killed the lights as the two occupants opened their doors and stretched upright. “Got the key?” I asked the driver.
“Right here, Boss,” he replied.
“Thanks. Hang around, we might need you.”
The converted gas lamps were not switched on and a Suzuki Vitara stood on the drive, nose against the garage door. The house was in total darkness, although all the curtains were pulled back. Dave put the key in the Yale latch, turned it and pushed the door open. When Silkstone dashed out he hadn’t locked the door deliberately; he’d just pulled it shut, or it had slammed behind him. Mr Yale had done the rest. So far, so good.
As we stepped inside a wind chime broke into song above our heads. “I could do without that,” I hissed.
The feeble illumination from a digital clock was enough to tell us that we were in a kitchen, and it was a good deal larger than the last one we’d stood in. Edges of implements and utensils in chrome and stainless steel reflected its glow. Unblinking green and red pilot lights watched us, like animals in the jungle, wondering who the intruders were, and a refrigerator added a background hum.
I found a light switch and clicked it on. The shapes became Neff appliances and the jungle animals lost their menace. Dave handed me a rolled-up coverall and I started to pull it over my feet. I wasn’t sure if it was necessary, but I was playing safe. Sometimes I cut corners, occasionally I’m reckless, but never where forensics are concerned. Hunches are no good in this game. A hunch never swayed a jury or earned the sympathy of a judge. Motive, opportunity, witnesses, forensic. They’re what convict criminals, with the emphasis on the forensic. You can fudge the other three, but not the forensic. That’s what I’d always believed, and, so far, it had done well for me. That was the received wisdom, as taught at Staff College.
We had a lot to learn.
“Close the door,” I said, and Dave pushed it shut with an elbow. We pulled latex gloves on to our hands and eased our feet into over-socks. We didn’t bother to pull the hoods over our heads. My mouth was dry and I could feel my heart banging against my ribs. The thrill of the chase had long since degenerated into the drudgery of killing, the sordidness of death. It always does. Apart from the occasional gangland shooting there’s no such thing as a good murder. This wasn’t a straightforward, cut-and-dried jealous husband killing any more; it was something squalid. A clock was ticking somewhere in the room, measuring each second with well-oiled precision.
“OK?”
“OK.”
“C’mon, then.”
The interior door opened on to a hallway. I wasn’t there to admire the furnishings and look at the pictures — that would come later — but I couldn’t help doing it. I switched the light on and absorbed the scene.
The Axminster carpet was covered in swirly patterns and felt as heavy as leaf mould under the feet. Facing us was an oil painting of a vaguely European city scene on a rainy day, churned out on a production line in Taiwan, hanging over an antique captain’s desk that I’d have accepted as a week’s salary anytime. The wallpaper was red, cream and gold stripes and a grandfather clock modelled on Westminster stood in a corner. Here, I thought, lived a man who knew what he liked. I found another switch and illuminated the staircase.
It’s the boss’s prerogative to lead the way. I climbed the stairs slowly, keeping well over to the left in case we needed to do a footprint check on them, and Dave followed. “Silkstone said first door on the right,” he reminded me.
The door was open, and we could already see what we’d expected by the glow from the landing lights. I reached around the doorframe and found the bedroom switch, just to do the job properly.
She was lying face down on the bed and appeared to be naked below the waist. I stepped forward into the room and stooped beside her, looking into my second dead face that night. There was a pair of tights knotted round her neck, and the bulging eyes and pig’s liver of a tongue lolling from her mouth confirmed that she’d died by throttling. I’d have preferred the knife in the heart, anytime. I scanned her body feeling like the worst sort of voyeur and noticed that she was, in fact, wearing a short skirt that had been pulled up around her waist. My eyes went into the routine, as they had done too many times in the past, and the questions popped up one by one like the indicators on an old-fashioned cash register: Signs of a struggle? Anything under the fingernails? Bruising or bleeding? Is this where the attack took place?
Dave was standing just outside the room, to one side, and I rejoined him. “Seen enough?” I asked, and he nodded. We stepped carefully down the stairs and retraced our path back out to my car. I rang Gilbert and told him the news. He’d contact the coroner and the pathologist and off we’d go again. We decided to get the SOCOs on the job immediately and leave everything else until after the morning meeting. Which was, I noticed, looking at the car clock, just six hours away.
“You didn’t really want to live here, did you?” Dave asked as we sat waiting.
“It was just a thought,” I replied.
“You wouldn’t have been happy.”
“I’m not happy now.”
“Unhappy with money in the bank is better than unhappy skint,” he replied.
“I suppose so.”
“This’ll bring the property prices down,” he added, looking out of the window.
“That’s a consolation.”
The SOCO’s white van came swaying round the corner, bouncing over the speed humps and triggering the big security light. “Looks like Michael Schumacher’s on duty tonight,” Dave observed as we opened our doors. I pointed to a spot behind me and the SOCO parked there and doused his lights.
He’s young, fresh faced, and can still boogie ’til dawn then appear in court bright as a squirrel. “Hi, Mr Priest,” he said, slamming the van door. “What’s going on? Is it two-for — the-price-of-one night, or something?”
“First of all, it’s Charlie,” I told him. “Secondly, there are people in bed and I’d prefer them to stay there, and thirdly, don’t be so bloody cheerful at this time in the morning.” We told him what we’d found, and a few minutes later another patrol car came into the estate, followed by the other SOCO and the photographer. Bedroom lights came on in the neighbouring houses and curtains twitched. We were having an operational meeting, in hushed voices, when we heard a police siren in the distance, gradually growing louder. A minute later a traffic car, diverted off the motorway, careered round the corner and nearly took off over the humps. Somebody had dialled 999. I had words with the driver, persuaded him to turn his blue lights off, and sent him back to cruising the M62. A man from one of the houses joined us, saying he was chairman of the local Neighbourhood Watch, demanding to know what was going on. He wore a flying-officer moustache and a dressing gown over pyjamas. I ushered him to one side and asked him — “just between the two of us” — what he knew about the people who lived at The Garth, adding that I’d be very grateful if he could put it all in writing for me, before nine o’clock in the morning. He wandered off composing a hatchet job on the neighbour with the ghastly street lamps in his garden.
That was all we could do. Priorities were identification of the bodies and times and causes of death. These would be checked against Silkstone’s story and we’d see if anything else we discovered supported or disputed the facts. If he were telling the truth the Crown Prosecution solicitors would decide the level of the charge against him; if he were lying I had a job on my hands.
We left the experts doing their stuff, with the uniformed boys outside to keep the ghouls at bay, and went home. Come daylight, we’d be back in force.
While I was addressing the troops about the killing of Peter Latham, young Jamie Walker was practising the new scam he’d learned at the detention centre. He’d strolled into a pub in the town centre, one he knew the layout of because they had no scruples about serving juveniles, and sidled his way towards the toilets, carefully avoiding being seen by the bar staff. When nobody was looking he’d slipped upstairs to the landlord’s living quarters and rifled them. Pub landladies collect gold jewellery like some of us collect warm memories, and he made quite a haul. He escaped in a Mini taken from the car-park and celebrated by driving it through the town centre flat out. The traffic car that came to Silkstone’s house had earlier chased young Jamie for a while, but he escaped by driving along the towpath. Two of our pandas spent the rest of the night driving from one reported sighting to another, without success. We know it was Jamie because he left fingerprints in the pub and in the mini, which he had to abandon before he could torch it.
I found all this out much later. When I arrived home I took off all my clothes, found a fresh set for next day and cleaned my teeth. I slipped under the duvet and closed my eyes.
