Jack in the Box, page 2
‘Maybe that’s what I’m saying, maybe it isn’t.’
‘Meaning it was Meghan’s idea.’
‘Hey, you’ve been dressed by your missus since you were sixteen, so–’
‘Sixteen and a half.’
‘So give me peace.’
‘You’re about to talk to traumatised people tonight,’ Lomond said, indicating and pulling out. ‘Last thing I want to do is make it even worse for them.’
‘Well . . . at least it’s warm.’
‘Give you that one.’
‘What’s the damage, then? I had a look at the notes. Bad one?’
‘Bad one,’ Lomond agreed. ‘Kathryn Symes, known as Kath, thirty-six years old. Waved her daughter off at the bus stop this morning – that was the last time she was seen alive. Lives at one of the big houses in Fairham.’
‘Fairham? What part of town is that?’
‘New builds. Or new-ish. They just gave it a name, not even sure it means anything. I think it was called Renfrewshire when I was a boy.’
‘It was probably called Rome when you were a boy.’
Lomond ignored this as they waited at a red light. ‘Daughter didn’t find her, thank God – that was her mother. Corinne Bruce, seventy-seven years auld. Went to pick up the wee girl after the victim was a no-show at school.’
‘Husband?’ Slater asked.
Lomond cleared his throat. ‘Away on business. Amsterdam.’
‘Oh aye.’
‘What do you mean, “oh aye”?’
‘You been to Amsterdam?’
‘No.’
‘You planning to?’
‘No. Why would I?’
‘Bit defensive.’
‘Anyway. He was in Amsterdam. Clear as you can get. He got the call from the school first, to say his wife hadn’t showed up. He brought in her mother to go and pick up the girl and make a check on the house. She let herself in. Found the body, rang him back and told him to come home.’
Slater sucked his teeth. ‘She bearing up?’
‘Haven’t heard.’
‘Not good. Just . . . please tell me the daughter didn’t see it?’
‘The daughter didn’t see it.’
‘That’s something.’
‘Life’s wrecked as it is, anyway,’ Lomond mused. He listened to the soft brushstrokes of the snow on the car for a bit.
‘Details?’ Slater said.
‘Minchin won’t say much. You know what that means.’
‘Aye. A weird one.’
Slater shook his head. ‘We were saying that the other day, were we not? Haven’t had a serious one for a while. Couple of open goals – like that boy getting the pool cue in his eye socket. But nothing random.’
‘We might be lucky,’ Lomond said.
‘When are we ever lucky, gaffer?’
‘Fingers crossed this is the first time.’
‘Suppose the snow’s lucky.’
‘How’s that?’
‘The forensics’ friend. Footprints.’
‘We’ll soon find out.’
Slater peered through the windscreen as Lomond crept around a bus pulled over by the side of the road with its hazards on. There seemed to be no one inside, and the lights were off. ‘Fair way out, isn’t it?’
‘I’d have been there already if I hadn’t had to swing by and get you,’ Lomond said tersely.
‘Motor’s off the road.’ Slater sniffed. ‘I did offer to get a taxi.’
‘Never mind,’ Lomond said irritably.
After a silence, Slater ventured: ‘Mind if I stick the radio on? I like to take my mind off it for a bit before I have to get my head into it, if you know what I mean.’
‘Aye, whatever.’ Lomond’s head was into it already. Roads, routes in and out, neighbours. Vantage points. Map of the estate. ‘Hey, wait . . .’
But Slater had already touched the on switch, and what Lomond had been listening to came on loud, mid-song. Lomond used the control built into his steering wheel to bring down the volume. He said nothing more as the song played on.
Slater was silent, resting his elbow on the car door, chin in his hand. Without turning round, he said, ‘This isn’t the radio, is it?’
Lomond shrugged.
‘This is a playlist, in’t it? This is . . . your playlist.’
‘So?’
‘I mean, nothing wrong with this song, is there? Nothing at all.’
‘It’s just a song.’
‘Uh huh. That’s fine.’
‘What makes you say that, Malcolm?’
‘Oh, no reason, gaffer,’ Slater said, not quite expressionlessly.
5
Lomond hated the ghostie suits – they made him sweat, and the tight band that compressed the brow and jaw clearly illustrated that he was fleshier around the eyes and cheeks than the fresh-faced uniform polis of his first warrant card. Slater knew this, of course, and while they had an unwritten code not to crack jokes of any kind at crime scenes – well, crime scenes where they met other officers of the forensics team, at any rate – the razor’s edge sparkle of the DS’s eyes told the story of his amusement.
‘You lost weight, gaffer?’ he said, innocently enough.
‘Not really, Malcolm. You grown a fringe?’
As he adjusted the hood over his shaven-to-exorcise-malepattern-baldness head, Slater’s eyes lost a little of their malevolence.
The houses in the crescent were two-storeyed and broad. The snow fell steadily, blanketing the dark slate roofs.
‘Don’t look like new-builds,’ Lomond said. ‘When did these go up? Can’t be long.’
‘I checked just after we pulled in,’ Slater said smugly. ‘Sixteen-odd years ago.’
‘What? Financial crash? Someone was confident.’
‘Some bugger’s always got the money. Good investment, as well.’
‘They look OK, decent big houses – kind of an oppressive street, though.’
‘Aye.’ Slater frowned. ‘Reminds me of a nick, I dunno why. Maybe the circle . . . what d’you call it?’
‘Crescent. Myrtlewood Crescent.’
Most of the neighbours seemed to be watching – couldn’t help that, of course, with the glowering evidence tent, the uniforms and, worst of all, the masked, white-suited forensics team hunched over in the falling snow. The photographer had already been in and out, and the media had decamped. Just about everyone in the crescent had been spoken to already. You had to imagine it, Lomond thought. The knock at the door, the shock and confusion. Then you had to imagine the worst thing, the one that would linger. The idea that a couple of doors away from you – or even next door – something terrible had happened. Something that might have happened to you, given a different set of circumstances: a change in the weather; a simple whim indulged. In another universe, it was you. Kath was answering her door to the police, aghast, and you . . .
‘Where’s the husband now?’ Slater asked, scrolling through his phone.
‘Got him at the station. He’s in a bad way. Someone was saying they might have to take the mother to hospital,’ Lomond said.
‘Christ. How about the daughter?’
‘She’s with an auntie. Husband’s sister. She drove through from Coatbridge and collected her.’
Slater sighed. ‘Best get in there, then.’
*
Lomond and Slater entered through the front door. Somehow the coverings on their feet were apt in the spotless hallway, which stretched a good distance past the carpeted stairway angled up the western wall. The flooring looked and felt like real oak, and the carefully placed lamps lent the space a warm, burnished look. The upper-storey landing led off to three bedrooms and a main bathroom.
‘I’ve stayed in flats that would fit in this hallway,’ Slater remarked. ‘Kitchen and bathroom, the lot.’
‘Place looks clean,’ Lomond said.
‘What you reckon? Tidied up after himself?’
‘Maybe.’
Anita Khavari was the senior pathologist on the scene. Her striking good looks and height were neutralised by the ghostie suit, but her voice was clear and distinctive enough from the bottom of the hallway. ‘Through here, gents.’
The hallway opened into a spotlit kitchen, almost too bright to look at. Khavari had already laid out the path the two men should take; one or two forensic officers remained on site, photographing the worktop and the breakfast bar at the back of the room. Strong portable lights bleached the whole scene.
Lomond narrowed his eyes; he could feel the beginnings of a headache spreading from his neck to his temples in dull waves. ‘Much to say about the scene? Footprints, specifically?’
Under the glare, Khavari’s eyes were difficult to read behind glasses. She bit the side of her mouth and shook her head. ‘Nothing that we can see.’
‘Did he clean up after himself? Any mops around?’
‘It doesn’t seem like it. It looks like she was in the bath. There was a struggle in the bathroom, lots of water on the floor and the mat, even on the walls. We think he killed her up there, then dragged her down the stairs.’
‘How?’
‘Smothered her,’ Khavari said. ‘Used one of the bath towels.’
‘She fight him?’
‘She’s broken some nails – we’ll have to examine what’s underneath them.’
Slater cleared his throat and asked, ‘Sexual assault?’
Khavari gazed at him. ‘Nothing to suggest it so far. It’s possible, but there’s no indication of it.’
‘He panic?’ Slater asked. ‘Lose his nerve?’
‘I don’t . . .’ Khavari hesitated. ‘It’s a strange one. I’m not going to speculate. But you’ll see.’
‘He had to have dragged her down here for a reason,’ Slater said. ‘Is it the extra space? The light?’ He stared at the high ceiling. As well as the portable lights, Lomond noticed that the wall was studded with small, circular spotlights – all of them functioning.
‘When you get those wee fancy lights, they always conk out, I find,’ he said. ‘My wife hates them. I don’t like them either, for that reason. You’re always up and down the steps, replacing them. It’s a well-kept house. What did she do?’
‘No job,’ Khavari said. ‘She looked after her daughter. Hadn’t worked since maternity leave. Paralegal.’
Lomond and Slater came to the kitchen table, beyond which were the patio doors. The view outside was even harder to look at than what was inside the kitchen: flooded with white light, glaring off the fresh-fallen snow.
‘Footprints outside, surely?’ Lomond said.
Khavari shook her head. ‘No. He was lucky. We think he might have come down the side of the garden path – you see that area shaded over by the trees, the conifers? He came down there. We think, going by some of the neighbours’ door cameras and other security equipment, he got in and out just before the heavier stuff came down. We’ve photographed every inch of it, been out with the thermal cameras, but there’s nothing.’
‘Any chance he got in from the front? Or a window?’
‘It’s possible but unlikely.’ Khavari gestured. ‘You’ll see it better in daylight, or if you look at the survey map. This is the perfect way to get in. It’s not overlooked at all – the gardens were designed that way. Wasteland out the back. There’s every chance he sneaked in, then sneaked out. That would be my guess, except there’s a problem with that too.’
Slater was ahead of her. He pointed towards a console set in the wall, with an LED digital face that was so quaint Lomond supposed it was retro-styled. ‘That a security camera system?’ Slater asked.
‘Yes. The camera was switched on all afternoon.’
Lomond turned to the pathologist. ‘But she was here, wasn’t she?’
Khavari nodded. ‘Hadn’t left the house since seeing the daughter off to school.’
‘But she put on the security system?’ Lomond flipped open his notebook, writing in his indecipherable scrawl. ‘While she was inside?’
‘She’d gone for a bath,’ Slater reminded him.
‘Even so.’ He drew a line in his book. ‘So . . . there are cameras? Outside?’
‘Yes.’ Khavari sounded weary.
‘And they got something, right?’ Slater asked.
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘We’re analysing the recordings, but they didn’t get anything out in the garden.’
‘So he didn’t get in that way,’ Lomond said.
‘We can’t be sure. One of the cameras was out. Again, our man could be lucky. Or he could have knocked it out. It would have shown him coming off the side of the path and along the patio.’
‘Don’t like the sound of this,’ Slater said, tutting. ‘We’re well into the stalker zone here.’
Lomond frowned. ‘But the weather’s been crap all day, right? Sleet before it turned cold, then snow. So there must have been some water down here?’
‘Just what was left behind when he dragged her in from the staircase.’ Khavari indicated a track on the floor, marked out with fluorescent numbered signs, showing the meandering path of the body from the bottom of the stairs towards the box. ‘Nothing that showed footprints.’
‘Nah, this isn’t good,’ Lomond said. He nodded towards the red scarf, still dangling out of the toybox. ‘OK,’ he sighed. ‘Let’s get it over with. Is she over there?’
6
The two crime scene investigators who lifted the lid were slightly pissy about it. Lomond wondered if they’d had to do it a few times that day. It was one of those grim things rendered comical by repetition, though no one was laughing at this point.
‘How high do you want it?’ said one – short, pugnacious, with a lot of chin jutting out of his white suit.
‘You being smart, son?’
The man shrugged. He didn’t look away either. ‘Up or down? Let me know.’
Lomond turned to Khavari. ‘This boy on his first day here?’
‘It’s been a long day,’ Khavari said, glaring at the CSI over her glasses.
He sighed and lifted the lid.
Slater flinched at what was underneath, far more sharply than Lomond did. ‘What in the name of God’s going on with that?’ he said, turning to the pathologist.
‘I can’t answer that. I was hoping you could tell me.’
‘He’s done that for shock,’ Slater said. ‘Hasn’t he?’
Lomond nodded. ‘That’s a display. Her poor mum.’
‘Assuming that’s who it was left for.’
The face was turned up towards the onlookers, though only the top of the head from the eyes upwards was protruding from the lip of the toybox. The hair was black, tightly curled and matted along one side. Seeing this, Lomond had a flashback to his own daughter. He had once been stretched for time while putting her to bed. He had to go out on a job that night and had been waiting on Maureen to come off shift so he could leave. He didn’t have time to carry out the full salon-style hair dryer and brush job – which Siobhan had borne with a stoicism that Lomond had found hilarious. He had made do with an undignified buffeting with a towel and sent Siobhan to bed without telling his wife as he left. After Amy Winehouse had lurched out of bed the next morning, there was a full and frank exchange of views. The hair had been so bad, Maureen had taken a photo and threatened to send it to social services.
Something in the texture of the hair and the untreated way it had been left reminded Lomond of that night. The comparison disgusted him, which meant he should make a note, and he did. It was black hair, possibly curls that had been tamed through prolonged use of straighteners, perhaps over decades, and there was no sign of silver in the roots.
The eyes were the main thing. Wide open, as if glaring at the viewer, the expression was baleful rather than horror-struck or simply blank. Lomond had seen victims of suffocation several times before, and the signs of petechial haemorrhage were obvious. Purple patches on the glassy whites, almost entirely covering the right eye. Insult to injury: even more of a horror movie. As if she wanted to weep blood but couldn’t.
These blemishes and purplish starbursts were dotted around the face and head, particularly on the cheeks. She had a natural beauty spot on one, parallel with the underside of her left ear, almost obliterated by the livid haemorrhage line. The rest of the skin was that awful blue colour, a repulsion of life and lividity.
The nose was bloodied, perhaps broken. Lomond noted that the hexagons of dried blood his keen eyes picked out stopped abruptly at the nostrils. He wrote on his pad, Nose wiped post-mortem?
The mouth was closed, the chin almost defiantly thrust upwards. The mouth should have been hanging open from that position. It wasn’t, because something was holding it closed: her feet, crossed over, placed at roughly forty-five-degree angles. One big toe was turned up, the way a toff might turn up their pinkie while drinking tea. The veins in the feet were horribly blue, the rest of the skin white. The blood had not settled there.
The head nestled between the shins. These had surely been shaved recently, a sheen under the punishing lights; perhaps in the bath, moments before the arrival of the person who killed her. Visible beyond tufted black hair pooled behind the head, her knees. It was a grotesque contortionist’s act, the kind you might see at random on your phone or on a TV show, and automatically wince.
‘The legs been severed?’ Lomond asked.
Khavari shook her head. ‘No. Dislocated at the hip.’
‘She’s been bent over backwards.’
‘Looks that way. We’ll take it from the top.’ Khavari pointed a silver object at the face and clicked it; an even stronger beam spotlit the mouth. ‘You see the foam at the mouth, just here? You might have to bend down to get a better look, just at the right-hand corner, here?’
Lomond did so. Bringing his own face so close to that of death brought the first waves of nausea. You never, ever get used to this, he thought. ‘I see it.’
‘Suffocation, something placed over the face. If you look up at the nose, right there on the nostrils, you’ll probably see some fibres.’
The spotlight washed over the nose, washing the skin clean except for where the blood clung. It was dried, but still rich in red. ‘I see it,’ Lomond said. ‘Fibres. Fluff. New bath towel?’
