The Murder House

‘True,’ Matilda said. ‘Well, thank you for this, Sebastian. You and your team have done an amazing job.’

‘That’s what we’re here for. Obviously, the fun starts now, back at the lab. As soon as we’ve got anything, I’ll let you know. I’ll email you across the crime scene photos once I’ve been through them all. As you can guess, there’s a lot to go through.’

‘Thanks, Sebastian.’

‘Well, I’ll leave you to it. I’m off to see if my wife has gone into labour yet.’

‘Give her my best.’

‘Will do,’ he said, waving as he left the room.

Matilda stood in the middle of the bedroom and looked around her. She went over to the dormer window and looked outside. It was a beautiful area of Sheffield. She pushed open the window and leaned out. It was a cold morning and she shivered as a stiff breeze entered the room. Looking down, she saw white-suited forensic officers going in and out of the marquee. Everything had to be bagged and tagged. It was probably useless and no relevance to the case, but, maybe the killer had taken a sneaky drink from a champagne bottle, or bit into a lump of cheese and left behind a pattern of some distinct dental work.

Wishful thinking.

She turned back and looked at the bloodbath before her. Serena Mercer had been obliterated. She frowned as she thought. Jeremy Mercer was stabbed only a few times, and, according to Sebastian, it appeared he surprised the intruder, which meant he was killed first. If that was the case, why did he receive only a couple of incapacitating stab wounds while his parents were subjected to a fierce attack? He was a young man. He was tall. He wouldn’t have been as easy to overcome as a couple in their sixties. What did that mean? Was it just the couple who were the focus of the murder? Did the killer think they were alone which is why Rachel was unharmed?

‘Ma’am?’

Matilda jumped at the sound of being called. She turned to see Scott standing in the doorway.

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.’

‘No. It’s fine. What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. We’ve found a few laptops and tablets we’re taking back to the station. I’ve found a file in the boxroom being used as a study. It’s got a load of bank statements. I thought you might want to have a look.’ There was definitely something wrong with Scott. He was subdued, and he had a permanent worry frown on his forehead, giving him the impression he was about to burst into tears at any moment. Maybe he was.

‘Sure,’ she replied. ‘So, is everything all right?’ she asked as they carefully made their way down the stairs.

‘Yes. Fine.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. Fine,’ he repeated, more firmly.

He stormed into the boxroom at the end of the corridor and opened the top drawer of a filing cabinet.

Matilda immediately went to the bookshelves. Since she had acquired the book collection from Jonathan Harkness, a killer she hadn’t wanted to be guilty, she had been addicted to reading, and collecting books in general. Whenever she went into someone’s house, she headed straight for the bookcase to see what they had in their collection. The Mercers had no crime fiction. They were mostly biographies of historical figures and international monarchs. Although some of the covers were striking, the content held very little interest to Matilda, so she joined Scott at the filing cabinet.

‘They were very meticulous people,’ Scott said. ‘A file for everything. Gas, electricity, phone, water, council tax, pension plans.’

‘Anything juicy in the bank statements?’

Scott handed his boss a box file from the top of the cabinet. ‘All in monthly order.’

Matilda placed the box on the desk, now free of the desktop computer, and opened it. ‘Bloody hell look how much they made every month. I’m in the wrong job. What did they do, again?’

‘She was a neurosurgeon and he was an anaesthetist. Or it could have been the other way round.’

‘There doesn’t seem to be much of interest here,’ Matilda said, scanning the statements. ‘They have quite a few direct debit payments to charity. They really are the perfect family.’

‘Were,’ Scott corrected.

‘Take them back to the station and see if you can find anything. Don’t spend too long on it, though.’

‘Will do.’ He took the file from her and headed for the door.

‘Why would someone want to kill an entire family, and in such a horrific way?’ Matilda mused.

Scott stopped in the doorway. He turned back to his boss but gave her a shrug for a reply.

‘I mean, all killers believe they’re killing for a reason. So, if you have a gripe with someone, fair enough, you come in and you kill them, but this? This is overkill. And if someone has that level of anger towards them, then surely their friends or neighbours would know about it. Yet, according to everyone around here they’re Mr and Mrs Perfect. What aren’t we seeing?’ she asked, folding her arms.

‘A secret life. Maybe they’re in the witness protection programme and they’ve been found out.’

It sounded far-fetched but, in this instance, it had a sense of realism about it.

‘I get the feeling this is going to be a very complex investigation.’

Scott didn’t say anything. He stayed where he was and looked at Matilda, as if waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, he turned and left the room. Matilda followed.

‘Scott, come into the living room for a moment,’ Matilda said once they were at the bottom of the stairs. She took off her overshoes and went in.

‘What is it?’ he asked, standing in the doorway, still holding the file.

‘Put the file down and take a seat.’ She patted the seat next to her on the large sofa, but he went over to the armchair. ‘Scott, what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I’m fine.’

‘You’re not. You’ve been quiet for weeks. Are you having personal problems?’

‘No.’

‘Everything all right at home? Rory isn’t pissing you off or anything?’

‘No. We get on well.’

‘How’s the training for the marathon?’

‘Fine.’

‘You can talk to me, you know, Scott.’

‘I know I can, but I’ve nothing to say,’ he said. Not once had he made eye contact with Matilda.

‘OK,’ she gave in. ‘I don’t believe you, but OK. Look, if you want to talk to me, about anything, please, come and see me.’

‘I will.’

‘Either in the office or you can come to my house. You know where I live. I may give you a paintbrush, but you’re welcome.’

‘Thanks,’ he said with a fake smile. He stood up and left the room, taking the file of bank statements with him.

Matilda’s phone rang. It was Sian. ‘I’ve heard back from the FCO,’ she immediately said. ‘Leah and Oliver are going to get the next available plane back to England. They should be in Sheffield by this evening. They’ve been told to come straight to the station.’

‘How did they take it?’

‘Well, language barrier aside, Leah didn’t seem to believe what she was being told.’

‘I can understand that. We’ll meet her at the station and take her to the hospital when we’ve had a word with her. She’ll want to be with her niece.’

‘Adele called as well; she wants you to pop in and see her at the mortuary.’

‘Will do.’

‘Oh, and one more thing,’

‘Go on,’

‘Rory’s handed in his resignation.’

Chapter Fourteen

Matilda sat behind the wheel of her car. She had a perplexed look on her face. She didn’t have a clue where this case was heading. The neighbours painted Mr and Mrs Mercer as Mr and Mrs Perfect. Nobody saw anything suspicious as they were all suffering the effects of the wedding reception. Now, her team was falling apart. She couldn’t have that. She needed them.

She lowered the window and allowed the sub-zero degree air to roll in. It instantly helped her relax as she took in a deep breath. She would need a clear mind to think straight if she was going to keep a strong hold of the case and her team. No distractions were allowed. She looked at her mobile and saw three more missed calls from Sally Meagan. This was one distraction she didn’t need.

Matilda called Sally. It was ten minutes before she was able to get a word in. It was obvious she’d been drinking, despite it not being lunchtime yet. She tried to tell Matilda about the phone call from Carl, but her words came out of her mouth so quickly they were falling over themselves into one long garbled mess. In the end, Matilda interrupted. She apologized for not contacting her, told her, briefly, about her current workload and talked-up the excellent skills of retired Detective Inspector Pat Campbell who was coming out of retirement to help her. Once placated, Matilda ended the call. She felt exhausted.

She started the engine and drove away looking in the rear-view mirror as she went. The house belonging to the Mercers was a beautiful stone-built building, tastefully decorated, in manicured grounds. She wondered if it would have to be knocked down. The house would now be synonymous with a multiple murder. It was such a waste of a stunning building.

Matilda’s to-do list was growing all the time. On her way to the mortuary on Watery Street on the outskirts of Sheffield city centre, she planned in her head everything she needed to do. There were the post mortems to attend, Rory to talk to, forensics to liaise with, Valerie to brief, Leah returning from Paris, Rachel’s condition in hospital to keep an eye on. She may only be seven years old, but she was a material witness, and she would need careful handling.

Matilda drove along, not paying attention to the road signs or the speed limit. How she made it to Watery Street without causing a crash was anyone’s guess.

She pressed the buzzer and waited to enter.

‘Matilda, come on in.’ The door was opened by radiologist Claire Alexander who performed the digital autopsies. She was dressed in oversized scrubs. Her face was red, and her hair was stuck to her forehead from sweating. Despite the grim nature of her job, Claire always had a smile on her face and welcomed Matilda with open arms.

‘You’re going to love me when I tell you what I’ve found,’ Claire began, heading straight for the Digital Autopsy suite.

‘Oh,’ Matilda was slightly taken off guard. She was hoping for a cup of tea first, maybe five minutes to compose herself.

‘We’ve scanned all three victims this morning. I think Adele is ready to get started on the invasive post mortems. Are you on your own?’ Claire asked, stopping in the middle of the corridor and turning around.

‘For now. I’ve got Ranjeet coming down.’

‘Right. Come on through.’

Claire opened the door into the small ante-room next to the main suite. As usual, the heat was stifling due to the bank of computers and scanning equipment. The atmosphere was heavy, not purely because of the heat, but the knowledge of what went on in this room. It seemed to be embedded in the walls. The usually clear desk had birthday cards dotted about, a reminder than even though this was a place of death, life does go on.

‘Whose birthday is it?’

‘It was mine on Monday. I should probably take these down now.’

‘Many happy returns.’

‘Thank you. Don’t even think about asking how old I am; I’m trying to put it out of my mind.’

‘Did you do anything special?’

‘I had a meal out with a couple of friends and I’m off to London this weekend to see a play,’ she said, a beaming smile lighting up her face.

Matilda smiled back. It seemed strange to talk about the usual practices of everyday life in a mortuary. She often wondered how people like Claire and Adele were able to do their job without it encroaching on their private lives. Matilda often took her work home with her. She spent many sleepless nights going over conversations, interviews, and statements to see if she had missed anything. Watching Claire deftly hammer away on the keyboard, bringing up images of dead bodies on the large computer screens, she doubted Claire would still be awake at 2 a.m. torturing herself about a bullet entry wound.

‘I’m going to talk you through Serena Mercer’s killing first. Now, we believe this to be the last of the killings. I’ll come to the reason why in a moment. However, this is an image of Serena’s face and chest.’

A black-and-white X-ray filled the screen. Matilda had no idea what she was looking at. She didn’t know one artery from another. Fortunately, she didn’t have to.

‘As you know, the attack was frenzied. Now, it’s difficult to establish the trajectory of the stab wounds as there was a lot of haemorrhaging which is obscuring the soft tissue. However, air tracks through the soft tissue and we can follow the path of the air to the initial stab wound.’ She looked over at Matilda who had a blank expression on her face. ‘Do you follow?’

‘I think so.’

Claire turned to another computer screen where a more detailed image of Serena Mercer appeared. In glorious technicolour, Matilda could see every muscle and vein in the dead woman’s face, neck and chest.

‘From the outside, we can see that she was stabbed twenty-eight times. Eight in the face, six in the neck, five in the chest, and nine times in the stomach.’

‘Can you tell which one killed her?’

‘The ones to the neck did the most damage. They cut through the major nerves and arteries. Both the internal and external jugular veins were severed,’ she said, pointing to them on the screen.

‘I’d have thought you’d have said the ones that ripped out her intestines.’

‘She was most likely dead by then. Also, I think your killer was getting tired by that point too. You can see where the knife dragged along the stomach, almost tearing it open rather than stabbing. Either he was getting tired or his knife was getting blunt.’

‘So why do you think she was killed last?’

‘Ah, this is the clever part. Take a look here.’ She zoomed in close and pointed to the clavicle bone in the chest. ‘Do you see that white line?’

‘Yes,’ Matilda said, leaning in to look at the pure white, but incredibly small, line. ‘What is it?’

‘That is the tip of the knife.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes,’ she replied with a smile. ‘The knife hit the clavicle, the shoulder blade, and snapped the tip right off. Obviously, I don’t know how many knives your killer had but all three victims have similar size stab wounds. I’m guessing two different sized knives, but he could have had more than one with the same sized blade.’

‘Oh.’

Claire closed down the images of Serena and brought up the ones of her twenty-eight-year-old son.

‘Judging from where Jeremy Mercer was found, on the stairs, we can surmise he was the first victim. He also has the least amount of stab wounds – three. A fairly deep one to the trunk of the body but managed to miss the stomach. Another stab to the neck and one to the chest.’

Claire zoomed in on Jeremy’s stomach. ‘See this line, this is from a much larger knife compared to these two,’ she said, pointing to the stab wounds on his chest and neck. ‘Now, the tip from the large knife is what is embedded in Serena Mercer’s clavicle. The tip from the smaller knife is here,’ she pointed to a bright sliver of light in Jeremy Mercer’s chest. ‘It’s broken as the blade hit the sternum manubrium and it’s stuck here in the pectoral muscle.’

‘So, if he killed him first, damaged his knife, why haven’t we found it? Surely he would have thrown it to one side or something as his spree continued.’

‘In an attack this frenzied, knowing your killer had at least two knives, you’d imagine him to have one in each hand and be stabbing remorselessly. When one knife breaks you’d throw it away and keeping stabbing with the one you had left,’ Claire surmised.

‘That’s what I was thinking, too. He’s hardly going to stop, put the knife away, then continue.’

‘Unless he did throw it away then went back to collect it once he’d finished.’

‘Hmm,’ Matilda thought. ‘If he’s killed in the way he has done, with such ferocity, then gone back around the house to check he hasn’t left anything behind, that shows a man of such cold-blooded calculation. To walk around a house, having tied up one of his victims and leaving her alive, he is basically one disturbed and sick individual.’

Claire shuddered. ‘I am so glad I’m in here and not doing your job.’

‘Right now, I think I’d rather be doing your job too. This is one killer’s head I do not want to attempt to get into.’

Claire blew out her cheeks and unbuttoned her top button. It was getting stifling in the small room. ‘Do you want me to show you Clive Mercer or would you like to take a break?’

‘Let’s carry on,’ Matilda said. Her voice lowered and her eyes were wide. She was genuinely frightened by this killer.

‘Clive Mercer’s injuries were all to the neck. Thirty-seven stab wounds in total. His head was just hanging on with two tendons.’

‘Bloody hell,’ Matilda uttered.

‘He cut through the lot; the carotid artery, the auricular nerve, the supraclavicular nerve, the anterior jugular vein. He’s even managed to get through to the thyroid gland. This is taking frenzied to a whole other level.’

Matilda looked at the colourful image of Clive Mercer’s neck. The man was an anaesthetist. He was intelligent. He was on the board of two local charities. He was a regular churchgoer, and this was how his life ended.

‘Jesus Christ,’ she said under her breath. ‘Would the killer have been covered in blood?’

‘Absolutely. He would have been drenched in it. Unless …’

‘Unless what?’

‘Unless he was wearing a forensic oversuit.’

‘Well, you can buy anything on Amazon these days,’ Matilda half-smiled.

‘Now, I’ve saved the best until last. Are you ready for this?’ There was a glint in Claire’s eye which Matilda found almost sinister.

‘Go on.’

‘Clive Mercer was dying.’

‘I’m sorry?’

More tapping on the keyboard and up came a close-up of Clive’s head. She zoomed in on a dark patch. ‘That is a rather aggressive-looking tumour on Clive’s frontal lobe.’

Matilda swallowed hard. She should have noticed the shading of a tumour as soon as she saw it. She’d seen enough of James’s in the early stages of his illness.

‘Is it cancerous?’

‘Adele will take samples and we’ll find out the severity.’

‘Would he have known about it?’

‘I would have thought so. It will be in his medical notes.’

‘I haven’t seen them yet. Poor bloke.’

‘I know. A double blow to his family.’

‘What’s left of them.’

The door opened and Adele Kean entered. She wasn’t scrubbed up yet for the post mortems and was wearing black trousers with a beige sweater.

‘We’re all set next door when you want to come and join us.’

‘I feel sick,’ Matilda said.

‘Have you eaten this morning?’ Adele asked.

‘I can’t remember.’

‘How about we all go for an early lunch?’ Claire said.

‘That’s a good idea. Mat?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve got a lot on at the moment,’ Matilda said, running her sweating hands through her hair.

‘You need to eat.’

‘Maybe just a sandwich.’

Adele and Claire were the first to leave the room while Matilda stood looking into the main scanning suite.

‘Did Matilda tell you she’s seeing someone?’ Adele asked Claire.

‘No. Who?’

‘The bloke who’s renovating her new house.’

‘I’m not seeing anyone,’ Matilda shouted as she followed them into the corridor. ‘He took me for a meal last week, that’s all.’ She rolled her eyes at Claire.

‘I don’t blame you,’ Claire said. ‘The only way I’ll get involved with a bloke again is if I’ve seen his bank balance and a cardiogram first.’

‘You’re a ghoul, Claire,’ Adele said with a smile.

Matilda found herself smiling. Sometimes you needed to take a break from the horror of the day job, even if it was a quick lunch with two women who spent their days surrounded by dead bodies.

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