Snarl (5 page)

Chapter Six

The silence was the first thing that she noticed. The only noises she could hear were natural ones: birdsong, the rustle of leaves, the musical tinkle of the falling water in the fountain. Their footsteps sounded abnormally loud as she and Olbeck crunched across the gravel to the front door. Kate took another sweeping look around before they entered the house. There was a security camera mounted up on the front wall of the building, another trained on the step on which she stood. Alongside a car that she recognised as Anderton’s, and two patrol cars, there was a large black four wheel drive vehicle, something that looked like a classic vintage sports car and another silver four wheel drive. Did those belong to Jack Dorsey and his family? Kate looked again at the front of the house, with its myriad windows. Behind the nearest window to the front door, she could see thick folds of expensive fabric held back by a glossy curtain tie. Against the wall of the house were flowerbeds planted with old-fashioned, cottage garden flowers: hollyhocks, larkspur, well-clipped rose bushes. There was money here – a lot of money.

Olbeck and Kate
slipped on gloves and boots and stepped forward into a small inner hallway, wooden panelled and unfurnished except for a delicate little wooden table stood against the far wall. On its surface, a mercury glass vase held an arrangement of spring flowers. As she walked forward, Kate caught a faint breath of their delicate scent, obliterated a moment later by the heavy, metallic tang of blood. It should have been a warning but she still had to look twice as they walked out into the larger, inner hallway. The walls were painted a warm cream and the overhead lights were on. Kate thought for a moment that the hallway was tiled with glossy, wine-coloured tiles, a decorating choice that contrasted rather oddly with the rest of the interior. The illusion lasted a second, until she realised that the floor tiles were actually a conventional black and white, in a checkerboard pattern. They looked a glossy scarlet because they were submerged in a flood – a veritable lake – of blood.

A body lay in the middle of the red pool that filled the hallway from edge to edge. The body of a middle-aged man, tall and heavy, dressed in a dark tracksuit. His hair was cut brutally short and the bald spot at his crown shone under the overhead lights. He was waxen-white, the cleanly incised wound in his neck just visible.

The police officers regarded him in silence. Kate could feel her face freezing to a neutral expression automatically. It was partly a learned response – you realised early on not to show any sign of distress or emotion if you didn’t want the piss ripped out of you by the male officers – but it was partly a defense mechanism, as well. Keep your face blank and somehow the horror of what you saw was reduced, just slightly. Just enough to cope.

“Is all the blood his?”
Kate asked Olbeck, in a subdued monotone.

He was standing at the edge of the blood, staring intently at the body. Kate realised there was no way to get past the blood pool to the other side, without walking through it. Not a chance. Scene of Crime would kill them if they attempted it – she could already see two white suited technicians giving them uneasy glances from further down the hallway.

“Looks like it,” said Olbeck. He raised a hand to the SOCOs to placate them. “We’ll go round, guys. Don’t worry.”

They retraced their steps back through the first little antechamber and stepped back into the sunshine. Kate lifted her face to the warmth of the rays. The air felt incredibly fresh after the tainted stuffiness of the hallway. She closed her eyes briefly. The redness of the
sunshine through her closed lids recalled the bloody lake inside, the body of the man spread-eagled within it, as if swimming.

They walked around the outside of the house, looking for a side entrance. Through a wrought iron gate in a box hedge, the path opened out onto smoothly manicured lawns, with a white iron conservatory before them. There were more cameras here, trained on the French doors that led into the conservatory. The doors stood open and the edge of a green curtain, made of what looked like heavy, lined silk, could be seen flapping gently in the breeze.

“Look at all these cameras,” Kate said, gesturing. “Surely we’ll have something from one of them?”

“Let’s hope so.” Olbeck had caught sight of Anderton and Theo, standing on the threshold of the house. At the same moment, their colleagues noticed them and lifted
their hands in greeting. Theo looked as if he’d got up too early after a heavy session the night before. Anderton looked fairly normal, perhaps just a trifle pale.

“Good morning,” he said, as Kate and Olbeck approached. Kate didn’t smile in response – it felt inappropriate in the circumstances. “I suppose you’ve been through the front?”

“Tried to,” answered Kate. “Couldn’t get past the body.”

“That’s the security guard. His name’s Darryl, not sure on the surname
, yet.”

“Not much of a guard, was he?” Olbeck
said, a remark that from him that was quite remarkable in its unexpected callousness. Kate raised her eyebrows. Perhaps he was more unnerved than he was letting on.

“What else have we got?” she asked.

Instead of answering, Anderton gestured towards the house. “Go on through. You’ll soon see. Come back out and tell me what you think.”

“You’re not coming?”

Anderton gestured again. “Just go and get your first impressions,” he said.

Theo sat down rather abruptly on a convenient garden bench and lit a cigarette. His hands were shaking
slightly. Kate was going to say something, tease him a little about coming to work on a hangover, before deciding that she’d better keep her mouth shut. She and Olbeck exchanged a look and then stepped through the doorway, into the conservatory.

T
he same heavy green silk curtains they had glimpsed from the garden had been drawn over the panes of glass that made up the walls. The floor was tiled in the same checkerboard pattern as the hallway. Kate and Olbeck stepped cautiously through into the house. They came out into a large room; a sitting room, beautifully furnished, with pale green walls, a polished dark-wood floor and a large, cream rug. Antiques stood against the walls, too many beautiful things to take in at once. The lights were on, blazing from the overhead chandelier and the curtains were drawn back from the ceiling height windows.

The beauty of the room made what was in it worse. Jack Dorsey
’s body lay in front of the fireplace. Kate had to look twice to be sure it was him, he had been so savagely attacked. She looked once at the knife wounds to his face and chest and then looked away, swallowing. She groped for her neutral mask and tried to fix it back onto her face, which wanted to grimace and crumple. She could feel Olbeck at her side, his arm touching hers, and the warmth of his body momentarily brought a little comfort. She fixed her eyes on the rug, purposefully not looking at the body. Dorsey’s blood had spurted in arcs and splashes and sprays, marking the pale rug in an awful abstract artwork. It was dry now, brownish red, stiffening the long fibres of the carpet. She realized now why Theo had looked so bludgeoned. Her gaze was drawn to another dark splash on the far wall, next to the huge, gilt-framed mirror that reflected the horror contained within the four surrounding walls. Something written in blood, in dragging, jagged letters a foot high. KILLER.

She and Olbeck remained at the edge of the room while the technicians did their work. Camera flashes went off a
t monotonous intervals, Kate trying not to flinch at every one. After what felt like an hour, but was probably only ten minutes, Olbeck turned to Kate and, with mutual appeal in their glance, they turned and left the room.

Once again, out in the open air, Kate drew in a shaky breath. The air outside tasted indescribably fresh and sweet after the
abattoir inside. She and Olbeck walked over to where Anderton and Theo sat on their bench. Anderton looked up in silent enquiry.

“Jesus,” Olbeck
said eloquently. He sat down on a low garden wall that edged what looked like a kitchen garden.

“Exactly,” agreed Anderton. “Butchered. I think that’s the word I’d use.”

“Was there another victim?” asked Kate, remembering the ambulance.

“Dorsey’s wife, Madeline. She was lying next to him when we got here. Terribly injured but
, incredibly, still alive.”

“Alive?” asked Kate. She felt her pulse quicken. “Do you think she’ll make it?”

“I don’t know. I hope so. But – well, if you’d seen her…”

“What were her injuries?”

“Knife wounds, same as Dorsey. She looked like she’d lost a lot of blood.”

“God,” said Olbeck. He pushed himself up off the wall and began pacing around. “Was it – I mean, we’re certain there was an intruder?”

Anderton looked pleased. “Ah, you’re thinking it could be a domestic? It’s possible, although from the fact that the security guard is also dead, unlikely. We’ll obviously know more if Mrs Dorsey pulls through.”

“Who reported it?” asked Kate.

Theo spoke up for the first time. “Cleaner,” he said, a little thickly. Clearing his throat, he threw his cigarette butt into a flowerbed and went on. “She’s currently in the kitchen with a WPC, having hysterics.”

“Understandably,” Anderton
said, also getting to his feet.

Kate remembered something; a flashback from her interview with Jack Dorsey at
MedGen. His desk, a silver-framed photograph: blonde wife, blonde children, arms interlinked. She felt a coldness spreading in the pit of her stomach. “The children,” she said, feeling as if she didn’t quite have control of her mouth. “The Dorsey children… are they – has anyone checked—”

Anderton looked at her properly for the first time since she’d arrived. A flicker of sympathy crossed his face.
“They’re at boarding school, both of them. Both safe. Thank fuck,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

Kate sat down on the wall herself, feeling almost queasy from the wave of relief that spread over her. Then she thought about having
to break the news to them. Sorry, kids, about your mum and dad… Resolutely, she turned her mind away from the thought.

“We’ve searched the rest of the house and we’re spreading out into the grounds.” Anderton had been speaking for a few moments before she became aware of what he was saying. She tried to concentrate. Anderton went on. “There’s no sign of forced entry. We haven’t yet had a look at the CCTV footage, that’s obviously top priority once the SOCOs are finished here.”

He stopped speaking and for a moment, they all faced each other, sharing an odd moment of solidarity. Kate, despite all the horror of the scene, felt a warm thrill of belonging, of coming home, back where she should be. It was the first time she’d felt it since she had come back to work and, for a moment, she luxuriated in the sensation. It was as if life had suddenly come back into focus.

“So,”
said Anderton quietly. “Thoughts?”

“Someone came to the door,” said Kate. “The security guard let them in and he was walking back through the hallway
when they attacked him.”

“Given the position of the body, I’d say that was a fairly accurate guess,” Anderton
said. “And why would he let someone in through the door, given that he’s supposed to be guarding the house?”

“Because it was someone he recognized,” said Kate. “Someone he knew. Someone he didn’t think was a threat.”

“Exactly. Hopefully the CCTV will tell us exactly who that was.”

“Is that likely?” asked Olbeck, in a cynical tone.

“Well, we won’t know until we look. I agree, anyone who comes ready to kill three people is probably going to take some pains to conceal their identity.” He raised a hand to his head, tousling his hair in a characteristic gesture. “You mentioned a possible domestic, Mark. I don’t think we should discount that, out of hand. I don’t think we can comfortably do that. We don’t know enough about the victims, their relationship with each other – we know nothing about the Dorseys’ marriage, their history. I agree with you, Kate, that this has all the hallmarks of an outsider, an intruder killing – all I’m asking is that we need to keep an open mind.”

Everyone
nodded.

Theo lit another cigarette.
“The writing on the wall,” he said. “What’s with that?”

“Yes,
” agreed Anderton. “The literal writing on the wall. What’s that telling us?”

“The most obvious answer is that it’s a message, isn’t it?” suggested Olbeck. “Telling us Jack Dorsey’s a killer. It’s a motive.”

“Is it?” asked Anderton. “Perhaps it’s a very mentally disturbed person, telling the world what he – or she – has done. It’s a sign. ‘I am a killer’.”

Olbeck shrugged. “Yes, could be.”

Kate rubbed her temples. “We don’t yet know who the intended victim is, do we, sir?” she asked. “I mean, if there was
one
intended victim. I’m assuming it’s Jack Dorsey – and maybe his wife…”

“That’s a reasonable assumption,” said Anderton. “But nothing is definite.”

“It’s just – the guard looked like – well, like that was a quick, almost clinical killing. To get him out of the way, perhaps. Whereas Jack Dorsey…” The image of his body flashed up in Kate’s mind’s eye and her voice faltered for a moment. “That was savage. That was
anger
.”