‘Good evening, Inspector. It’s not a pretty sight.’
‘I’ve seen so much carnage in the last year, I doubt anything will shock me.’ Lottie pulled a pair of protective gloves from her pocket, blew into them and tried to ease them over her damp hands. From her bag she removed disposable overshoes.
‘How did he get in?’ Boyd said.
‘Door isn’t forced, so he might have had a key,’ Lottie said. ‘And we don’t know it’s a “he” yet.’
‘Arthur Russell was on a barring order; he shouldn’t have had a key.’
‘Boyd… will you give me a chance?’
Bending down, Lottie inspected a trail of bloody footprints leading along the hallway to where she was standing. ‘Blood tramped the whole way out.’
‘Both ways.’ Boyd pointed to the imprints.
‘Did the assailant come back to the door to check something, or to let someone else in?’
‘SOCOs can take impressions. Mind where you walk.’
Lottie glared at Boyd as she stepped carefully along the narrow hall. It led to a compact old-style kitchen, though it appeared to be a relatively new extension. Without entering further, she shivered at the sight in front of her. She welcomed the sense of Boyd standing close behind her. It made her feel human in the face of such inhumanity.
‘It was some fight,’ he said.
A wooden table was turned upside down. Two chairs had been flung against it, and one had three legs broken off. Books and papers were scattered across the floor, along with a phone and a laptop, screens broken, smashed as if someone had stomped on them. Every movable object appeared to have been swept from the counter tops. A combination of sauces and soups dripped down the cupboard doors, and a tap was running water freely into the sink.
Drawing her eyes from the chaos, which evidenced a violent struggle, Lottie studied the corpse. The body lay face down in a small pool of blood. Short brown hair was matted to the head where a gaping wound of blood, bone and brain was clearly visible. The right leg stuck out to one side at an impossible angle, as did the left arm. The skirt was torn and a red blouse was ripped up the back.
‘Bruises visible on her spine,’ Boyd said.
‘Badly beaten,’ Lottie whispered. ‘Is that vomit?’ She looked down at a splurge of liquid two inches from her feet.
‘Marian Russell’s daughter was—’ Boyd began.
‘No. She couldn’t get in. She’d forgotten her front door key and didn’t have the one to the back door. She yelled for her mother through the letter box. Ran round the back. After heading back up the road to her friend’s house, she called the emergency services. So the report says.’
‘If she didn’t go inside, then one of ours spilled his guts,’ Boyd said.
‘No need to be so explicit. I can see it.’ Lottie went to run her fingers through her hair but the gloves snagged. ‘Where’s the daughter now?’
‘Emma? With a neighbour.’
‘Poor girl. Having to see this.’
‘But she didn’t see—’
‘The report says she looked through the back door window, Boyd. Saw enough to never have a decent night’s sleep for the rest of her life.’
‘How do you sleep? I mean, with all you witness in the job. I know I pound it out on my bike, but how do you cope?’
‘Now’s not the time for this conversation.’ Lottie didn’t like Boyd’s probing questions. He knew enough about her already.
Stepping into the kitchen, she realised they were compromising a scene already contaminated by the first responders. ‘Are the scene-of-crime officers on the way?’
‘Five minutes or so,’ Boyd said.
‘While we’re waiting, let’s try and figure out what happened here.’
‘The husband broke in—’
‘Jesus, Boyd! Will you stop? We don’t know it was the husband.’
‘Of course it’s him.’
‘Okay, for a second, say I agree. The big question is why. What drove him to it? He’s been barred from the family home for twelve months and now he goes mad. Why tonight?’ Lottie sucked on her lip, thinking. Something wasn’t right with the scene before her. But she couldn’t put her finger on it. Not yet, anyway. ‘Has Arthur Russell been located?’
‘No sign of him. Checkpoints are in place. Traffic units have the car registration. Our records show he’s banned from driving, but the car isn’t here so we can assume he took it. We’ll find him,’ Boyd said.
‘If your hypothesis is correct, then who owns the car in the drive?’
‘Registration is being checked as we speak.’
Hearing a commotion behind her, Lottie turned. Jim McGlynn, SOCO team leader, was beside her in two strides, his large forensic case weighing him down on one side.
‘Are you two retiring any time soon?’ he asked.
Lottie squeezed against the wall, allowing him to pass. ‘No, why?’
‘Death seems to follow you around. Stay outside until I say you can come in.’
Gritting her teeth, Lottie forced the words she wanted to say to stay in her mouth, and waited as McGlynn’s team laid down foot-sized steel pallets so they wouldn’t add anything else to the crime scene. She eyed Boyd rubbing his hand down his mouth and along his jaw. Burning to say something. Putting her finger to her lips, she shushed him.
‘Who does he think he is?’ Boyd whispered in her ear.
‘Our best friend at the moment,’ Lottie said.
They stood in silence and watched the forensic team work the scene for evidence. After twenty-five minutes, Jane Dore, the state pathologist, arrived, and McGlynn eventually turned the body over.
It was then that Lottie realised what was wrong. The body could not be that of Marian Russell. It was a much older woman.
‘Who the hell is that?’ Boyd asked.
Three
‘Blunt-force trauma to the back of the skull.’ Jane Dore tore off her forensic suit and stuffed it into the paper bag held out for her by her assistant. At five foot nothing, the state pathologist made up in expertise what she lacked in height. ‘Find the weapon and I can match it to the wound.’
‘Any idea what the weapon might be?’ Lottie asked.
‘Something hard and rounded.’
‘Anything else you can tell us?’ Lottie tried not to plead. ‘We still have to identify her.’
‘Well, I’ve no idea who the victim is. I’ll schedule the post-mortem for eight in the morning. Maybe the body can tell us something. Come along and see for yourself.’
‘I will. Thanks.’ Lottie watched the pathologist walk out into the rain, her driver holding a wide umbrella over her head.
‘There’s a ladies’ raincoat hanging on the stair post. It’s damp,’ she said to Boyd as he stood outside the front door. He lit two cigarettes and handed her one.
‘So?’ he said.
She took a drag. She didn’t smoke. Not really. Only when Boyd gave her one. A double vodka would go down nicely, she thought. She had tried to give up alcohol, numerous times, but in the last few months she’d found herself slipping back into old habits. She took a double pull on the cigarette and coughed out the smoke.
‘Whoever she is, she called to visit and maybe disturbed a burglar. That must be her coat in there,’ Lottie said.
‘Brute of a night for social calls,’ Boyd said.
‘There’s no handbag. Nothing to tell us who she is.’
‘Someone will know her.’
‘Where’s Marian Russell? According to her daughter’s report, she was here when Emma left to go to her friend’s house.’
‘Where does the friend live?’
‘Next house down.’
‘That’s about a mile away,’ Boyd said.
‘More like five hundred metres,’ Lottie corrected him.
‘It’s dark and wet. Why would she let her child walk home?’
‘Emma Russell is seventeen years old.’ Lottie quenched the butt between her fingertips and handed it to Boyd. He placed both butts into the cigarette packet. She added, ‘We need to find Marian Russell.’
‘Kirby’s working on it.’
‘Let’s have a look around the back yard.’