women will be swooning over your face on the front cover of every paper. So Police Scotland’s pin-up detective is getting back out there, is he?’ Ava said. Callanach had been with the Major Investigation Team in Edinburgh for eight months, and in that time Ava had never missed an opportunity to make fun of him. His distant career as a model made him a particularly easy target.
‘It wasn’t my idea,’ Callanach muttered. ‘Merde!’
‘Language,’ Ava admonished.
‘I thought you couldn’t speak French,’ Callanach said.
‘You’ve been mistaking my ignoring you for failing to understand you. It’s a different concept,’ Ava said.
‘Do you not have work to do?’ Callanach asked, shaking his head at her, watching the grin spread across her face. Ava was the sort of woman who left men wrong-footed. She looked innocent enough, her long brown hair a tangle of curls, with grey eyes that shifted colour depending on the light. But she could cut to the chase in a second. Being direct seemed to be the only way she knew. When he’d arrived from France his head had been a mess. Too much had happened for him to walk away unscathed emotionally. The last few months had been curative, and Ava had played a large part in that, mainly because with her he could just be himself.
‘Earth to Callanach,’ Ava said, waving her hand in front of his face. ‘I was only teasing. It’s that bad then? You’ve really got nothing to go on?’
‘Less than nothing,’ Callanach said.
‘DI Turner!’ Begbie shouted from the corridor.
‘I’m off duty, sir,’ Ava shouted back. ‘In fact, I’m not even in the building. You’re imagining me.’
‘Too bad for you I have such an active imagination. Get a squad over to Gilmerton Road. There’s been another murder.’
The house in Gilmerton was an unpretentious semi-detached, with a plain but carefully tended garden and a Mini in the driveway. A high wooden gate allowed access to the rear garden. The upper windows of the property were small, but at one corner, presumably where the internal staircase ran, an unusual slit of window spanned both floors to look out over next door’s driveway. Two uniformed officers had been posted at the gates and the circus of forensics, pathology, and photography had yet to properly begin. The area was peaceful, the streets asleep.
‘What happened?’ Ava Turner asked the officer guarding the front door.
‘A neighbour heard some loud banging followed by a couple of screams, phoned it in. There was no answer when we knocked so we went round the back and found the kitchen door open. Body’s in the bedroom, ma’am. Do you want me to come in with you?’
‘No, stay put. And keep people off the garden. Who’s the victim?’ Ava asked.
‘Mrs Helen Lott, mid-forties, lived alone as her husband passed away a while back, apparently. Neighbour was quite friendly with the deceased. We haven’t told her what we found yet …’
‘Good. Where the hell are the rest of the team?’
‘All still over at The Meadows dealing with the murder at the festival. No one was expecting a second murder on the same night,’ the officer said, rubbing his hands together. Even in July, Scotland was no place to stand outside in the small hours.
‘Bloody right. That’s Edinburgh’s murder quota for the whole year. God almighty, the press will have a field day,’ Ava muttered, already making her way along the narrow path to the rear of the property.
The lock on the back door had been sliced through. If it was a burglar, then it was a highly professional job as opposed to the usual smash-and-grab, taking whatever was nearest to the window. The perpetrator had paid a lot of money for decent tools, and must have known what he’d need. Ava pulled gloves and shoe covers from her bag and made her way in through the kitchen door, careful not to disturb anything as she went. The lock had been broken, although there hadn’t been any chain or secondary security. She cursed how cheaply people valued their lives.
The house was dark, as it would have been when the intruder crept through. Ava kept the lights off, imagining how the killer had moved and navigated the property. There was enough light from a street lamp to make it easy. None of the stair floorboards were squeaky. There was every chance the killer had got all the way to Helen Lott’s bedroom without disturbing her at all. Dark smudges on the stair carpet and a glistening trail on the handrail were an insight into the scene that was about to unfold.
The smell of vomit was noticeable from halfway between floors, beginning as a sharp twang, growing riper and more meaty as she got closer. Something else, too, when Ava pushed open the door to the main bedroom. A rotten smell. Human faeces.
In the bedroom, she turned on the light to allow a detailed view, taking an involuntary step back from the carnage on the floor. The body was difficult to see at first, hidden as it was by a wooden chest of drawers. Clothes had tumbled out everywhere, hiding all but the woman’s right foot and right arm. Ava tiptoed across and peeled the corner of a jumper away from the face. Blood had erupted from her mouth, nose and ears. The vomit was already crusting on the carpet and in the wrinkles and folds of her skin. The victim’s eyes, a vivid and unusual shade of blue, bulged in their sockets, and stared somewhere over Ava’s shoulder as if watching, terrified, for her attacker to return. There was very little white remaining in her eyes, the haemorrhaging like crazing on an antique vase. Her neck and face were swollen solid, a deep shade of purple. It was as if she had been painted from the neck up by an angry toddler in all the colours of fury.
The chest of drawers, a broad, weighty piece, lay across her body. Its position there was no accident. Ava looked carefully at the damage. The chest’s back panel, which now faced the ceiling, had been smashed in, the sides caving inwards. Faint bootprints marred the floral pastel bed linen. The attacker had jumped from the mattress onto the chest, adding to the murderous crushing pressure that had squeezed the breath from the victim’s lungs as she’d lain terrified beneath it. Helen Lott’s visible leg was twisted to an unnatural angle, and the nails of her free hand were bloodied and hanging. Ava folded the hand upwards to where the nails would have made contact with the chest of drawers. Sure enough, corresponding scratch marks ran down the polished surface. The poor woman would have been conscious then, enough to have done all she could in those last desperate minutes to fight her way out. Death would have been the only kindness, Ava thought. Mrs Lott would have been grateful when the darkness finally swallowed her.
‘Oh, my dear,’ a small voice came from the doorway, ‘what on earth is this, now? I was just saying to Luc earlier how I was missing you. I certainly didn’t mean to see you under these circumstances.’
‘I need as much as you can tell me about the killer. Single assailant or a gang, was there a weapon? Just give me enough to get started, Ailsa,’ Ava said.
The pathologist, covered head to foot in a white suit, making her appear smaller than ever, opened her bag and withdrew a thermometer and a variety of swabs.
‘It’s a difficult scene, not much room. Keep your squad out until I’m done. Get me some decent lighting and I’ll need the photographer immediately.’
‘That’s fine,’ Ava said, as Ailsa knelt next to the body.
‘She’s
