The Murder House

Something woke her. She opened her eyes to find she was still sitting up in bed. The lamp on the bedside table was still on, and the hardback novel was open on her lap. She looked at the clock; it was just past one o’clock. She placed a bookmark between the pages, closed the book and placed it next to another framed photo of James on the table. She turned out the light and was about to turn over to hunker down under the duvet when she heard a noise from downstairs. Her eyes widened. She remained still and listened intently. She heard the noise again. It was a creaking sound followed by a tap. Was it the floorboards or the stairs? Was somebody coming up? Matilda sat bolt upright and turned the lamp back on. A few seconds later, she heard the same noise again.

‘Shit,’ she said to herself.

Matilda flung back the duvet and climbed out of bed. Next to the bedside table, one of James’s old cricket bats was leaning against the wall. She’d never had cause to use it in the past, but always felt safer knowing a weapon was to hand if she should ever need to defend herself.

She put on her dressing gown, tying it at the waist and went over to the bedroom door. The brass knob was cold. She twisted it carefully to the right so as not to make a sound, pulled the door towards her and stepped out onto the unfamiliar landing.

‘Hello,’ she called out. Her shaking voice echoed around the empty house. ‘Is anyone there?’

Creak. Tap.

Her mouth dried. She tried to swallow but couldn’t. She gripped the bat hard and went to the bannister to look over the edge and into the hallway. There was nobody there.

She was halfway down the stairs when she heard the creak and the tap again. It was coming from outside the front door.

Creak. Tap.

A branch outside the house creaked each time the wind blew and the tip of it tapped against the door.

Matilda released her breath and sighed. She almost laughed. First thing in the morning, she was cutting that branch off. Standing on the stairs, cricket bat aloft, she suddenly realized how ridiculous she was being. Is this how life was going to be from now on? Every time she heard a noise, would she think someone had broken in or the ghost of Ben Hales had followed her here to torture her all over again?

In the old house, even living on her own, she had never felt this frightened, this paranoid before. Was the fact she was living in the middle of nowhere worrying her? The isolation, the rolling countryside views from almost every window, the lack of neighbours – that was what had sold her the house in the first place. It was perfect. It was everything she had been looking for. She had thought.

Maybe I do want people around me.

Instead of returning to bed, Matilda headed for the living room. She pushed open the door and felt the warmth, despite the fire having died a couple of hours since. She turned on the light and almost screamed.

The walls. The walls she had agonized over the colour of for weeks, the deep red which made the room warm and homely, in the haze of the room, looked like blood dripping down. She immediately thought of the Mercer house, the lifeless, mutilated bodies of Clive, Serena and Jeremy. She looked at her hands, still wrapped around the cricked bat, and for a split second she thought they were covered in blood. She dropped the bat and staggered out of the living room.

She would have to redecorate.

Chapter Eleven

Matilda woke to the sound of her mobile ringing. She turned on the light, and, while her eyes adjusted, she fumbled on the bedside table for it. She answered without looking at the display.

‘Hello,’ she croaked. She sat up and looked around her. She couldn’t remember coming back to bed, but she’d obviously dragged herself back up somehow. She threw back the duvet and looked down at her body. There was no blood.

What the hell was I dreaming about last night?

‘Morning, Mat. Haven’t woken you, have I?’ Adele asked. Her voice didn’t have the usual bounce and lightness to it.

‘No. I was just getting up,’ she lied. The clock told her it wasn’t even six o’clock yet. ‘You’re up early. Couldn’t sleep?’

‘No. I kept having bad dreams,’ Adele said. ‘How did you sleep?’

‘Fine,’ she lied.

‘I wanted to let you know that we’ll be removing the bodies from the Mercer house at some point this morning.’

‘That’s great.’

‘I’ll let you know when the post mortems are.’

‘Thanks. How’s Lucy?’

‘She was very quiet when I gave her a lift home yesterday. I’ll have a word with her this morning. Chris went for a run with Scott last night. He said he was behaving, erm, strangely,’ she said, choosing her words carefully.

‘Strangely? In what way?’

‘Well, when he asked him about it, he started crying.’

‘Oh,’ Matilda was surprised. Scott was well known for keeping his cards incredibly close to his chest. Sian had her husband to confide in. Aaron and Christian both had wives they could talk to. Rory used Sian as an informal therapist, but Scott was stoic. Matilda often wondered whether he had an outlet for his emotions, apart from running. She wouldn’t have guessed Chris.

‘Scott told Chris not to say anything and Chris told me not to say anything.’

‘So you’re telling me,’ Matilda said with a smile.

‘Well, we have to look out for the people we work with, don’t we?’

‘And we all know you love a gossip.’

‘True. You won’t tell Scott, will you?’

‘No. I noticed he was quiet in the evening briefing anyway. I’m going to keep my eye on him. Fancy meeting for lunch?’

‘If I get time for one, yes.’

Matilda ended the call and decided to get up. She had a quick shower while the coffee was brewing then found a cereal bar in one of her many empty cupboards; that would keep her going for a couple of hours. She really needed to do some shopping. She left the house, snapping off the brittle branch that had caused her such panic last night, and headed for her car. Her mind kept going back to Scott. He had been quiet and more thoughtful looking before the Mercer killings. It couldn’t just be the carnage he’d witnessed that was causing such angst. What else was going on in his life to warrant such a change in his personality?

He woke up in agony. A night spent slumped between two industrial bins at the back of a petrol station was not anyone’s idea of a comfortable evening. He ached in places he didn’t realize he could ache and he was chilled to the core. Slowly, he unfolded himself from the position he had been curled up in and managed to stand up amid the sounds of clicking bones. He stretched, yawned, scratched and breathed in a lungful of rancid exhaust fumes and petrol. There was a hint of pleasure; freshly ground coffee coming from the kiosk. He emptied his pockets and counted the money he pulled out – £47.63. That was all he had in the world. Less than fifty pounds between him and poverty. It needed to last.

He went into the petrol station and headed straight for the toilets at the back. He washed his face with the pink handwash above the sink. He took off his sweater and washed under his arms. He was beginning to smell and didn’t want to draw attention to himself. He looked in the mirror at his tired face, his blond stubble and unkempt hair. He could go another couple of days without shaving, but soon he would look like a vagrant, and he’d never get a lift to mainland Europe without drawing suspicion. He’d think of something once he was at Dover. There was plenty of time, he was sure of it.

He bought himself a large black Americano, as strong as he could stomach it, and a bacon sandwich. If the forty pounds he had remaining was going to last, he would need to shop more creatively. No more chain coffee shops. He went back to the bins and picked up his ‘London’ sign before heading for the motorway.

It was still early in the morning, but it was filling up nicely with commuters. Cars with just one person in them flew past without giving him a second glance, as did coaches and mini buses. His best chance of a lift would come from a lorry. He walked along the hard shoulder, sign in one hand, coffee in the other, cursing every single vehicle that failed to stop.

‘Bastard!’ he shouted at an oil tanker that had applied its brakes, slowed down, only to quickly speed up again and beep its horn.

People were twats. That was something he’d discovered a long time ago. Nobody cared about anything but themselves. He’d tried his best, but he’d been screwed over too many times. Is there no wonder he turned to crime? It started with a bit of shoplifting; he’d been good at it too. It soon escalated. His mother told him he was on a slippery slope. It wouldn’t be long before he found himself in a situation he wouldn’t be able to get out of. He should have listened. She was right. If the police found him now, he was fucked. He should never have taken a glove off. The bloody latex made him itch. He’d left a print behind. He knew it.

Chapter Twelve

Sian didn’t attend the morning briefing. She sent a text to Matilda saying she couldn’t sleep and had called Rose Bishop to see if she could visit her early. Fortunately, Rose also had trouble sleeping and looked forward to having some company.

When Sian arrived, the briefing was almost finished. The main task of the day was getting into the Mercer house and finding out who the family really was. For someone to kill and destroy a whole family like that was personal. According to the neighbours, they were the perfect family. Matilda and her team, from experience, knew there was no such thing. There had to be something lurking in their past that someone would kill for.

Matilda was in her small office with DI Christian Brady when Sian knocked on the glass door.

‘Anything?’ Matilda asked.

‘I managed to get the name of the hotel Leah and her new husband are staying at in Paris out of her. I’ve contacted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. They’re going to contact the British Embassy in Paris and send the local police round.’

‘That’s great work, Sian. Did she tell you anything else?’

‘No. She’s a mess. Her hands were shaking, she keeps crying, and I swear she’d already had a drink when I got there. I mentioned the photos and she’s going to try and come in later today to go through them with Finn.’

‘Is she married?’

‘Yes. Her husband had gone to work.’

‘How considerate of him,’ Christian said with sarcasm.

‘She took a few photos herself on her phone. She started showing them to me but began crying. I told her to email them over.’

‘I bet a number of other guests took their own photos too,’ Christian said. ‘It might be worth setting up an email address for people to send them to. We could get Finn to see what matches up.’

‘Good thinking, Christian. Call tech and get them to set it up. Also, I’m assuming they had an official photographer too, especially to take photos outside the church. We’ll need copies of those.’ Matilda looked up through the glass and saw the young TDC Finn Cotton at Faith’s old desk, staring intently at his computer screen. ‘We’ll use Finn for all the photos so nothing is missed. Sian, can you liaise with him?’

‘Not a problem.’ She was about to leave the office when Matilda called her back in.

‘Close the door, Sian,’ Matilda said. She lowered her voice. ‘While you’re both here, I need to ask a favour. Now, we all know how bad the scene was yesterday, but you two are my toughest officers.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Sian interrupted. ‘I was crying on Stuart’s shoulder for most of the night.’

‘I just went to bed early. Jennifer knows not to ask about work. I talk to her when I’m ready.’

‘I’m worried about Scott and Rory,’ Matilda said. ‘They were both quiet yesterday and this morning. I don’t want them bottling anything up. They’re also not the type to freely talk about how they’re feeling, especially Scott. Now, I think we should limit the amount of people going to the crime scene. Aaron went to the house but didn’t go inside, neither did Ranjeet. So we’ll keep them here. The less people caught up in this the better.’

‘I agree,’ Christian said. ‘Well, I’ll keep an eye on Scott and Sian can keep an eye on Rory.’

‘And I’ll keep an eye on the both of you,’ Matilda smiled.

‘But’s who’s watching the watcher?’ Christian asked, a menacing tone added to his voice.

Matilda’s mobile rang. It was ACC Masterson. She held it up and showed them both. ‘That’s who’s watching me.’

Chapter Thirteen

Matilda met with Crime Scene Manager Sebastian Flowers outside the Mercers’ house. He looked as if he had been there all night. Usually clean-shaven and neat hair, his black mane was uncombed, and his stubble was patchy. Strangely, the unkempt look suited him.

‘My wife’s two days overdue. I keep seeing red patches every time I close my eyes and I haven’t had a decent meal since breakfast yesterday morning.’

‘Oh. Good morning to you too, Sebastian,’ Matilda said as she approached him.

‘The bodies have gone and forensics finished up about an hour ago. You’re still going to need overshoes and a face mask,’ he said before disappearing into the house.

‘Really?’

‘Unless you want to ruin your shoes.’

She glanced down at her cheap, sturdy slip-ons. ‘They’re hardly Jimmy Choos, but fair enough.’

In the hallway, Matilda looked at the framed photographs on the wall as she struggled into the paper suit. There was a different atmosphere to the house now the bodies had been removed. There was still a chilling darkness about the place, a sense that something horrific had happened here, but the immediate tension had lifted and been replaced with a great sadness.

The framed photographs on the walls showed the family at different stages in their lives. There was one of a handsome young man wearing his graduation outfit of cap and gown. His smile was beaming, and he was flanked either side by proud parents. They were now all dead. Butchered. Usually, Matilda reserved judgement as to the type of person who could commit this level of crime, but now, here, she didn’t care what excuse he used, was he mentally ill, high on drugs, to her, he was an evil, cold-blooded killer, and she would relish catching him.

‘I do have other crime scenes to attend,’ Sebastian called to her from the bottom of the stairs.

‘Sorry. I was looking at the photos.’

‘OK,’ he began, reading from his iPad, ‘this is where Jeremy Mercer was found. As you can see he lost a lot of blood, so the killer hit his target. Jeremy wasn’t stabbed as many times as his parents, but Adele can fill you in on that. Why is he on the stairs? Well, best guess is that he got up in the middle of the night and surprised the killer. There’s no sign of a head wound, so he wasn’t pushed or fell down the stairs. As you can see from the stains on the stairs there are some good shoe prints. Hopefully, we’ll be able to identify what kind of shoes. You can see the distinctive Nike tick logo in one on the landing.’

‘What about fingerprints?’ Matilda asked as Sebastian made his way carefully up the stairs.

‘This was a high traffic area. Don’t forget, there was a wedding here on Sunday. People will have been up and down the stairs on a regular basis. The bannister is covered with prints. None of them identifiable.’

‘Point of entry?’

Sebastian stopped once again mid-way up the stairs. He gave an audible sigh. ‘The marquee at the back of the house. The patio doors were open. The front door was locked and bolted from the inside. Nothing broken on any of the windows. No sign of forced entry. It’s all in my report which is in your inbox. Onwards and upwards,’ he said in a flat monotone as he returned to going up to the first floor.

Matilda remained where she was, looking at the amount of blood soaked into the carpet, and sprayed onto the walls. She wondered what had killed him: the loss of blood as his heart stopped pumping – a slow and agonizing death – or the stab wounds. She took a deep breath and headed up the stairs. She knew the sight that would greet her: the pool of blood where Clive Mercer had been murdered. As Sebastian was in the doorway of the room Rachel was found in, she went straight in there, leaving the horrors of what lay on the landing until she needed to see it.

Reading from his iPad again, Sebastian ran through what had been found in this room. ‘As you know Rachel Mercer was found tied to the chair. She was tied with a dressing gown belt which matches the one hanging on the back of the door, so the killer didn’t come equipped to tying anyone up. It’s been sent for analysis. There are three sets of identifiable latent fingerprints on the bedside table, fortunately it’s a nice smooth silk finish so we’ve been able to get some prints.’

The bed had been stripped of the bedding, including the mattress, so all that remained was the oak frame. There was no blood on the walls, but the carpet was stained with flecks of blood and small bloody paw prints.

Although Matilda was listening to the crime scene manager, her eyes were darting around the room. She wondered how long Rachel had been held prisoner here: what had she been forced to endure? Had she known all along that her family had been killed? If the murders had taken place in the early hours of Sunday morning and Rose hadn’t found them until just before ten o’clock, that was possibly six to eight hours of being tied to a chair, terrified, cold and hungry. What would that do to her mental health?

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘Yes, you’ve got good prints from the bedside table.’

‘No. I was telling you about the stains in the carpet.’

‘Oh. Sorry. Go on.’

Sebastian rolled his eyes. ‘As you can see, forensics have cut a patch out of the carpet. Depending on what they get from them they may need to come back for more. This is going to need to remain an active crime scene for a while.’

‘Not a problem.’

‘The little girl—’ he looked down at his iPad. ‘Rachel. She wasn’t physically harmed in any way. So, identifying the various blood groups will give you information as to who was killed in relation to when Rachel was tied up. No tampering with the window. The main light was on when she was found. Now, this is interesting,’ he said, going to the bedroom door.

Sebastian closed the door and Matilda suddenly felt her blood run cold. She inhaled a deep breath and held it for several seconds longer than usual. There was the distinct aroma of metallic blood with a hint of dog in the air. She put herself in Rachel’s shoes; trapped in the bedroom, tied to the chair, covered in the blood of her dying relatives. She shivered at the thought.

‘On the back of the door is a very clear print of an ear.’

‘An ear?’

‘Yes. Only small, so we’re assuming it’s Rachel’s.’

‘Why would her ear print be on the back of the door?’

He shrugged. ‘Best guess is she heard something out on the landing and pressed her ear against the door to have a listen. We’ve all done that at some point in our lives, to be nosy.’

‘So she could have heard – I don’t know – raised voices or something,’ Matilda surmised. ‘Maybe she heard the killer arguing with her dad. Perhaps.’

Sebastian raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t relish you interviewing her. Poor thing,’ he said in his usual monotone.

He opened the door. Matilda was relieved. She was beginning to feel trapped.

‘Now, on to the landing.’

Matilda swallowed hard. All she could see when she thought about the landing was the head hanging off the body.

‘Nothing of interest here forensically, so we’ll move on upstairs.’

‘Really?’ Matilda asked. She was pleased not to have to linger but was surprised by the lack of forensics.

‘Everything around here has been fingerprinted, the doors, the walls, the bannister, and we’ve found nothing. Obviously, not nothing, the bannister was full of prints, but all of them smudged. Don’t forget, this is the landing – a main thoroughfare of the house. People will have come up to use the toilet, get changed. We haven’t found a decent print at all.’

‘It was a frenzied attack,’ Matilda said, looking up at the ceiling at the sprays of blood. ‘There must have been something, hairs, anything under his fingernails.’

‘Nope. Shall we?’ he said, eager to get to the next bedroom.

Matilda frowned. When a crime scene was as frenzied as this one, when it was obvious the victim had put up a fight, something was usually left behind of the assailant – a hair, a fingerprint, a fibre from his clothing, a bead of sweat. She would have a word with Adele, see if she could find anything from under their fingernails.

‘Are you sure? What about something in the fibres of the carpet?’

‘Matilda, every scene of crime officer who was here has had more than five years’ experience on the job. If they’d have found something they would have documented it and I would have known about it.’

‘I’m not doubting the SOCOs. I’m just saying, a man was stabbed so many times he was almost decapitated, yet the killer left nothing of himself behind.’

‘I can only tell you what we find,’ he said, hugging the iPad close to his chest and walking slowly up the attic stairs.

Matilda remained on the landing. The image of Clive Mercer’s stricken body was etched on her brain. He was white from having bled out. The number of stab wounds to his neck were many. The attack was frenzied. How could the killer not have left something, anything of him behind? This crime scene did not make any sense.

The stairs leading up to the attic were also smudged with bloody footprints where the killer had run up and down. The wall behind the bed was an explosion of blood. The sprays were high and long. It was difficult to understand how one person could perform such a lengthy, brutal attack, unless they had superhuman strength. Unless there was more than one person involved.

‘We managed to get an excellent bloody footprint from the left side of the bed.’ Sebastian pointed to where a square of carpet had been cut out. ‘Now, judging by the shoes in front of the wardrobe, Clive Mercer was a size eight. The bloody print was from a size ten.’

‘Only one print?’

‘Yes. Best guess is he put his foot up on the bed, for whatever reason, stood in the pool of blood, and placed it back on the carpet. It also matches the print from the landing with the Nike tick.’

‘Is that the only decent print in this room?’

‘Yes.’

‘Shouldn’t there be more prints? What about when he left the room? Unless he levitated.’

‘There probably were, but look around you, the carpet is saturated.’

Matilda looked at the floor. Her overshoes were stained red. She pondered the sight before her. She looked at the route the killer would have taken from the left side of the bed to the door after killing. The single footprint didn’t make sense.

‘What happened here?’ Matilda asked looking at a large smudge of grey powder by the dressing table.

‘Lindsay knocked over her fingerprint kit. Lucky the carpet’s stained with blood or she’d have a hefty cleaning bill on her hands,’ he said with a smile. ‘Anyway,’ he said, clearing his throat, ‘you’ll like this next bit.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh yes. We have a hair.’

‘Just one?’

‘Sometimes it only takes one. It was under the woman’s little finger on her right hand. It’s only small but the root is attached.’

‘Fingerprints and a hair, I’ll take that.’

‘You can’t commit a crime this frenzied and leave nothing of yourself behind,’ he said, unknowingly echoing her earlier thoughts.

But he didn’t on the first-floor landing, she thought.

‘Have forensics finished now?’

‘No. They’ve finished up here but there’s the marquee in the back garden. I doubt we’ll get anything from there as there will have been hundreds of guests here for the reception. However, it has to be done.’