Authors: Chris Simms
I
ona stepped out of the meeting room trying to focus on the latest task thrown her way. But her mind kept returning to the Forced Marriage Unit, sparking long-harboured questions about her own father, Wasim. He’d been brought up in a well-off, well-respected family in Islamabad. He’d excelled academically. Outside his studies, he was a gifted sportsman and had played for the Pakistan hockey team for nine years, winning gold with them at the 1982 hockey World Cup and at the 1984 Olympics.
Life at the very top of the country awaited. Then, in his late twenties, he’d abandoned everything and come to Britain.
It was only as she got older that Iona began to appreciate what a dramatic event such a move had been: yet the reasons for it had never been explained. She’d just assumed he had no contact with his family back home because of the geographical distance involved. As an explanation, it worked OK while she was young. Only by cornering her mother on a few occasions had Iona been able to form a hazy picture of what had happened. No wonder all contact with his family had been severed.
‘Sound fair to you?’
She turned to Martin, vaguely aware he’d been talking into her ear for the entire length of the corridor. ‘Say all that again, can you?’
His eyebrows lifted in exasperation. ‘The care home Dean wants us to check out? In Heaton Chapel?’
There was a condescending note in his voice that immediately rankled her. ‘Yes, what about it?’
‘Give me two minutes. Just need to check in with my boss. Tell him what’s what.’ Martin headed for DCI Palmer’s private office.
Iona made her way across the main incident room and sat down at her desk. The civilian support workers from the day shift were gone. No one seemed to be keeping an eye on the log to see what was happening round the city.
She plonked herself down at her desk and logged on. What, she asked herself, am I even looking for? Aside from suspicious deaths, a flag had been put on any type of incident involving violence, muggings or thefts. Anything involving a student also automatically triggered a heads-up for the entire CTU.
She scrolled past the usual medley of lost mobile phones, road traffic accidents and domestic disputes. A report was just coming in from outside a house in Brinnington, south of the city centre. The owner of the property – due on duty at the Aquatics Centre on Oxford Road – hadn’t responded to the front door being rung. The colleague had glanced into the kitchen and spotted signs of the place having been burgled. At that point he’d become uneasy and called the police.
Iona went back to the workplace of the house owner. The Aquatics Centre. A two-minute walk from the student union and practically next door to Eamon Heslin’s shop. It was worth a try. She lifted the phone and, within seconds, had been patched through to the two uniformed constables who were just arriving at the scene. ‘DC Iona Khan, who is this, please?’
The voice of the constable came back down the line. ‘Constable Gray. Michael.’
He sounds younger than me, Iona thought. And very nervous. ‘Michael, what do you see? Describe it to me.’
‘Well, I’ve gone round the back, by the open door into the kitchen. The television is on – I can hear it – as are the kitchen lights. I can see car keys on the side and a mobile phone on the windowsill. There’s a jacket draped over a chair. You’d have thought he’s in.’
‘You’ve tried shouting his name?’
‘Yeah. He’s not answering.’
Trying to focus on the scene, Iona closed her eyes. There could be an entirely innocent explanation – or it could be far more sinister. She made a decision. ‘Michael, I need you to check the property – but be very careful. Assume there’s a burglar inside.’
‘You want us to go inside now? We were waiting for a patrol car.’
‘No – I need you to take a look now. Is that OK?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Keep the line open. Talk me through what’s happening.’
‘Sarah, stay with me. Sir? Remain out here, please.’ His voice dropped. ‘We’re in the kitchen. The cupboards are all open. Stuff’s all over the floor. Now in the corridor. The door to the TV room is on my right.’
Iona could hear it playing. Applause rang out.
The constable tried calling again. ‘Mr Williams? Mr Williams? We’re police, can you hear us?’
The TV played on. Iona pressed the phone more tightly against her ear.
‘Doesn’t seem to be anyone here. TV room is empty. There’s … oh … Mr Williams? Sir?’
Another voice. Female. ‘Jesus, is that blood? Sir, can you hear—’
Iona sat up, eyes opening. ‘What’s going on? What is it?’
‘Check for a pulse. Can you feel … No? Nothing? OK, Sarah, get back. We need to be out of here. Detective Khan? He’s here – there’s damage to his head. My colleague was unable—’
Iona was on her feet, shouting at Roebuck in his side office.
Within ten minutes, Gowerdale Road was clogged with emergency vehicles. Iona and Martin arrived a few seconds behind Roebuck. They pulled in behind his car and approached the taped-off area at the front of number eleven. Roebuck swept through and vanished inside the property.
‘Detectives Everington and Khan,’ Martin announced as they reached the outer cordon. Since she’d raised the alert back at the CTU, Martin had been subdued. Now, at the crime scene itself, he turned to her. ‘Go on, you can take the lead.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah, it was your shout.’
She could see a pair of constables talking to a sergeant beside the front door. The male was tall and appeared to be in his early twenties. The female looked ill and was about ten years older. Iona approached them. ‘Is it Michael and Sarah? I’m Detective Khan. It was me you were patched through to just earlier.’
Michael turned and looked down at her, lips parting in surprise. Sarah blinked. Used to people being surprised by her appearance, Iona looked briefly to the house. ‘You did well.’ She smiled at them.
Michael regained his composure first. ‘Er, thanks. Yeah, my first body.’
Iona could see the house was already bustling with people. It was unlikely she’d be permitted beyond the front door. ‘Not nice, is it?’
They nodded together. ‘He was on his side – head on the armrest of the sofa. Skull looked like it had been caved in.’
A hammer blow, Iona thought. There’d been no word, so far, about any laptop. ‘Did you get a look round the front room before coming back out?’
‘No, we withdrew as soon as we were sure he was dead.’
She tapped her toe in frustration: they were too late. Unless, by chance, the killer had been disturbed before he’d found it. ‘Where’s the person who works at the Aquatics Centre; the one who called the police in the first place?’
He nodded at the patrol car on the opposite side of the street. ‘In there, giving a statement, I think.’
‘Cheers.’ She turned to Martin. ‘I’m going to pop across. Coming?’
‘Iona, we’re meant to be over at the care home in Heaton Chapel, remember?’
She looked back at him. ‘Seriously? You want to head there right now?’
‘OK, OK.’ He made a fending motion with his hands. ‘Do what you want to do. I’ll wait in the car.’
She headed swiftly across the road, smarting at his petulant tone. If this had been your call, she thought, there’s no way you’d be so keen to clear off. She leaned in at the driver’s window of the squad car. The man on the back seat gazed straight back at her with dull eyes. Probably still taking in what’s just happened, she thought. ‘Hello there.’ She turned to the officer in the front seat and briefly showed her ID. ‘Detective Khan. Anything?’
He laid a hand on the steering wheel. ‘Not apart from what he reported to the crime scene officers, if that’s what you mean. Picking up the victim was a regular arrangement; he’d swing by and they’d car share.’
She peered into the rear of the vehicle once more. The man was now staring off to the side. ‘Sir? Could I ask how long was it before you gave up at the front door and went round to the back?’
His eyes shifted to her but his head didn’t move. ‘A minute at most.’
‘And you could hear the TV was on?’
He nodded.
‘So you made your way round to the rear of the property. Did you notice any cars pass by on the road?’
He began to shake his head, but stopped. ‘Just a man walking off. I could see him through the hedge. Then I saw the gate for the back yard was—’
Iona cut in. ‘This man. Which direction was he walking?’
‘Away from me. Off up the side road.’
‘Did you see his face?’
‘No.’
‘What was he wearing?’
‘I don’t know. A darkish jacket.’ His eyes lifted. ‘He was carrying something.’
Iona felt a stab of adrenalin. ‘Did you see what it was?’
‘No, it was in his hands. Cradling it, kind of.’
‘You mean like you’d cradle a baby?’
‘No, not a baby. It was square-ish. Flat. I thought it was maybe a pizza.’
‘Was he in a hurry? Was he strolling casually?’
‘Hurrying – yes.’
‘Where did he go?’
‘Not sure. I was looking at the back door by then.’
Iona addressed the policeman in the front. ‘We need to conduct a formal interview, right now.’ She stood up straight and was in the process of calling DCI Roebuck when he came rushing down the garden path, pursued by another detective.
She started jogging over. ‘Sir?’
He caught sight of her. ‘Follow us, Iona!’
Roebuck ran towards his vehicle, calling over his shoulder. ‘The murder victim had a message on his mobile. His mum, saying the laptop he’d given her wasn’t working!’
L
iam stood in the darkness, eyes on the building where Libby Williams lived. It wasn’t going to be easy getting in. The reception area was unmanned, but you had to be buzzed in by a resident or whoever looked after the place. A janitor or caretaker. CCTV cameras were above the entrance and in the ceiling of the lobby.
He almost laughed. It didn’t matter any more. He and Nina would be out of the country in a few more hours. So what if the pigs eventually recognized him from the footage? Add it to the forensics they’d eventually pinpoint at the various murder scenes. If they caught him now, he was fucked. One old woman on the list would hardly make a difference.
He pulled on the tabard with reflective panels, placed a baseball cap on his head and strolled across the lawned area. The toolbox in his hand was small; a few screwdrivers in the top tray, just the hammer beneath.
What was the flat number? Six, that was it. Ground floor. That made things easier. ‘Mrs Williams? It’s the engineer. I’m calling about your broadband connection. You spoke to someone at our office earlier on?’
Her voice was quite posh, like old people liked to sound whenever they spoke into anything. ‘Oh, yes. She said you’d be on your way. Come in and turn left through the double doors that are directly in front.’
The door clicked and he stepped inside, aware that the CCTV cameras were trained directly at him. Keeping his head down, he held up a finger as he crossed the lobby. The thought of a crowd of detectives looking at that later on made him grin. If it wasn’t for the panel of mailboxes on the opposite wall, the place could have been a service station motel: blue nylon carpets and green fire escape signs. Metal plates at the base of each door, black smears where they’d been bumped by wheelchair tyres. He hated old people.
Beyond the double doors was a corridor. Flats one to seven, said a sign. He followed the arrow. A radio was playing somewhere. Wurlitzer music. Memories of Blackpool flashed up. Shivering in a pub’s concrete courtyard, Coke and crisps long-finished, waiting for his mum to come back out and take him home. Then explosions of laughter from inside and behind her cackles the sound of one of those bloody piano things. Its noise would carry on the breeze from a big hall down the road, notes rising and falling, building and building until she emerged, staggering, lipstick smeared, looking like the organ sounded: crazy. Back to the bedsit. Sometimes chips on the way. Slurring her words, she’d tuck him up before vanishing back off into the night.
He focused on the door at the corridor’s end. The music was coming from beyond it. The next seaside he saw would be different to Blackpool. It would be sunny and clean and there’d be no fucking Wurlitzer music. And he’d be with Nina, not the pissed slag he’d had for a mum.
He knocked on the door, nice and gentle. The old dear who, earlier on, had been peering at him from the computer opened up.
‘Do come in. I hope you’re not still working just because of me.’
It took him a moment to cotton on. ‘Oh, no – I’m on lates this week. I won’t be home until morning.’
‘My husband used to work nightshifts.’ She led him towards a small sitting room. The Wurlitzer music got louder. ‘He was a printer – newspapers. In the days when all the letters were little blocks.’ She smiled over her shoulder. ‘Before computers took over. Here it is. The Spotify thing is working, as you can hear. I don’t know, sometimes I think they’re more trouble than they’re worth.’
Stepping aside, she gestured at the laptop on the circular table in the corner.
‘Nothing worse than a misbehaving computer, is there?’ Liam replied, stepping closer. It was a Dell. On and on went the bastard music.
‘What with that and mobile phones. I’m forever being bothered by sales people.’ She pointed at a clunky-looking Nokia on the side. ‘I ignore the thing, mostly.’ As if on cue, it started to ring. She briefly scrutinized the screen. ‘Absolutely no idea who that is.’ She put it back down. ‘I won’t even ask what you need to do. The fact those things don’t even have wires is confusing enough for me. A cup of coffee?’
Liam was checking the laptop’s casing. No label had been scratched off the front corner. Nina’s. It had to be. ‘You what?’
Her face stiffened slightly. ‘I asked if you’d like a drink.’
‘Oh, no. Don’t bother.’ He crouched down and flicked the toolbox clasps up. ‘This won’t take two minutes.’
T
hey raced south, away from the city centre and towards Poynton. En route, Martin called Roebuck and got a hurried explanation of what was happening.