Bones in the Nest (20 page)

Under the harsh lights of the pathology unit, Lizzie watched Alf Huggins explore Taheera Ahmed’s body with the delicacy of a surgeon who still has a life to save.

‘Good skin, healthy nails and hair.’ He lifted the fleshy tissue of her upper lip and looked at her teeth. ‘Money’s been spent on some top quality orthodontic work.’

‘Was she sexually active?’

‘Hymen intact.’

‘Not bad for a twenty-three-year old.’

‘Now if I’d made that remark, you’d tell me off,’ Dr Huggins said. ‘It may seem old-fashioned to you, but a crime of passion doesn’t have to involve sexual intercourse.’

‘Could it involve, for the sake of argument, a staff member and a vulnerable client? Both young women?’

‘Not my department, I’m afraid.’ Alf Huggins stood back and looked at Lizzie. ‘Khan says the family wants the body to be released as soon as possible, on religious grounds. Any
particular requests about what organs you’d like me to keep, as we’re pushed for time?’

‘The wound itself is our main clue. Without a murder weapon, that’s all we’ve got. One of the girls in the lab is getting something oil-based from the neck swabs,’ Lizzie said. ‘It would be good to know what we’re looking for. Running a test for every lipid could take weeks.’

‘I don’t think they’ll be very happy if I send her back without a neck. Hard to detach it from her head, you see.’

The slit in Taheera’s throat looked like a second mouth, flat lips of skin pushed opened in a grimace.

Dr Huggins leant in for a closer look. ‘It’s almost surgical, a very clean cut, but then the exit is so messy. Makes me think of a cheese knife, except they’re never sharp enough for a decent piece of cheddar.’

‘Are you into gardening, sir?’ Lizzie saw the surprise shoot across his bushy eyebrows.

‘More my wife’s department. She’s into the good life, grows all our veg, flowers for the table, that sort of thing.’

‘What sort of tools does she use? I mean, is there a particular brand of gardening knife she favours?’

He straightened up and shifted the weight off his hip. ‘Let me think, yes, there was something I got her for Christmas, professional sort of knife. Swedish name, I think. Bloody sharp.’

‘Like a pathologist’s scalpel?’

‘Almost. But a little thicker.’ He smiled and pinched the two sides of the wound together through his latex gloves. ‘Yes, yes. Sharp but wider than a scalpel, maybe one, one and a half millimetres at most. Crikey, don’t tell me you think my wife Anne’s responsible.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Lizzie smiled. ‘But thanks, that’s very useful. How long have I got before we have to hand her over?’

‘Well, it’s pretty clear what killed her; I just want to check for anything that tells us who. I won’t rush it. Three hours? Four at the most?’

‘Perfect. Let me see if I can find something to fit that wound.’

She turned to go and then remembered something else. ‘I’ll send the crime scene photographer across, if he won’t be in your way. I’d like a light source treatment on her arm and her face. Hopefully someone left some prints.’

Lizzie went back to her office and picked up her car keys. She nearly collided with Donald Chaplin as she rushed out of the door.

‘Got a minute?’ he said.

‘Thirty seconds. I’ve got to catch the garden centre before it closes.’

‘Here.’

Lizzie looked at the sheets of paper Donald was holding in front of her and tried to understand what she was seeing. He pointed with the tip of his biro at a smudge the shape of the Isle of Wight. Around the edge, it was just possible to see the frilly lines of a partial fingerprint.

‘It’s bottle glass and it was wedged under the bottom of the fridge at AK News, protected from the heat. I’ve picked up concentrated petrol residue and a few tiny drops of human sweat. Here are the fingers that held the bottle that started the fire.’

‘Nice one.’

‘We can have a go at matching the print,’ Donald said, ‘but it’s a bit of a long shot as it’s only partial. Any chance we can get a DNA test on the sweat?’

‘Yeah, go on. Leave it with the paperwork on my desk.’ There was already a neat stack of samples waiting to go off to the lab; Lizzie tried not to think of the budget implications.

Donald chewed on his pen. ‘The fire officers didn’t find any petrol on the pavement, right? Even after everything’s been soaked in water, you’d still expect to find traces of droplets falling away from the angle of an object being thrown. And here’s another thing, the window glass had mainly blown outwards, most of the glass inside the shop is from the stock, and from the front of a chiller cabinet. You said it yourself, how do you break a window that thick with one little bottle? You don’t. The back of the shop is shuttered up. The internal doors to the stockroom at the back and the flat upstairs are all closed. The smoke spreads but not the fire. Don’t you think that’s a bit too neat?’

‘Maybe,’ Lizzie said.

‘We know the crowd was getting out of control. Several people were carrying these torches – well, they’re more like a big candle wrapped in brown paper – and if one or two of these are thrown at the shop door, no harm done, but the incendiary device was meant to do real damage. The fact that there are no casualties inside the shop is bothering me.’

‘I’d say that’s a good thing, wouldn’t you?’ she said. ‘Otherwise we’d have another murder inquiry to deal with.’

‘Perhaps they were tipped off.’

‘Who by?’

‘Someone they knew.’

Lizzie looked at the whorls on the partial fingerprint, like the edges of geological contours. ‘That could be anyone on the Chasebridge estate, Donald. It’s the local shop.’

Within half an hour, Lizzie was standing in the tools’ section of Fulton’s Garden Centre. She found the Scandinavian brand of tools that Huggins had mentioned. It was definitely the upper end of the sharp knife market, with the same leather loops she’d seen in Bill Coldacre’s potting shed. There was a long blade, like the one that had cut into her glove, then a stand of folding knives, ranging from tiny finger-length knives to heavier items that looked like they could slice the branches off a small tree.

‘Can I help you?’ A man wearing thick spectacles and a green apron was watching her. ‘Are you looking for something in particular?’

‘Yes, I am.’ She looked back at the display and willed him to go away, but he was still there.

‘These are excellent tools. A very popular range. What sort of task did you have in mind?’

She could hardly say throat-slitting, although she’d like to see the look on his face if she did. ‘Do you have something that’s shaped like a cheese knife? But not for cheese, obviously.’

‘A cheese knife,’ he looked at her as if she was simple, his eyes behind the spectacles almost as large as the glass lenses that covered them. ‘Do you mean like a pruning knife?’

He reached over her head and took something from the shelf with a wooden handle and smart leather sheath. He was about to take its cover off but she held her hand up to stop him.

‘That’s OK. Don’t open it. Is this how it comes from the manufacturer?’

‘Yes,’ the assistant sounded puzzled.

‘Thanks. I’ll take it.’

Lizzie walked over to the till and got in the queue.

‘Darling!’

It was her mother’s voice, loud enough to carry across Yorkshire, as her dad always said. Lizzie looked to see where it was coming from and spotted her mother in the company of two other ladies she recognised as neighbours from the village. They were sitting at a table in the garden centre café, separated from the main part of the shop by a stretch of ornamental trellis.

‘Come and join us!’

Lizzie waved the pruning knife hopelessly and nodded towards the till, where she was third in line. The neighbour women were grinning at her and she half expected one of them to blurt out some platitude about how much she’d grown. The queue moved forwards and Lizzie heard her mother’s voice, only partially lowered.

‘She works very hard,’ and then in answer to something one of the others must have asked, she added in a stage whisper, ‘oh, yes, much better off without him. We were terribly worried.’

Lizzie could feel the skin on her neck reddening. She needed to be back at the lab, measuring the width of a knife blade, phoning the manufacturer and finding out what oil was used to treat the metal before they were packaged for sale. The man with thick glasses was stacking some boxes next to the till and she called to him.

‘Excuse me, but what should I use to keep it sharp?’

He straightened up and came over. ‘Honing oil. Shall I find you some?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Right you are, Elizabeth.’

She was startled that he’d used her name, but as she looked at him more closely she realised how he knew her. He was the son of one of the women at her mother’s table, thirty going on fifty, and still living at home. She snatched a glance across to the café and shuddered. She wasn’t meant to come back here, slip into a life she’d grown out of, where everyone knew her business and felt no shame in discussing it while she was in the same room.

She paid and clutched her plastic bag in front of her like a shield, walking slowly over to the table, where her mother and her two friends were finishing off a pot of tea. They’d each had cake. The remains of cream, jam and chocolate were still smeared on the china.

‘The evidence suggests Black Forest gateau. Was it good?’ She smiled at her mum, conscious how proud she would be of this pathetic party trick.

‘Oh, Mary, isn’t she clever?’ One of neighbour women gushed.

‘It’s my job,’ Lizzie shrugged.

If only it were as simple as that. Part of her would have loved to accept the offer to sit down and play the guessing game of who ate what for afternoon tea. She could let the village gossip wash over her, the everyday stories of planning objections and divorces. The mother of the man with thick glasses had tried to push them together once, years ago when
she was about seventeen. Lizzie was praying he wouldn’t be called over to join them. The other woman was chattering away about her own son and his life abroad, an American wife, a child on the way. Tremendously happy. How lovely. How lucky.

‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. I’m in the middle of a job.’

‘Darling, surely you can stay for five minutes, there’s still some tea in the pot.’

‘I really do need to get back. See you later, Mum. I’m not sure when I’ll be over, maybe next weekend?’

Lizzie turned away and her mother’s voice followed her out of the garden centre.

‘Why don’t you come back home for supper when you finish, darling, and stay the night? What about a nice piece of chicken and some couscous? She doesn’t eat properly you know, living on her own in that flat …’

Her mother’s voice was silenced by the closing glass doors. You don’t choose your family, she thought. Outside she blinked in the bright sunshine and decided she needed to focus on the job. Taheera Ahmed was lying on a slab in the morgue, lost to her family forever.

A dog was barking. Barking then silent. Barking. Silent. Barking. Sean tried to turn over but his head was pinned to the hard ground. His tongue was thick, stuck to the roof of his mouth. He opened his eyes and a bright light burnt into his retina. He closed them again and the light lingered, an orange glow the other side of his eyelids. The barking had stopped but there was another sound, like an animal choking, gasping for air and exhaling in a shuddering grunt. It came again, choke, gasp, grunt. Sean tried to reach out around him to feel what was there but he couldn’t move his arms, they were trapped inside some kind of bag, a bag that rustled and slipped. This is my sleeping bag, he thought, and this is morning.

He turned his head slowly, weighed down by a dull pain, and forced one eye open. An army of beer cans stretched in front of him across the carpet, some still upright, others fallen in battle. Beyond the troops lay the enemy, snoring on the settee. Last night they had got very, very drunk. Sean
was still drunk but he guessed Terry Starkey was in a worse state. He remembered trying to pace himself, keeping each can going longer until he was downing one for every two of Starkey’s. He focused on the empty cans and tried to do the maths, but the pain intensified between his eyes and he let them close again. Snatches of their conversation jerked back into play. Starkey talking about his brother’s death, how it had messed him up. Something about how that girl had to pay the price for what she’d done to his family; he knew where to find her now. He remembered Terry grabbing the front of his T-shirt and twisting it up under his chin.

‘I like you,’ he’d said. ‘You’re Jack’s lad and I’m going to trust you. But you fuck me over, Sean Denton, and I will kill you.’

Sean remembered his dad appearing in the doorway and mumbling something about the noise and how he was trying to get to sleep and Starkey letting go and laughing that loud, hard laugh, like it was all a game and they were mates, weren’t they? It was getting late when Terry Starkey asked the question Sean had been dreading.

‘So what were you inside for?’

‘Drink-driving. Caused a bit of criminal damage.’ It might have been true. He knew plenty who did it and got away with it.

‘Your old man thinks you did time for drug dealing!’ Starkey laughed and Sean brushed it aside, mumbling something about how his dad got mixed up on account of his liver disease.

‘Old bugger says the first thing that comes into his head!’

‘You must never drink and drive.’

Now Sean was remembering when Terry said that, and how he’d been wondering whether he should make something up about his prison life, but he didn’t need to because Terry started on some story about his car, the BMW, which wasn’t his at all. Sean tried to recollect what he’d said. It was something about being nobody’s chauffeur, so he reckoned the car was his now. Sean couldn’t follow why he thought this.

‘Could get a fucking house off him if I wanted it.’ Terry had grovelled in his pockets and pulled out a pouch of tobacco and some papers. ‘Got any blow, mate? I could kill for a bit of blow.’

Sean shook his head.

‘Good job I know his number!’ he tapped his head with the phone. ‘I can memorise numbers, me!’

He prodded the screen and put the phone to his ear. ‘Yo, man! It’s me. Yeah, me … No, you never said … Don’t fucking put the phone down on me … Shit.’ He dialled again and listened for a moment. ‘OK, have it your own way, I’ll leave a message. This is my message. I want some gear, can you sort that? Some nice bud, you can get it off my boy, Gary. Get a fucking taxi to the snooker hall and pick it up and bring it to me at number 9, Eagle Mount One, Chasebridge, you got that? You better have got that, because I fucking own you man. I own you … What the …? Fucking ran out of time, fucking thing’s beeping at me. Still, I think he got it.’

Now it was morning and Sean realised the delivery had never arrived. Which was just as well. He remembered going to the toilet and gulping handfuls of water from the tap.
When he came back, Starkey had slumped on the settee, fast asleep. He took the cigarette out of Starkey’s hand and took off his shoes, tucking his feet up on to the settee gently, so as not to wake him.

With the light drilling directly into his brain, Sean tried to focus on what else had happened, what else had been said, and whether he’d remembered the gist of the evening. He’d had an idea. Had he followed it through? Yes, it was coming back to him; he’d used one of Terry’s trips to the toilet to find the recording function on his own phone and he’d recorded some of what Terry had been saying. He lay back and covered his eyes with his arm. That was better, darker. The snoring from the settee was steady and rhythmic. Soon Sean’s own breathing fell into the same pattern and he let sleep overtake him again.

The next time he woke it was because someone was speaking. It sounded like they were saying ‘worry folk’ but then it became clearer and Sean recognised his dad’s voice and he was saying ‘what the fuck.’ Then his dad kicked his leg through the sleeping bag.

‘’Ere you little bastard, what the fuck have you done to my living room?’

He didn’t feel drunk any more. He sat up and looked into the angry face of Jack Denton, spittle gathering between the gaps in his teeth and his hands balled into fists. He felt the old fear from his childhood and the urge to run. He was on his feet before he knew it. Something slid down inside the sleeping bag and hit the floor with a muffled clunk through the padding. He knew it was his phone and that it was important. As he bent down to retrieve it, he took his eye
off his dad and missed the foot that was heading for a sharp kick to his kidneys. Sean staggered, tripped on the sleeping bag and fell, scattering the beer cans and their remaining contents across the carpet. He landed with his face next to the settee. Looking up, he saw it was empty. Terry Starkey had gone.

The room stank of beer and something sharper, which he hadn’t noticed last night. As he sat up, more carefully this time, he saw it in his father’s hand: a small bottle of Bell’s whisky, half empty, lid off. His father put it to his lips, his eyes shining, and swallowed a mouthful.

‘Good lad, that Terry, knows how to show his gratitude for my hospitality, not like you, you little shite. I thought you’d come to help me out. What you up to? Police work is it? Not in my fucking flat. He warned me you were up to summat. Taking pictures. I saw you. Where is it?’

‘Where’s what?’

‘Your phone, what you’ve been taking pictures on. He wants it. He’ll pay me good for it too.’

Sean sat still. He needed to grab his jeans and T-shirt, find his shoes, and get past his dad. Jack took another swig from the bottle. Sean spotted one shoe behind the door and the other under the settee. The smell of whisky was the smell of his childhood and it made him want to retch. He reached for the shoe and Jack stiffened at the movement.

‘You’re not going anywhere until you give us that phone.’

‘It’s round here somewhere. You’re welcome to it. There’s nothing on it.’

Jack grinned at him. ‘You lied to me, didn’t you? Saying you’d come to tidy up. You’re just a frigging snitch.’ He
gulped from the bottle again. There was only a couple of inches left in the bottom now. ‘We sort things out our own way round here.’

‘You shouldn’t be drinking, Dad. What happened to the Twelve Steps?’

‘They made me blind,’ he shouted, thumping the door frame with his fist. ‘See this?’

Jack Denton held his hand up in front of his face. ‘See this hand? This arm? Twisted out of shape, broken by a dirty pig.’

Sean knew the story off by heart. The strike, the picket line, the police, the dogs. The broken wrist and fingers that wouldn’t heal. The stiffening, the tingling and the numbness and the way the hand closed into a permanent fist. The way the alcohol took away the pain so it didn’t matter when the fist hit out at brick or glass or plaster, or flesh and bone. The last drop of whisky disappeared into Jack Denton’s mouth and the bottle hung by his side, empty. He blinked as its contents hit the back of his throat. Sean drew his knees up and tucked his feet under him. He pushed himself to standing and gathered the sleeping bag in front of him. The bottle in his father’s left hand swung up and back towards the door frame, where it shattered against the splintering wood.

Sean ran forwards, roaring words that he’d stored inside for years. Names filled his mouth and spilt out.

‘You fucking tosser! You bastard! You filthy fucking bastard!’

He slammed into his father, pushed him over, shocked at how light he was. It was like felling a feather pillow. Jack landed, gasping, on the pile of dirty clothes on the hall
floor. Sean glanced back into the living room where his own clothes and shoes were strewn between the beer cans, but Jack was already getting back on his feet, the broken bottle still firmly in his hand. Sean ran, in underpants and socks, to the front door, clutching the sleeping bag. He threw himself out onto the landing and the bottle arced up and flew past him, shattering in front of the lift. He yanked open the door to the staircase and headed down to the exit.

At the bottom of the stairs he stopped. There was a pain in the heel of his left foot. When he looked back, he saw he’d left a trail of smeary blood marks. He must have stood on a piece of glass. Balancing on one leg, his back against the outer door, he peeled back his sock. There was a neat cut on the heel. He pressed it carefully to check there was no glass still in it, but it felt clean. Covering it again, he pressed it hard to staunch the bleeding. He couldn’t believe the irony. Assault on a disabled man in Eagle Mount One, forensic trail leads to suspended police constable. Maybe he should call it in himself. At least he’d get a ride back into town.

He stood there, naked except for his socks and pants, with only a sleeping bag for cover. His wallet and keys were in his jeans. All he had was his phone, his precious phone, loaded with evidence against Terry Starkey, safely at the bottom of the sleeping bag. He let his head fall back against the cool metal door. Evidence of what though? He couldn’t remember Terry telling him anything that made any sense. Maybe he should just wipe it all and go back up to his dad, talk him round, at least get his clothes back. As he slid his hand into the bottom of the sleeping bag and fished out the phone, he heard the mechanism of the lift, ascending from the ground
floor. Prising open the door to the street, he glanced out. There was a man standing, hands on hips, on the edge of the pavement, with his back to the building. Jeans, bomber jacket and a thick neck under a bald head. Gary MacDonald. A passing car had covered the sound of the door opening and Gary hadn’t turned round, but there was no chance of Sean getting past him.

He let the door close. The lift had stopped. It had only gone up one floor. He couldn’t go out on the street, so he’d have to go up and he’d be trapped if he couldn’t get past the first floor landing. He held his phone tight in one hand and grabbed the banister to launch himself back up the stairs, trying to keep the weight off his bleeding heel.

At the first floor he could hear voices. It sounded like Terry Starkey and Jack. He thanked God that the access door had no window and took the stairs two at a time. He passed the second floor, pausing to catch his breath at the third. He listened again. Nothing. He risked another floor and almost didn’t make it. A door was opening onto the stairwell beneath him and he had a fraction of a second to duck into the doorway of the fourth floor landing, bracing himself as flat as he could manage.

‘Here, Terry! Look at this!’ He heard Gary’s voice and heavy feet on the concrete. ‘He’s dropped his sleeping bag.’

‘I told you to stay out there, he could have got past you when you came inside.’

‘He won’t have gone far.’

Sean gambled on the fact that Terry would be looking down, not up, and hooked his hand behind his back to grab the handle of the door. It was fire safety standard, with stiff
sprung hinges. Silently and slowly, Sean prised it open.

‘He’s bleeding, look! The old bugger’s cut him up.’

The sound of their mirthless laugh covered any sound Sean made as he slipped through and closed the door softly behind him. He reorientated himself on the fourth floor. Same layout, same smell. He had to keep off the stairs now so he pressed the lift button and felt a surge of relief as it rattled up towards him. He stood to one side, ready to run, as the metal doors slid apart, but it was empty. Once inside he selected the top floor. He didn’t know what he was going to do when he got there, but he couldn’t keep running, leaving a trail of blood for them to follow.

He was passing the fifth floor, straining to hear any sounds outside the lift. A door banged, but he couldn’t tell if it was above or below him. The sixth floor went by and he realised he had to do something to stop the bleeding. He stood on one leg, leaning against the cool steel wall of the lift and held his foot in his hand. There was nowhere to put his phone, and he needed both hands, so he placed it carefully on the floor. He pressed hard on his heel, hoping the pressure would help. At the seventh floor his phone lit up, the dog-bark ringtone resonating inside the metal box. Of course, it wasn’t a dog he’d heard in his sleep, it had been ringing when he woke up and he hadn’t answered it. He’d been mucking around with his ringtones last night, half cut on cheap beer and trying to bond with Terry Starkey.

The caller ID on his phone read Gav. He picked it up and answered.

‘Mate!’ Sean said. ‘Am I glad to hear you!’

‘Where are you? I tried earlier …’

‘I need some help, urgently,’ Sean’s voice was low. ‘I’m at my dad’s, I was … shit man, I’m in a lot of trouble, where are you?’

‘Doing house-to-house on the bloody Chasebridge estate. That’s why I called, to see if you fancied picking up your badge and doing some work for a change. You’re off the hook, by the way. Khan’s pulled his complaint.’

‘That’s great.’ He was passing the ninth floor. ‘Can you do me a favour? Probably a life-saving favour as it happens. Can you get to Eagle Mount One with a car? Now? I need you to get me out of here. Can you? Oh, Christ … Gav, Gavin, can you hear me? Oh fuck, fuck, fuck …’