Authors: Kerry Wilkinson
And then she finally breathed in, her senses taking control of her body.
Kayleigh closed her eyes to take away the scene but this offered no protection from what was now etched in her memory. Even in the semi-darkness, she could see everything clearly.
It wasn’t the young man’s body which had been dumped in her bath that terrified her as much as the way his eyelids were hanging open, exposing small red blotches in the whites of his
eyes in a way she knew she would never forget.
In the days it had taken for Oliver Gordon’s disappearance to become an official case, Jessica had guessed it would only be a matter of time before his body turned up.
They had decided not to publicise the fact the boy’s death had been predicted in the pages of the
Herald
and no one else had apparently noticed. As soon as the call came through that
a woman had found a body in her bathtub following some sort of break-in, Jessica knew it would be Oliver.
With Reynolds still suspended and DCI Cole busy trying to manage more than his own workload, Jessica grabbed Izzy and headed out to the address in Ordsall. If she had been at home, it would have
been a ten-minute walk at most from Salford Quays but, instead, Manchester was its usual static self. Jessica skipped through as many side streets as she could remember before finally emerging into
the network of terraced redbrick houses where the flashing blue lights of an ambulance and two police cars were already waiting.
Now that she was back at work Izzy seemed determined to throw herself back into the job as much as she could. That didn’t stop Jessica from regretting bringing her when she saw the state
the body was in. The Scene of Crime team had already attended the house and taken what they needed and Jessica had only managed a quick look at the corpse before it was covered and taken out. It
would have to be identified formally but, seeing as she had spent the past few days staring at photos of Oliver, she had no doubt it was him.
‘Any idea what happened?’ Jessica asked the Scene of Crime officer.
The man was clearly in a hurry but stopped for a few moments to talk to them. ‘I wouldn’t want to say a hundred per cent but probably some sort of asphyxia. I’m sure
you’ll hear for sure in a day or two.’
Everyone who investigated crimes was used to dealing with knife attacks and Jessica had seen various horrific aftermaths, where people had been left with parts of the body hanging out. Gun crime
had been increasing in the city in recent years too, especially as their Longsight base was in the middle of a known gang area. Despite that, there was always something she found more brutal about
crimes involving suffocation.
Jessica could vividly remember being shown a public awareness video at school. It was during an assembly and she had spent the first few minutes giggling and messing around. But her eyes had
soon been drawn to the screen, where the tape showed two young girls playing with a plastic bag. It warned of the danger of playing around with such a dangerous object and, even though it was
completely overblown, large parts of it remained in the back of Jessica’s mind even now.
She still remembered interviewing a woman who had reported her husband for domestic abuse after he had punched and kicked her, then slammed her up against a wall and throttled her. As the woman
tried to talk about the events, her voice drifted between being audible and not, while Jessica could not stop looking at the purple and black mark around her throat.
Stabbing or shooting someone could be an instinctive act but actually choking them to death, however you did it, was a fierce, savage choice.
After the body had been taken away, Jessica and Izzy were led into the living room by a support officer, who introduced her to the house owner.
Kayleigh Pritchard acknowledged the detectives with a blank nod. Jessica would have guessed her to be somewhere in her early forties. She was still wearing a uniform from a local supermarket,
her dyed black hair hanging limply around her shoulders. The woman was cradling a mug in her hands, her legs wrapped underneath her as she sat in what looked like an uncomfortable position in an
armchair.
Kayleigh seemed unwilling to meet Jessica or Izzy’s eyes, instead staring into whatever was left at the bottom of her mug.
‘I know you’ve had quite the shock,’ Jessica began. ‘But, if it’s okay, we would just like to run through your afternoon with you.’
Kayleigh talked them through how she had arrived home from work and found a hole in the glass of her back door. She spoke about how she had been burgled in the past but, because nothing seemed
to have been taken, she assumed it was just kids messing around.
‘I was worried about my laptop,’ Kayleigh added. ‘I’ve got all these photos from nights out. There are pictures from when I was younger too. All sorts of stuff I
didn’t want to lose. When I saw the broken window, I assumed my computer and television and everything would have been taken. It was a relief when they were still there but then . .
.’
Jessica could see the parallels to what had happened at the Sextons’ property, although that scene had taken on a different light because they now knew Oliver’s fate. They would have
to look at whether someone had knocked on the door and then attacked the babysitter. Although they had found no signs of a struggle, Oliver didn’t have the largest of physiques and could
easily have been overpowered, especially if he had been surprised. Jessica was struggling to concentrate on Kayleigh’s story, and had to stop her mind wandering back to the previous
scene.
Kayleigh lived alone and had been in the house for around five years. After checking the necessary details such as her workplace, Jessica asked the woman to show her the back door. The Scene of
Crime team would have already been through the house but Jessica didn’t like relying on photographs, preferring her own memory.
She could not stop herself shivering as they entered the kitchen. Kayleigh instantly apologised. ‘I’m sorry, I cleaned up. I know I shouldn’t have but I thought it was kids at
the time. I didn’t think it was worth getting you involved.’
‘Did you tell the crime scene team that?’
‘Yes. They took all the glass and everything and used that powder stuff on the door handle but I had already touched that too.’
‘I’m sure they’ve got everything they need,’ Jessica replied as reassuringly as she could.
As Jessica had been checking the door, Izzy had been pacing around the kitchen. ‘Was there any stone or brick or something like that inside?’ she asked.
Kayleigh shook her head. ‘I don’t remember, your people asked the same thing but I’ve not cleaned up anything like that.’
Jessica had been thinking along the same lines. It meant whoever had broken in had likely planned what they were going to do. Along with the brutality of the method of killing Oliver, she was
concerned at the way the perpetrator had made it hard for themselves to leave the body. Dumping it in the canal, leaving it in a ditch or even burying it in a shallow grave somewhere were all
relatively easy ways to dispose of a body, but someone had gone out of their way to ensure it would be found – and, apparently, left it specifically in this house. Jessica wondered if
Kayleigh realised the implication.
‘Is there anyone you know could have a grudge against you?’ Jessica asked, not wanting to spell it out exactly.
Kayleigh had clearly thought it through already and shook her head. ‘I’ve been trying to think. It’s not the best neighbourhood, but there’s no one around here I’ve
had a problem with.’
‘Any upset ex-boyfriends or anything like that?’
‘No, I’ve been single for a while. I keep myself to myself, go to work, come home. Sometimes I’ll go out with the girls from work but we never get in any trouble. Every now and
then we get a bit of noise at night time but I don’t even complain about that. You never know how people are going to react.’
Although Jessica had suspected that would be the answer, she also thought there must be something which related either to Kayleigh or the house itself which had invited this. Until she could get
a team of people looking into things, she held her tongue.
Jessica indicated towards the woman’s uniform and asked what she did at the supermarket. Kayleigh worked in the bakery section and appeared enthusiastic as she spoke about it. That type of
day-in, day-out familiarity would have driven Jessica crazy but she had always held a curious admiration for people who were quite happy to do that. Adam was the opposite. He had recently moved
from being with the forensic science service to working at the university. He did small amounts of teaching, while generally helping out with the research projects and he enjoyed the routine of
having certain days and times when he was working.
Because Jessica knew the name of the victim, even though it wasn’t official, she decided to try a new tack. ‘Do you know someone named Oliver Gordon?’ she asked.
Kayleigh didn’t seem to realise that the name could be the identity of the victim. She stuck out her bottom lip, shaking her head slowly. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘How about an Owen or Gabrielle Gordon?’
The woman thought for a few moments, then shook her head again. ‘I’ve never heard of them. Should I have?’
‘No, it’s fine,’ Jessica assured her. ‘Can we see upstairs?’
Kayleigh led them back through the house and up the stairs. The Scene of Crime team had taken their time examining the area before removing the body and although there would be photos of how
things had been left for Jessica to see, she thought it would be best if she had some idea of what the area looked like.
Cole had asked Jessica to hold off on instantly attending the crime scene when they had received news through of the body find. They knew the house would be cramped with the paramedics,
uniformed officers and Scene of Crime team, while recent force policy had been shifting more power into the hands of the science team and away from CID, partly due to one of their colleagues in the
Northern division, who had accidentally trampled across a scene, destroying evidence in the process. It was the type of thing everyone who didn’t work in his division found partially funny,
relieved it hadn’t happened to them.
‘I opened the window,’ Kayleigh said, holding the bathroom door open for them. ‘Your people took all sorts but it still smelled of . . .
it
.’ She spoke the final
word reluctantly, before adding: ‘He was in the bath.’
Jessica and Izzy entered but Kayleigh refused to move past the doorframe. As happened frequently, Jessica was struck by how normal everything appeared. There were rows of shampoo bottles on a
shelf next to the window and a green flannel in the shape of a frog was sitting on a shelf close to the shower head. Jessica could guess the curtain had been taken by the team but, if it
wasn’t for that and the faint odour she wished she didn’t recognise, she would not have known anything was untoward.
Jessica and Izzy went through the motions of checking around the enclosed area, although they knew the Scene of Crime team would have already done the same.
As they left the room, Kayleigh was leaning on the banisters at the top of the stairs, nervously biting her lip. ‘Are you all right?’ Izzy asked, placing a hand on the woman’s
arm.
Kayleigh stared straight into Jessica’s eyes. ‘How do you do this?’ she asked, before clarifying: ‘You can’t un-see things, can you?’
Jessica felt uncomfortable, as if the woman was asking something she had long not wanted to query herself. It was as true a thing as anyone could have said.
‘We have people you can talk to if you want,’ Jessica replied.
Kayleigh nodded but didn’t want to let it go there. ‘How do
you
cope though?’
Jessica could feel Izzy watching her too and suddenly felt self-conscious. She mumbled something about having ‘special training’, although she wasn’t convincing herself, let
alone anyone else. The truth was, you dealt with it in the only way you could: you got on with it. Some would use alcohol to help, others leant heavily on their partners. Jessica knew DCI Cole made
sure he didn’t take work home, instead protecting his family time as far as possible. Jessica’s own way was to immerse herself in work; it was all she knew.
They started to descend the stairs together, with Jessica at the rear. ‘Are you going to be all right here tonight?’ Jessica asked. ‘A support officer will stay with you for a
while but we should be able to help if you want to find somewhere else for the night.’
‘I’ll be okay,’ Kayleigh replied, leading them to the front door. She opened it, adding: ‘What happens now?’
‘We’ve got another stop-off, then we’re heading back to the station,’ Jessica said, taking a card from her jacket pocket and handing it over. ‘I’ll call you
later if you want. Feel free to contact me.’
Kayleigh turned the card over in her hands, smiling weakly.
‘Are we off to the Sextons?’ Izzy asked as she walked through the door. It was exactly where Jessica was planning to go but, before she could follow her colleague, she heard Kayleigh
begin to say something, before stopping herself.
‘Are you all right?’ Jessica asked.
Kayleigh smiled wearily. ‘Yes, it’s just I used to know someone with the last name Sexton.’
It dawned on Jessica that, although she had asked the woman if she knew Owen and Gabrielle, she hadn’t asked about the family whose house the body had disappeared from. ‘What was the
first name?’
She already knew the reply before it came.
‘I used to know an Ellie Sexton.’
Jessica knew there was no particular reason to have asked about the Sextons but was still annoyed with herself for not doing so. Izzy had stopped and turned and they both
realised they had been seconds away from missing something obvious.
‘How do you know Eleanor Sexton?’ Jessica asked.
Kayleigh seemed confused for a few moments, before it dawned on her who this was. ‘Ellie’s involved?’ she said, her eyes widening in surprise.
‘We can go through that at another time,’ Jessica replied. ‘We need to make sure we’re talking about the same person.’