Death Call

Chapter 1

Carroll was late, as usual. It normally didn’t cause too many problems with his partner, Samuel, but today was different. Today, Detective Samuel Grant was standing over the body of a dead woman. Dead and horribly mutilated.

Always early on the job, Samuel had received the call from the Chief on his way to work and had gone straight to the scene of the crime. It was clearly a case of murder. There could be no mistake about this one. A semi-naked woman lay dead on the floor with her bra wrapped around her neck and her entrails scattered around. Whoever had done this was seriously deranged.

Once on the scene, Detective Grant had the young police constables present clear the scene and called for the Forensics Squad. One or two curious onlookers had already been into the house, and it was possible that some of the evidence had been contaminated. Grant began to look for clues as to what had happened.

The young woman’s body lay in a pool of blood in the living room of a semi-detached house on a relatively quiet North London Street. Her blonde hair was stained blood-red, and the liquid had begun to congeal.

There were no immediate signs of forced entry. The body, Grant surmised on feeling for its temperature, had been there for no more than four hours. The victim’s clothes lay scattered around the floor in a haphazard way. As with many murder victims, her open eyes stared emptily out into space, as if waiting for someone to appear. She wouldn’t be seeing anyone ever again – that was for sure.

Carroll arrived, looking more than a little crumpled, around twenty minutes after Grant. He began to snoop around with the smell of his stale whiskey-breath trailing after him like the wake of an ocean liner on the open seas. He always looked rough first thing in the morning. Rough and crotchety. All it took was one stupid remark from a uniform or witness, and he’d be all over them like a bad rash.

It was all he could do to stop his hangover from spilling out onto the victim, as he studied her neck and what he made out to be the initial puncture wound in her abdomen. From that point, he thought, she had been opened like an envelope with a paperknife, revealing a mess of entrails and blood.

‘Does anything stand out?’ Carroll asked Grant with a smirk, reaching into his pocket for a cigarette, coughing as he did.

‘Not yet, apart from the cause of death. It looks as if she was strangled with her bra before being cut open. What sort of fucker does this kind of thing?’

‘I dunno. I haven’t seen one like this for a while. She looks like a gutted fish, poor girl. Any ID on her?’

‘Nothing. Not a thing.’

‘Forensics on their way yet?’

‘Yeah, they should be here shortly,’ Grant replied.

Carroll and Grant had only been working together for about a week. And that was long enough, according to Grant. It was as if the Chief had thrown them together to get them out of the way. If the truth were to be known, no one else would work with either of them – even though they had what they regarded as the fastest clear-up rate between them in the whole division. Apart from being good detectives, both individuals had bad tempers and egos that grew daily. Grant, the son of a Jamaican immigrant, didn’t like being paired off with a whiskey-breathed Irishman. Carroll didn’t like the situation either. The last thing he needed, as he had been heard to say, was a bad-tempered Jamaican giving him hassle. Still, there was nothing to be done about it other than to sit it out and hope for a change of partner, though there was little chance of that.

When the forensics people finally arrived, carrying the tools of their trade, Carroll led them in and brought them up to speed on the situation.

‘Female,’ he said looking down at the naked body. ‘Approximately twenty-five, strangled with her bra strap and cut open, by the look of it. I want everything on this one, gentlemen. Everything. Nails, prints, dental charts, tattoos. Check for semen and saliva, hairs, the lot. You know the score – and I want results in the next few days, okay?’

Carroll’s demands were met with a weary-eyed response and barely audible grunts. In the forensics business, things took as long as they took. They couldn’t be rushed, and Carroll knew this.

Grant looked at Carroll with little less than contempt as he stamped his authority on the situation.

‘Who found the body, Sam?’ Carroll asked.

‘According to the constable here it was a local paperboy. He’s waiting outside. Shall we?’

Grant and Carroll stepped over the corpse of the young woman and made for the front garden where a boy sat on the garden wall. He looked about twelve.

‘Right,’ Carroll said, ‘let’s start at the beginning.’

The boy looked a little shaken.

‘What’s your name, and what time did you find the young woman?’ Carroll asked.

‘Eric. My name is Eric Lewis. I found her about an hour ago. I’ve got to finish my round before two o’clock or I’ll be killed, mister. I don’t know what happened.’

‘How did you find the body, Eric?’ Grant asked.

‘I was just pushing the paper through the letterbox and the door swung open. That’s all. I could see her feet sticking out from the living room door, and I thought I could see blood on them.’

‘What did you do then, Eric?’ Carroll interjected.

‘I just went in to see if she was all right – that’s all. I didn’t steal anything if that’s what you mean....’

‘No, Eric, that’s not what I mean. Did you see anyone leave the building or acting suspiciously in the area earlier on?’

‘No. Now can I go? I’ve got to be back at the shop by two o’clock or I’ll be dead. Can I go?’

‘No. You’re going to be taken home by one of the officers,’ Carroll said.

‘We may want to speak to you again – we’ll be in touch,’ Grant said, as one of the constables prepared to take the boy home.

‘So, do we have any idea who she is yet?’ Carroll asked, turning to his partner.

‘None. I’m going to check with the neighbours and see if I can get the name of the householder.’

‘I’d best get back in and keep an eye on forensics.’

Grant began his door-knocking routine, while Carroll went back inside. The police photographer was in the middle of his act, going through the motions and getting shots of everything that he could before the body would be taken down to the city morgue for the post mortem examination. A veritable swarm of white-suited figures buzzed around the corpse like bees around honey, searching for any evidence that could be found. One man took fingerprints and scraped under the victim’s nails for skin, hair or blood samples that could be used in a DNA test, while another was busy taking the temperature of the young woman’s internal organs, which lay in a mess around her.

Why anyone would do such a thing to a young woman amazed and sickened Carroll in the one instant. No matter how many times he saw mutilated bodies and murder victims, it still got to him. Even after nearly twenty years on the force.

‘Anything we can go on yet?’ Carroll asked.

‘Well, by the look of the clothing she wasn’t a snappy dresser. Looks as if she dressed to please rather than for comfort, detective,’ said one of the white-suited men.

He was right. A short leather skirt and red hold-up stockings weren’t the kind of thing a young woman might wear on a Monday afternoon – especially not in February.

Carroll had taken some notes. They were the basics and were always necessary when a case went to court. Apart from the time of police arrival, ascertained from the officer first on the scene, Carroll’s notebook contained details of the weather and approximate temperature inside and outside the house. All of these small details were vitally important to the proper working of a murder case in order to establish the approximate time of death.

Carroll went upstairs and had a look around. It was a well-furnished house. Much nicer than mine, he thought, sifting through papers in one of the bedrooms. Nothing turned up with a name on it, apart from a pile of insurance brochures. The company name was ‘Expectant Life’. Carroll pocketed one and went back down the stairs.

The forensics people were bagging everything they had, including the mutilated body and the scattered entrails, which were shortly to be removed. Latent fingerprints were also being lifted from furniture and items near the body. It would be up to seven hours before the forensics people would be finished with the house.

Carroll went in search of Grant, who was still knocking on doors along the street in the hope of finding a morsel of information. HE found him entering a garden just up the street, ready to knock on another door.

‘Anything yet, Sam?’ Carroll asked.

‘Nothing yet. And don’t call me Sam. My name is Samuel, understand?’ Grant was touchy about his name – especially when Detective Dan Carroll called him ‘Sam’. It was almost as if he was equating himself, ‘Dan’ with ‘Sam’, and Grant didn’t like that one bit. In Grant’s eyes, they had absolutely nothing in common, other than the fact that they were both detectives and human beings. And occasionally, Grant wondered about Carroll’s credentials when it came to belonging to the human race.

Carroll smiled, went to the door and knocked on it loudly. From behind the frosted glass panels came an old woman, who opened the door suspiciously on seeing Detective Grant. Whoever she was she didn’t like strange black men on her doorstep, Carroll thought, smiling politely.

‘Ma’am, I’m Detective Carroll and this is Detective Grant. We’re investigating an incident at number fourteen and need to contact the owners. Do you know their names?’

‘What? Who are you? What do you want?’ the old lady asked, trying to come to terms with the idea that the two men on her doorstep were police detectives.

‘We’re from the police. Do you know who lives in number fourteen, ma’am?’

‘What’s happened? Has there been a burglary? You can’t leave your house unattended these days, can you? If you lot were doing your job right it might be safe to walk the streets at night....’ The old woman was shaking with the cold of a February afternoon.

‘We just need the name of the occupants, ma’am, that’s all.’

‘William and Samantha Gibson. They’ll be at work though. What time is it?’ she asked, squinting her eyes to the daylight.

‘It’s two-twenty, ma’am. Do you know where they work?’ Carroll asked, beginning to lose his patience.

‘They both have office jobs in the city. That’s all I know, officer. What’s happened?’

‘We’re investigating an incident at number fourteen.’

The old woman’s face went white as her eyes bulged with interest. ‘Has someone been hurt? I always said they were ill-matched! He’s much too good for the likes of her...’

‘Could you give me a description of Samantha Gibson?’ Grant asked in the vain hope of a clue as to the identity of the murder victim.

‘Is he with you?’ the old lady snapped, pointing at Detective Grant.

‘Yes, ma’am, this is Detective Grant. Now, can you describe what Samantha Gibson looks like?’

‘She’s a little plump.’

‘What colour is her hair?’

‘Brown. Auburn to brown.’

‘Thank you ma’am, that’ll be all for now,’ Carroll said, turning to Grant. ‘Well, at least we know that it’s not Samantha Gibson.’