not to.
Kev Cox emerged from the house, his face shiny red. He scraped back his hood and said something to Una Burt that made her smile.
‘Who’s that?’
‘Kev Cox. Crime scene manager. The best in the business.’
Georgia nodded, making a note. I’d already noticed that her closest attention was reserved for senior police officers – the sort of people who might be able to advance her career.
And a glance in my rear-view mirror told me that one of her prime targets had arrived, though the best thing she could do for her career was probably to stay far away from him. He inserted his car into a space I thought was slightly too small, edging it back and forth with limited patience and a scowl on his face. Not happy to be back from his holidays, I deduced. He had sunglasses on, despite the rain, and he was on his own, which meant he had no one to distract him.
And I suddenly had a reason to go inside. The last thing I wanted was a touching reunion with Detective Inspector Josh Derwent in front of Georgia. There was no way to know what he would say, or what he might do. He would have to behave himself at the crime scene.
At least, I hoped he would.
‘Let’s get going.’ I grabbed my bag and slid out of the car in the same movement. It took Georgia a minute to catch up with me as I strode across the road and nodded to Una Burt.
‘Ma’am.’
‘Maeve.’ Limited enthusiasm, but that was nothing new. I had been disappointing Una Burt for years now. Georgia got an actual smile. ‘Get changed before you even think about going into the house. We need to preserve every inch of the forensics.’
As opposed to obliterating the evidence as I usually do.
‘Of course,’ I said politely.
‘This is a strange one. Come on.’ She led the way into the tiny tent where there were folded paper suits like the one she wore. It was second nature to me now to put them on, to snap on shoe covers, to tuck my hair under the close-fitting hood and work my hands into thin blue gloves and settle the mask over my face. There was a rhythm to it, a routine. Georgia wasn’t quite as practised and I remembered finding it awkward when I was new. I slowed down, making it easier for her without showing her I’d noticed she was fumbling with her suit.
‘What’s strange about this one, guv?’
‘You’ll see.’
I looked down instead of rolling my eyes as I wanted to. Just tell me . . . But Una believed in the value of first impressions.
My first impression of 27 Valerian Road was that it was the kind of house I’d always wanted to own. It was a classic Victorian terraced house inside as well as out, long and dark and narrow, with coloured encaustic tiles on the hall floor and stained glass in the front door. I could have done without the blood streaks that skated down the hall, swirled on the walls, splotched the stairs and – I tilted my head back to look – dotted the ceiling. It was enough to take a hundred grand off the value of the property, but that still wouldn’t bring it into my price range.
‘Cast-off.’ The words came from behind me, and I’d have known Derwent’s voice anywhere, even if I hadn’t been expecting him, but I still jumped. Georgia gave a stagey gasp.
‘That’s what I was thinking,’ I said. And hello to you too, DI Derwent. ‘Was it a knife, Kev?’
‘Possibly. We’re still looking for the weapon,’ he called from his position at the back.
I could picture it: a knife swinging through the air, wet with blood after the first contact with the victim, shedding droplets as it carved through space and skin. And those droplets would tell us a multitude about the person who’d held the weapon: how they’d stood, where they’d stood, which hand they’d used, how tall they were – everything, in short, but their name.
So I understood why Una Burt was particularly determined to preserve the finer details of this crime scene, and if possible I walked a little more carefully as I moved through the hall, stepping from one mat to another to avoid touching the floor. It wasn’t a large space and there were five of us standing in it, rustling gently in our paper suits.
‘Has this been photographed?’ I asked.
‘Every inch,’ Kev said. ‘And I’ve got someone filming it too. But the blood-spatter expert won’t be here for an hour or so and I want her to map it before anything changes.’
I nodded, glancing into the room on the right: a grey-toned living room, to my eye untouched, although there was a SOCO rotating slowly in the middle of the room holding a video camera. Film was much better than still photographs for getting the atmosphere of a crime scene, for putting things in context. Juries liked watching films. I moved back, not wanting to appear on camera. ‘Where’s the body?’
‘She always asks the right questions, doesn’t she?’ Kev nudged Una Burt happily. She didn’t look noticeably thrilled behind her mask.
‘Have a look upstairs.’
Derwent was closer to the bottom of the stairs and he went first. Georgia went next, followed by me. She put her hand out to take hold of the rail and I caught her wrist. ‘Don’t touch anything unless you have to.’
‘Sorry.’
The lights were on in the hall and at the top of the stairs, and it was too bright for comfort. Blood flared off every surface, dried and dark but still vibrating with violence. I didn’t know anything about the victim and I didn’t know what had happened here, but fear hung in the air like smoke. Don’t think about it now. The facts came first. The emotions could come later.
‘What happened here?’ Derwent had stopped at the top of the stairs, moving to one side to let the rest of us join him. A huge wavering bloodstain had soaked into the sisal carpet that covered the floor.
‘We think this was possibly where the first major injury was inflicted. There’s a lot of blood downstairs but in small quantities up to this point,’ Una Burt said. ‘Maybe defensive wounds. Maybe transferred from up here on the attacker’s clothes and hands.’
‘Or the victim’s,’ Kev said, and got a glare from Una Burt. Interesting.
The blood had settled into the weave, spreading out so it was hard to tell how much there was. Not enough to be an arterial injury. Survivable, potentially, I thought. ‘This isn’t a great surface for us, is it?’
‘Nope.’ Kev gestured at smudges on the woven surface. ‘Those are footprints and kneeprints. No detail, no definition. Give me a nice tiled floor any day.’
‘You’ve got the hall downstairs,’ Derwent said.
‘Except that we had people in and out with wet feet before I got here. The coppers had the sense to step carefully but the others …’ Kev raised his eyes to heaven. ‘You’d almost think it was deliberate. If it hadn’t been for the rain we’d have a lot more to go on.’
‘Who was that?’ I asked.
‘One of the two residents – a female aged eighteen – and one of the neighbours,’
