word, Jarvis walked towards the old trailer and let down the ramp. The wooden floor had rotted, and the nearest wheel arch was corroded into more holes than a lace handkerchief.
‘See anything interesting?’ said Jarvis. ‘Or is it just routine?’
Cooper held his hand out for the dogs to sniff, and they wagged their tails.
‘Mr Jarvis, I understand you once worked for the funeral directors, Hudson and Slack.’
‘Aye. Well, get it right - I did some work for them.’
‘You mean you were never actually an employee?’
‘No. I was a carpenter by trade, see. That was my main job. But I helped out with other work when they were shorthanded.’ ‘You worked on coffins, then? And you were a bearer sometimes, perhaps?’
‘If they needed me. What’s this all about?’
‘You must know Melvyn Hudson?’
‘Yes, I reckon I do. Haven’t seen Hudson for a long time, though. Probably we’ll meet up again when he does my funeral.’
‘Did you get on with him all right?’
‘Aye.’ Slowly, Jarvis walked to the rail of the porch and looked towards the woods. ‘A damn sight better than I did with that bastard who was his partner.’
Cooper was unprepared for the vehemence in Jarvis’s voice. ‘Richard Slack? You’re the first person I’ve heard say a bad word about him.’
Jarvis turned back and looked at him. ‘Well, most folk don’t care to speak ill of the dead. I wouldn’t normally do it myself. But I’ll make an exception in the case of Richard Bloody Slack.’
The 999 call had come into the control room half an hour earlier. By the time Diane Fry arrived at the scene, the
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machinery of a murder enquiry was already getting up to speed. SOCOs in their white paper suits were rustling and squeaking around the house, an inner cordon had been set up across the doorway, and a safe route marked through the garden and past the conservatory. Police vehicles filled the drive and blocked off the street, while officers deterred inquisitive members of the public.
Even worse, a TV crew had arrived and were setting up across the road. They must have been in town on another assignment to get to the scene so quickly. Fry felt a stab of irritation to find herself trailing after the media. The place was already turning into a circus.
DI Hitchens was standing near the crime scene van. He was banned from the house until the senior SOCO allowed him in.
‘Well, you got your wish, Diane,’ he said, hunching his shoulders against the drizzle. ‘This is a murder enquiry now. Mr Kessen has been appointed SIO. He’ll be arriving shortly not that we need him on this one. But at least we’ll get our resources. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’
‘It looks as though most of the available resources are here already,’ said Fry, as a scientific support van backed up to the gate and began unloading equipment.
‘It’s a walkthrough,’ said Hitchens. ‘If we let these lads do their thing for a bit, we can all pack up and go home early.’
‘It can’t be, sir.’
The DI inclined his head towards the house. ‘Forget about your phone calls. This is nothing to do with them.’
Wayne Abbott put his head out of the front door and gave them a nod. They climbed into scene suits handed to them from the van, and went into the house.
Sandra Birley’s body lay face up in the conservatory. She appeared to have fallen on to the raffia matting from just inside the sliding doors. Blood had soaked into the matting from a serious head wound. Well, at least one wound. Of
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course, the amount of bleeding from the scalp could be out of all proportion to the seriousness of the injury. But the main source of the blood seemed to be an area just above the left temple, which had left Sandra’s hair almost as thick and matted as the raffia she lay on.
‘She was in the dining room when she was struck,’ said Abbott. ‘See the blood splatter on the glass panels of the door? That splatter is on the inside. So it looks as though the victim was standing on the carpet, about here. When she was hit, the blood sprayed in this direction, on to the glass. She staggered back a few steps, probably tripped over the runner, then fell backwards. There’s more blood on the wall of the conservatory, see. But it’s low down, near the floor. That’s secondary splatter - spray from the impact of her head on the matting.’
‘Do we have a weapon?’ asked Fry.
‘We certainly do. A wooden carving of a dolphin. Here we are - it’s made of some kind of tropical wood. Very hard, and very heavy. Nicely balanced for a good swing, too. It looks as though the dolphin probably stood on this table right here, near the fireplace.’
‘That’s right, it did.’
Abbott looked at her in surprise. ‘Oh, you’ve been in the house before? I don’t suppose you can tell us if there’s anything missing, then?’
Fry gazed around the Birleys’ house.
‘Yes, there is,’ she said. ‘The husband.’
When her mobile phone rang, it sounded embarrassingly loud inside the house.
‘How’s it going down there?’ asked Gavin Murfin.
‘Don’t ask, Gavin. What do you want?’
‘I’ve got some news. I think you might be going to curse the experts again.’
