his blood, sweat, and tears into that house. That was her home – their home. This new house was … at the moment she didn’t know what it was; somewhere to lay her head.
They pulled up as close as they could to the police cordon. From here, they couldn’t see the house but the faces on the uniformed officers who were milling around were grim. It was not a good sign.
Matilda looked around at the nosy neighbours as they stood on the side of the road gossiping among themselves. ‘You know those cases that you always go back to, that you can’t shake off? I get the feeling this is going to be one of them.’
‘Haven’t we had enough of those, lately?’ Sian quipped, pulling her coat tight against the cold.
Pathologist, Adele Kean, parked behind them. Her assistant, Lucy Dauman hesitantly got out of the front passenger seat, flicking back her blonde hair, a habit she was well known for.
‘Rory told me to imagine the worst crime scene I can, then times it by a hundred,’ Adele said, her face pale with worry. ‘Please tell me he was exaggerating.’
‘I haven’t been in yet,’ Matilda said. ‘I’ve been told it’s bad.’
‘Oh my God,’ Lucy muttered.
‘Lucy, get a couple of suits out of the back and we’ll probably need to double up. We’ll need extra gloves and overshoes too.’
Lucy remained where she was. She was relatively new to this job and only in her mid-twenties. She was fine assisting in post mortems, but crime scenes always seemed to upset her. Adele, however, was a seasoned professional, yet even she looked green. This was going to be a nightmare for Lucy. She slowly walked to the boot of the car to get what they needed.
All four women made their way down the driveway to the beautiful stone-built double-fronted house with its sash windows, side breast chimney, and a cast iron shoe scraper by the door. Neither of them spoke. A uniformed police officer was standing on the doorstep. He knew who they all were and began writing their names down on his clipboard. His hand was shaking.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t recall your name,’ he said to Lucy in a quivering voice. She told him and spelled her surname. He gave her a smile of thanks, but it wasn’t genuine. He looked too frightened to smile.
An ambulance was parked close to the house, its back doors open, but nobody was inside.
The front door was opened from the inside and Rory greeted them. He was wearing a white forensic suit which was covered in bloodstains. To the untrained eye, Rory looked like the murderer and had been caught in the act. Usually, DC Fleming was the life and soul of the team, always ready with a joke or a sarcastic comment to lighten even the most difficult of moods. However, he was looking down at the floor, his expression ashen.
‘Rory?’ Matilda asked.
‘Ma’am, nobody needs to see this if they don’t have to,’ he said quietly.
‘Oh God,’ Lucy said.
‘Where am I heading for, Rory?’ Adele asked.
‘Forensics are on the top floor in the attic bedroom. There’s a body on the stairs, be careful. And … prepare yourself for what you see on the first-floor landing.’
‘Thanks. Let’s suit up then, Lucy.’ Adele tried to sound professional, but there was a definite tinge of fear in her voice.
Matilda angled her head to look past Rory into the kitchen. A uniformed officer was comforting a fellow officer who was bent over, in tears.
‘Who’s that?’
‘PC Tranter, ma’am. She’s not handling it very well. I told her to have a break.’
Matilda and Adele exchanged glances. Both looked worried.
‘There’ll be nothing we can do until forensics say it’s OK for us to go in. Rory, is there anywhere we can go for you to talk us through it?’
‘The living room is free,’ he said.
The lounge was a huge space, expensively decorated in neutral colours, though the feature wall with a real fireplace was painted in a warm deep blue. The carpet smelled new, the curtains were rich and expensive. The whole room oozed class and taste.
Rory headed for the sofa and slumped down in the middle. ‘I have never seen anything like this before in my life. It’s like a horror film up there.’
‘Are you all right?’ Sian asked, sitting next to him.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I will be. I just need a minute.’
Matilda sat on the edge of an armchair. She looked at a gorgeous grandfather clock in the corner of the room and listened to the heavy ticking. It would look great in her new hallway. There was a photograph on the mantelpiece of a couple raising a glass of champagne to the camera. They looked happy.
‘Rory, what have we got here?’
He swallowed hard then looked up at his boss. ‘There’s a young guy on the stairs, about my age, I’d say. He’s been stabbed a fair few times.’ He blew out his cheeks and took a deep breath. ‘On the first-floor landing there’s an old-ish bloke who’s practically been decapitated.’ He swallowed hard. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just … there’s so much blood. I’ve never seen so much blood. Every time I close my eyes, I’m just seeing red.’ He ran his fingers through his short dark hair and took a deep breath. ‘On the top floor there’s a woman. You can’t make out her face at all.’ He took another breath which shook with fear. ‘In the small bedroom at the top of the stairs there was a young girl. She was tied to a chair.’ His voice quivered with emotion. ‘She was drenched in blood.’
‘Is she dead?’
‘No. She hasn’t got a mark on her. I think the blood must belong to the other victims. God only knows what she must have seen. There was a dog with her too; a Dalmatian, only a puppy. He was covered in blood as well.’
‘Where are they now?’ Matilda asked.
‘The girl is at the hospital. I think she’s in shock. She didn’t say anything. A PC is with her. The dog is in the back of the forensics van.’
‘OK. The dog is a crime scene. He’ll need checking out. Maybe the killer touched him. Or maybe the dog bit him.’
Rory nodded. ‘I carried her to the ambulance,’ he said, a tear rolling down his face. ‘You should have seen how she was looking at me. She couldn’t take her eyes off me. I didn’t know what to say to her.’
‘Rory, do you want to go outside, get some air?’
‘I think I will, thanks,’ he said, standing up. ‘Scott’s upstairs in the bedroom the girl was found in. He’ll be able to give you more information.’ He left the room while he was still talking.
‘I don’t think I want to go up there,’ Sian said.
‘If only we had that option.’
Dressed in white forensic suits, Matilda and Sian stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked at the young face of Jeremy Mercer.
‘Poor bloke,’ Sian said.
Matilda looked up the stairs, at the bloody footprints and paw prints on the carpet, the sprays and smeared stains on the wall. ‘Come on.’
She led the way, taking the stairs slowly. She didn’t touch the bannister, despite wearing gloves, in case she smudged any fingerprints. Sian was close behind. Matilda could hear her breathing heavily. The metallic smell of blood was heavy in the air. She could already taste it. Something caught her eye. She turned right
and looked through the spindles at the landing.
‘Shit,’ she muttered under her breath, quickly looking away.
‘How bad is it?’ Sian asked from behind. Her voice was quivering with nerves. Her eyes remained fixed on the back of Matilda’s head.
Matilda composed herself, still with her eyes closed. She took a deep breath and eventually opened them. ‘Don’t look until you’re on the landing.’
She held out a hand and Sian took it, gripping it hard. Matilda pulled her up. As she turned around, she gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth. On the floor in front of them was a grey-haired man. His face was deathly white from having bled out. The carpet was saturated. The walls were dripping in blood. The man’s head was barely attached to his body. This was a scene of pure carnage. As much as they wanted to, neither was able to take their eyes off the destruction at their feet.
The door to a room on the left was slightly ajar. Inside, muffled voices were heard, and a brilliant yellow light was coming out from the gap.
Matilda walked over to it and pushed the door open. Sian followed close behind. DC Scott Andrews saw them enter and went over. His white forensic suit was stained with dried blood.
‘Ma’am,’ Scott said quietly, nodding at his boss.
‘Scott, I thought the girl was unharmed?’ Matilda frowned at the scene laid out before her.
‘That’s right.’
‘So where did all this blood come from?’ Matilda looked down at the white carpet. A trail of blood ran from the door to the bed. The pink duvet was smeared with blood.
‘Well, there was a puppy. He was on the floor next to the girl when the first officer on the scene arrived. It was as if he was looking after her. If you look, there are paw prints all over the carpet. I’m guessing the dog kept going out onto the landing and coming back in, not wanting to leave her.’