‘Any more uniforms?’
‘Four on the way.’
Jo looked up and down the street. It was a warren round here – old workers’ terraces on a grid, ginnels between houses, and alleys running along the rear giving access to back yards. Whoever was responsible had a dozen ways to leave the area. If they lived close, they could have slipped away pretty quickly and easily, on foot or in a vehicle. ‘Okay, let’s get statements from everyone gawping. Every resident of the street, and any front door within fifty metres. There’s CCTV outside the betting shop on the junction with Winchester Crescent – might be worth having a look, anything time-stamped between three and five. What about processing the scene?’
‘Cropper and his team are on their way,’ said Carrick.
‘Already?’ Jo knew the crime scene officers were normally very busy.
‘Given Harry’s ex-staff, we’ll be pulling out all the stops.’
‘You think this might have something to do with work? Revenge?’
‘Could be,’ said Carrick. ‘Harry would have put a lot of people away in his time. Local folk too.’
The idea curdled in Jo’s stomach. Harry Ferman was in his eighth decade, in poor health. If someone had wanted to hurt him, he couldn’t have put up much of a fight.
‘What about next of kin?’ asked Carrick.
Jo had known Harry long enough to be pretty certain there. No kids since his daughter Lindsay had died years ago, an innocent victim in a drink-driving collision. ‘There’s an ex-wife, Jess. Lives in Derbyshire, I think he said.’ From what Harry had told her, the split hadn’t been anyone’s fault – just a drifting apart after the tragedy with their daughter. ‘I’ll keep a look out – he might have an address book inside.’
‘I can take care of that,’ said Carrick. ‘You get back to the station.’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I mean, I’d rather stay here. With him.’
It looked like Carrick was going to put his foot down, but instead he touched her shoulder. ‘You sure you’re up to this? What about Theo?’
Jo was grateful for the human contact, but the sudden mention of her son’s name brought another spike of anxiety. Andy had been amazing at supporting her application for reduced hours. He knew what it was like as a parent, trying to assemble the jigsaw of work and childcare into something manageable. But in turn, she knew it wasn’t just her personal life he was thinking of. He had to manage his team to ensure resources were available as and when needed for emergencies like this one. He was rightly nervous about making her the senior investigating officer on priority cases.
‘That’s sorted,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to let me take it, boss. You know I’ll do a good job.’
He gave her a compassionate nod. ‘I trust you completely but don’t hesitate to let me know if it gets too much.’
‘Of course.’
Carrick went across to speak with the uniform manning the tape. Jo texted Amelia, thanking her again, and telling her to call if there were any problems.
With a clearer head, she donned protective gear from the stash in her car, signed in with the officer now stationed at the door, and re-entered the crime scene like a different person entirely. In turn, the house itself seemed to have undergone a transformation from the familiar to the strange. Death could do that – change the complexion of everything. This wasn’t Harry’s house any more, a place she’d enjoyed cups of tea, and the occasional dram of something stronger – it was a crime scene, where every surface and fibre and object might yield evidence that would lead to his killer. Including, she thought, the body that lay, now covered in a sheet, where it had fallen. Grief threatened her resolve again, but she girded herself. She hadn’t been here when it mattered, but she was here now, and there was a job to be done. She promised herself, and him: no mistakes.
Harry had lived in this house since his divorce – around twenty years. It had always been orderly when she visited, in keeping with its occupant’s unwavering daily routine of walking to the newsagent’s for a morning paper, then on to the pub sometime after lunch. Harry’s only hobby had been watercolour painting. On one impromptu visit, she’d seen a picture of a city scene resting upright on his kitchen table, and he’d admitted, blushing, that it was one of his own.
As she looked around the living room, her first impression was that it looked almost identical to the last time she’d been here five months ago with Theo, yet there was something slightly uncanny. At first, she put it down to the fact that the brutal act with the poker had somehow changed the atmospherics, but on catching sight of herself in the gilt-edged mirror beside the mantelpiece she realised that wasn’t it at all. Something had changed. She walked towards the mirror, and ran a finger along its upper frame. The glove came back clean.
Crouching to look at the floor, she examined the carpet near to the skirting board. Housekeeping had never been Harry’s forte. He’d had a bad back, and arthritic hands, making any thorough cleaning hard. She’d surmised also that he simply didn’t care, with only himself to please, but things had been getting worse. And the last few times she’d been here there had always been a considerable layer of dust in the hard to reach places, or anything out of direct eyesight. He had a vacuum cleaner, but it was as old-fashioned as the TV. Either he’d found a new pride in dusting and acquired a newer model, or he’d got a cleaner. Neither felt likely.
Behind the couch was the poker. As Carrick had said, there was an unmistakable coagulation on the hooked end, matting together a couple of Harry’s grey hairs. Again, the questions throbbed in her head. Who? Why? The poker didn’t answer, but it could well yield prints when Mel’s team arrived. She looked away, surveying the room for any other signs of the struggle, and found what she was searching for across the light shade above. A foot-long string of blood droplets, each the shape of elongated tears. One didn’t need to be an expert in blood spatter analysis to see what had happened as the assailant drew back his arm from a blow. The ferocity of the attack lingered as Jo moved through into the kitchen.
It wasn’t a large room, and the units appeared not to have been updated in all the time Harry had been a occupant. The cupboards were Formica, lined with aluminium trim. A free-standing gas hob. Harry had eaten his meals at a small square table tucked into the corner, with two chairs on the open sides. There were two mugs on the table-top now. A guest then? Jo went over, and saw the drink in one wasn’t finished. She bent to sniff – coffee. Harry had told her he never touched the stuff. Jo laid the back of her hand against the side of the cups in turn, to test for any residual heat. Perhaps a little. Had Harry been sharing a cuppa with the person who killed him? Hard to see how a friendly chat, sitting just a foot apart, could descend to murder before a drink was even finished.
She examined the rest of the room, and her eyes took in the drying rack, stacked with two plates and several pieces of cutlery. A shared meal, too? She wondered if her old friend had met someone. She couldn’t imagine him dating, but he’d always been good company, and kind, and the face of a once handsome man still lingered in his somewhat worn features. If he had found some romance, she was pleased for him.