‘I wish I could,’ Neville replied quietly.
She moved carefully around the small table in the centre of the room, then stopped in her tracks. The stains ran across the sink, down the front of the unit that housed it and into a pool, a thick reddish-brown pool, of something congealed and dried. There were splatters and smears all around, and indications of someone, something, having been dragged.
‘Mr Mackenzie was right.’
‘How?’ the DS asked.
‘This is more than a cut finger.’
‘So let’s get out.’
As they backed out, surveying the scene from the doorway once more, Singh pointed to a broad-bladed cleaver, lying in the floor next to the mass of blood. ‘Do you think that might have been used?’ he asked.
‘We’ll let other people tell us that,’ Neville replied. ‘Plank,’ she called to the PC, ‘get on the radio and ask for SOCO attendance here, right away.’ She had barely finished before the constable was speaking into his handset.
‘Should we empty the place?’
She answered DC Singh’s question with a shake of her head. ‘Not yet, Talvin. Let those two stay where they are, but go nowhere else in the flat.’ She opened the door next to the kitchen. ‘Bathroom,’ she peered inside. There were more bloodstains around the small basin and a blue towel lay on the wooden floor.
Singh looked over her shoulder. ‘Those boards, they’re rough, not sanded or stained. There’s been a carpet here.’
‘You’re right,’ she agreed. ‘Stapled to the floor.’ She knelt and looked closely at a metal fastening twisted as if something had been wrenched loose. There were fibres attached. ‘Purple,’ she murmured.
‘So who’s the victim?’ Singh mused. ‘The householder?’
‘Why are you assuming there’s only one? I’ve seen domestic homicides that looked just like this. The husband could have done the wife, disposed of her body and disappeared.’
‘Take a look behind the door,’ he replied, pointing. ‘That row of coat hooks. There are four garments on it, they’re all female and they’re all much the same size.’
The sergeant winced, knowing that she had missed the obvious. ‘You’re right, of course. Christ, I have been away from the job for a long time. Keep on watching my back, Talvin, will you?’
‘You got it,’ he rumbled.
‘So who is the woman. . was, I should say?’ She looked at the door for a few seconds, frowning. ‘All the indications are that the place has been empty for a while, unread meter, dead flowers in the vase. I’m sure that when we look in the fridge we’ll find milk that’s at least a couple of weeks past its sell-by. And one other thing: where’s the mail?’
She led the way back into the living room. ‘Ms Trotter,’ she called out. ‘When you entered the flat, were there any letters behind the door?’
‘Yes,’ the girl said. ‘I gathered them up. They’re on the coffee table there.’
Singh picked up the handful of mail, and began to flick through it. ‘Most of this is the usual junk,’ he muttered, ‘addressed to “The Householder”, that’s all, but, hold on, here’s one. . and another.’ He held up two envelopes and put the others back on the table.
‘Let’s see them, please.’
He handed them over, impressed by his new sergeant’s courtesy. He was used to orders, not requests.
‘I. Spreckley,’ she read aloud, from the first, then ripped it open. ‘Bank statement. It’s a current account and it’s well in credit.’ She paused as she studied it. ‘Okay, she’s over sixty, ’cos there’s a pension credit here. Plus, she’s claiming housing benefit.’
‘She does?’ Tilda Trotter, who was close enough to overhear her, exclaimed. ‘She lives here rent-free.’
‘Then let’s hope her sins haven’t found her out,’ Neville muttered as she opened the second envelope. ‘Miss Isobella Spreckley,’ she announced. ‘This one’s from the NHS; an appointment under the breast cancer screening programme. Miss,’ she repeated, then crossed to the fireplace, and picked up a framed photograph.
It was creased beneath the glass, as if it had been well-handled in its lifetime, and its colour had faded somewhat, lending it a pale yellow veneer. It showed a beach scene, and a woman in her thirties, dark-haired, full-bodied and not unattractive, with her arms around two boys, the older of whom could have been no more than ten. There was a clear resemblance between the trio; mother and sons, for sure, she thought.
‘If this is Miss Spreckley. . I wonder who these two are and where they are now.’
‘And if they know where she is,’ Singh added.
The DS barely heard him, for she was staring hard at the images. ‘Maybe we know,’ she said. ‘This photo has to be thirty years old at least. Sixty-something, female, stocky build, had children. Tarvil, have you read the file on that body that was washed up a week ago? I’m not saying it’s her, but she’s definitely a candidate.’
Ten
‘Why are you calling me, David?’ Mario McGuire asked. He was in his car, with his wife in the back, beside their baby, in his egg-like seat. He had pulled into a layby when his phone had sounded.
‘Because Mary Chambers is unavailable,’ Mackenzie replied, his voice amplified by the Bluetooth system, ‘and I need to report this further up the line. You’re the ACC Crime.’
‘So what do you want to tell me?’
‘It’s more a case of asking you, sir. I’d like to know whether you’re happy about Neville having called out the bloody A team to what turned out to be a potential crime scene in Caledonian Crescent without reference to her senior officer.’
‘Why should I not be happy? And why are you not?’
‘I sent her down there,’ he said, indignantly. ‘She should have reported back to me first.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the householder appears to be missing, there’s a possibility that she might be the Cramond Island body, and I’m the senior investigating officer on that case.’
‘So I noticed when you held that press briefing. It would have been nice of you to tell Sammy Pye first.’
‘With respect, I don’t have to, sir. He reports to me, directly. So does DS Neville, when McGurk’s off duty.’
‘With respect to you, David, I don’t share that interpretation. You’re the CID coordinator for the Edinburgh divisions. That doesn’t make you automatically the SIO on all investigations in the city; in fact, it suggests to me that you shouldn’t be SIO on any. Did you give Karen a specific instruction to take no action without your approval?’
‘No,’ Mackenzie snapped. ‘I told that big Sikh to. .’
‘Hold on a minute!’ McGuire retorted, on the edge of losing his temper. ‘You told who? What do you call me behind my back? “That big Mick?” or “That big Italian?” After all, in my case you’ve got a choice.’
‘I told Detective Constable Singh. .’
‘That’s better, Superintendent,’ he said, cooling a little. ‘You let the wrong person hear you refer to a junior officer by his religion or race rather than his rank and name, and you’ll be beyond any protection.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ the other man replied, stiffly. ‘It won’t happen again. But I did tell him that he and Neville should check it out and report back to me.’
‘And did they?’
‘They did,’ he conceded, ‘but by that time Neville had called in Forensic Services.’
‘On the basis of the details that PC Wood had called in, as you described them to me in your earlier call, I’d have done the same thing. As far as I’m concerned DS Neville had the discretionary authority as the senior officer attending.’
‘And to advise DI Pye? Did she have that authority too?’
‘Sure she did. For the last five days, Pye and Haddock have been fielding hotline calls from the public on the Cramond Island case, all of them useless. Karen had potentially important information, and as a police officer she had a clear obligation to pass it on, directly. Blood all over the kitchen of a woman in the right age bracket, who’s apparently gone missing? Come on, man, of course she did right. David,’ he continued, ‘cut to the chase. What’s this really about? Don’t bullshit me now, out with it.’