‘I don’t think you should go.’
‘You could come with me?’
Terry laughed. ‘Yeah, I’m sure he’d want me along as a third wheel.’ He wagged a finger at her. ‘I’m serious darling, you need to be careful.’
‘You are so masterful sometimes, I bet Gabe just goes weak at the knees, doesn’t he?’ She finished her wine and held up her empty glass. ‘Now how about a refill?’
CHAPTER 52
Detective Inspector Mark Biddulph nodded at the cluster of police cars around an ambulance and what appeared to be a SOCO van. ‘Give them plenty of room, Kim,’ he said. ‘Last time I was at a murder scene my car was scraped by an ambulance and I spent hours on the paperwork.’
‘No problem,’ said Detective Sergeant Kimberley Marriott. She had been Biddulph’s regular partner for the past six months on the Met’s Homicide Command. The car was from the office pool but she knew the inspector was right, every scratch and dent had to be accounted for and they both had better things to be doing with their time.
Marriott parked the car and she and Biddulph climbed out. He was in his late forties, tall and thin with a receding hairline. His tendency to wear dark suits and a black raincoat gave him the look of a dour undertaker. Marriott was a decade younger with shoulder-length blonde hair and a trim figure that belied the fact that she was the mother of three young children.
A uniformed sergeant walked over. From the look on his face it was clear he was as pleased as the two detectives to have a late-night murder case. ‘Jim McDonald, I’m with the Safer Neighbourhood Team,’ said the sergeant.
‘And how’s that working out for you?’ asked Biddulph. He flashed his warrant card and Marriott did the same.
The sergeant frowned and then realised the inspector was joking. ‘Right, yes,’ he said. ‘The victim’s name is Maxwell Dunbar. He’s lived here for twenty years or so. Looks like he disturbed a burglar. Phone’s gone, along with his wallet and watch and, we think, a DVD player and a laptop.’
‘Forced entry?’
The sergeant nodded. ‘Smashed a window at the back. Dunbar was a private detective, worked from home.’
‘Was he ever in the Job?’ asked Marriott.
The sergeant shook his head. ‘No. He applied way back when but he had medical issues. Tried to sign up as a Special but private eyes aren’t allowed, for obvious reasons.’
‘SOCO already in?’ asked Biddulph as he started walking towards the house with Marriott in tow.
‘They got here half an hour ago,’ said the sergeant.
‘And the medic’s pronounced him dead?’
‘All done and dusted.’
They walked by the ambulance. A paramedic was sitting in the open rear door, smoking a cigarette. He nodded as the cops passed by.
‘Any similar burglaries recently?’ asked Biddulph.
‘With fatal stabbings?’
‘Involving a knife. And smashing a window.’
‘That’s pretty much every burglary we have around here,’ said the sergeant. ‘They’re pretty much all drug-related and we don’t see much in the way of subtlety.’
The front door was open, guarded by a uniformed constable in a high-visibility jacket. He stepped to the side to allow them in. ‘Body’s in the sitting room,’ said the sergeant.
He led them along the hall and into the sitting room. A SOCO technician – a young man with a bad case of acne – was taking swabs from the under the victim’s fingernails. The victim was an overweight man in his late forties or early fifties.
‘Do we need shoe coverings?’ asked Biddulph.
‘I won’t be getting anything off the carpet and I’ve already given it the once-over,’ said the technician. ‘Providing you don’t step in the blood, you’ll be okay.’
There was a gaping wound in the victim’s throat and a large pool of congealed blood around his head.
‘Time of death?’ asked Biddulph.
The technician frowned. ‘Do you mind talking to my boss? He’s in the kitchen. He’s senior to me and he gets a bit tetchy if I do the talking. Sorry.’
‘I know exactly what you mean,’ said Marriott.
Biddulph and Marriott headed down the hallway to the kitchen. ‘What did you mean by that?’ asked Biddulph.
‘I was joking,’ said Marriott.
‘You’re sure?’
Marriott nodded. ‘I’m sure.’
A SOCO technician in white overalls was picking up pieces of glass with a pair of tweezers and putting them in a clear evidence bag. He was a short man, almost as wide as he was tall, with a greasy comb-over. Biddulph recognised him. John Yates, a SOCO veteran of more than thirty years. Yates grinned when he saw Biddulph. ‘Hello, Mark. Not often I see you outside of office hours.’ He straightened up and nodded at Marriott. ‘How’s it going, Kim?’
‘I could have done without a Thursday night murder, that’s for sure,’ said Marriott.
‘I think you’ll find it was a morning murder,’ said Yates. ‘Time of death probably eleven, maybe twelve. Knife wound to the throat. Left to right so the killer’s right-handed.’
‘From behind? Left to right?’
‘That’s what it looks like. Something wrong with that?’
‘Burglars don’t tend to cut throats from behind, do they? They tend to stab or slash.’
‘Burglars tend to just run when they’re disturbed,’ said Yates. ‘They only get violent if their escape route is blocked.’
‘He definitely died in the front room?’
‘That’s where the blood is.’
‘No sign of the knife?’
Yates shook his head. ‘Probably took it with him.’
‘Probably brought it with him is more to the point,’ said Biddulph. He smiled thinly. ‘No pun intended.’
‘What pun?’ asked Yates.
‘Knife. Point.’
‘That’s not really a pun,’ said Yates. ‘More of a juxtaposition of bladed terms.’
Biddulph looked over at Marriott but she raised her hands. ‘Don’t involve me,’ she said. ‘I’m still trying to work out what’s funny about Little Britain.’
Biddulph walked over to a knife block. There were slots for four knives and all the knives were in place. He pulled open a drawer and looked down at a breadknife and a large carving knife.
‘Something wrong?’ asked Marriott.
Biddulph sighed. ‘I don’t know.’ He closed the drawer and walked back to the sitting room. Marriott followed him. The uniformed sergeant had gone, probably pleased to have washed his hands of the crime scene.
They stood at the body’s feet. Biddulph pointed at the pool of dried blood around the head. ‘He died in this room, that’s for sure. But, like John said, burglars usually only attack when they’re trapped. The first thing a professional housebreaker does is make sure he’s got an avenue of escape. He’ll unlock a door, open a window, he’ll have some way of making a quick exit. And at the first sign they’ve been rumbled, they’re off.’
‘Unless they’re high on drugs.’
‘This happened in the morning and most druggies don’t get up before midday.’
Biddulph walked around the room and went to stand at the head of the body, with his back to the window. ‘The victim was in this room. The burglar broke in through the kitchen. So how does the killing happen here?’
‘Dunbar doesn’t hear the burglar break in. Maybe he’s out at the shops. The burglar is in here. Dunbar comes home. Walks in here and the burglar is trapped.’
Biddulph nodded. ‘Nice,’ he said.
‘You think that’s what happened?’
‘No. But it’s a nice theory.’
‘So where am I wrong?’
‘I’m not saying you’re wrong. I just think it’s unlikely. There’s nowhere in here to hide so I don’t see the burglar can have come up behind him.’