Cray drops Strawberry and watches her twist in the air, landing on her feet. The cat walks to her food bowl, looks unimpressed, and saunters off to find a suntrap.
The DCI takes a seat, ashes her cigarette in a saucer. ‘You don’t seem very happy to see me, Professor.’
‘I know why you’re here.’
‘I need your help.’
‘No you don’t.’
The statement comes out too harshly, but Cray doesn’t react.
One part of me desperately wants to know what happened to Ray Hegarty, why Sienna was covered in blood, why she ran . . . At the same time I feel a swelling in my throat that makes my voice vibrate. I shouldn’t want to do this again. The last time it cost me almost everything.
‘You know this girl.’
‘She’s a friend of Charlie’s.’
‘Did she say anything to you?’
‘No. She was too traumatised.’
‘See? You know all about this stuff.’
‘I can’t help you.’
Cray glances out the window where a swathe of sunshine has cut across the field turning the grass silver.
‘The man who died last night was a retired detective by the name of Ray Hegarty. He worked for Bristol CID for twenty years. He was my boss. My friend.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She makes a quick sucking noise and her eyes glaze over. ‘I thought Hegarty was a prick when I first met him. He didn’t want me on his team and he did nothing to stop the bullying and cruel pranks. He gave me every shit job he could find - the dirty bodies, death knocks, cleaning out the drunk tank - I thought he was trying to break me or force me out, but it was just his way of toughening me up for the bigger challenges.’
Ophidian eyes blink through the smoke and her thumb passes over her lips. ‘He taught me everything I know. His rules. I guess I grew to respect his achievements and then to respect the man.’
‘I’m sure you’ll work out what happened.’
Anger in her eyes now, ‘If you’re having a mid-life crisis, Professor, buy a Porsche and forget about it.’
‘It’s not a mid-life crisis.’
‘Then what’s your problem?’
‘You know the answer to that.’
Cray stands and hitches up her trousers. ‘In another lifetime I might sympathise with you, but not this one. You don’t have a monopoly on fucked-up families. I’ve got an overweight bad-tempered son who’s living with an ex- junkie and claims to be writing a book about how his parents’ divorce screwed up his life even though I was pregnant longer than I was married.
‘And now a man I respected is lying dead in his daughter’s bedroom and the kid is so traumatised she’s not saying boo to a goose. So you see, Professor, you won’t get any pity from me, but I will give you some advice.’
Her cigarette hisses in the sink.
‘Suck it in, Princess, and put on your big-girl pants. You’re playing with the grown-ups now.’
5
Squeezed behind the steering wheel, the DCI sits forward so her feet can reach the pedals. Eyes ahead. Jaw masticating gum. She drives as if she’s travelling at speed, even though the Land Rover can’t hold fifth.
A cigarette is propped upright in her fist. She blows smoke out of the far corner of her mouth. Speaks, giving me just the facts, the bare bones. Ray Hegarty retired from the force eight years ago and set up a security business - doing alarms, CCTV cameras, patrols and personal protection. He had offices in Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester.
He had a meeting in Glasgow on Monday afternoon and stayed overnight before driving to Manchester the next day. He was supposed to stop overnight and fly to Dublin on Wednesday morning for two days of meetings but the trip was cancelled. Instead he drove back to Bristol and had a late lunch with a business partner.
‘Bottom line - he wasn’t expected home until Friday - not according to his wife.’
‘Where was Helen?’
‘Working at St Martin’s Hospital in Bath. Her shift started at six.’
We pull up outside a house on the eastern edge of the village. Six uniforms stand guard, blocking off the street. Blue-and-white crime-scene tape has been threaded between two cherry trees and the front gate, twirling in the breeze like old birthday decorations. A large white SOCO van is parked in the driveway. Doors yawning. Metal boxes stacked inside.
Nearby, a forensic technician is crouching on the front path taking photographs. Dressed in blue plastic overalls, a hood and matching boot covers, he looks like an extra in a science-fiction movie.
Positioning a plastic evidence tag, he raises the camera to his eye. Shoots. Stands. When he turns I recognise him. Dr Louis Preston - a Home Office pathologist with a Brummie accent that makes him sound eternally miserable.
‘I hear they woke you, Ronnie.’
‘I’m a light sleeper,’ she replies.
‘Were you with anyone in particular?’
‘My hot-water bottle.’
‘Now there’s a waste.’ The pathologist glances at me and nods. ‘Professor, long time no see.’
‘I would have waited.’
‘I get that a lot.’
Preston is famous for terrorising his pathology students. According to one apocryphal story, he once told a group of trainees that two things were required to conduct an autopsy. The first was no sense of fear. At this point he stuck his finger into a dead man’s anus, pulled it out and sniffed it. Then he invited each student to follow his lead and they all complied.
‘The second thing you need is an acute sense of observation,’ he told them. ‘How many of you noticed that I stuck my middle finger into this man’s anus, but sniffed my index finger?’
Urban myth? Compelling hearsay? Both probably. Anybody who slices open dead people for a living has to maintain a sense of humour. Either that or you go mad.
Turning back to the van, he collects a tripod.
‘I never thought I’d see Ray Hegarty like this. I thought he was bloody indestructible.’
‘You were friends?’
Preston shrugs. ‘Wouldn’t go that far. Mutual respect.’
‘How did he die?’
‘Somebody hit him from behind and then severed his carotid artery.’ The pathologist runs a finger across his throat. ‘You’re looking for something like a razor or a Stanley knife. It’s not in the bedroom.’
Cray helps him move a silver case. ‘When can we come inside?’
‘Find some overalls. Stay on the duck boards and don’t touch anything.’
The two-storey semi has wisteria twisting and climbing across the front facade. No longer in leaf, the grey trunk looks gnarled and ancient, slowly strangling the building. There are stacks of old roofing tiles beside the garage doors.
Two things stand out about the house. It’s the sort of place that should have had a long sweeping drive - all the proportions suggest it. Secondly, it’s partially hidden from the road by a high wall covered in ivy. Tall trees are visible beyond the slate roof and chimneys. The curtains downstairs are open. Anyone approaching would have seen the lights on.
‘Was the door locked or unlocked?’
