Deadly Secrets (Detective Erika Foster #6)(6)

‘Her nose is broken,’ she said.

‘Yes. And her left cheek. We also found her front tooth, embedded in the gate post,’ said Isaac.

Erika and McGorry turned to look at the gate post, where a numbered marker was fixed halfway up. Clumps of snow clung to the brickwork. Next to it was a wheelie bin, and a recycling box stuffed with empty vodka bottles. Erika turned back to look at the house. The curtains were drawn, no lights were on.

‘Where’s the mother?’

‘At the neighbour’s house,’ said McGorry, indicating a terraced house diagonally across the street.

‘And we’re sure the victim lives here? She wasn’t visiting her mum for Christmas?’

‘We need to check that.’

‘We’re going to have difficulties moving her,’ said one of Isaac’s assistants, who had finished clearing the snow from the blood-spattered legs.

‘Why?’ asked Erika.

He looked up at her – a small man with large, intense brown eyes. He indicated the vast pool of frozen blood spreading out from under the body.

‘The blood. She’s frozen solid to the soil underneath.’





Four





Isaac came to the gate with Erika. He looked up at the cloud hanging low and grey.

‘I need to move her before the weather turns; there’s more snow on the way,’ he said. She looked back at the body, where Isaac’s assistants worked carefully to dig her out of the frozen blood-soaked soil. Erika felt the same pang of horror and excitement she always experienced at the scene of a murder. So much in her life was out of her control, but she had the power to track down whoever had done this. And she would.

‘When do you think you can do the post-mortem?’

Isaac blew out his cheeks. ‘Sorry. Couple of days. I have a backlog; this is a busy time of year for suspicious deaths. And did I tell you? I’ve been moved. I’m working out of the morgue at Lewisham Hospital.’

‘Since when?’

‘Since the morgue in Penge has been sold to a developer. A big sign went up for Parkside Peninsula Apartments a few weeks ago, and we moved last week. It’s causing all sorts of delays.’

‘Parkside Peninsula Apartments, Penge,’ repeated Erika, raising an eyebrow. Isaac raised one in return.

‘Oh, and another thing,’ he said. ‘Blood spatter. The person who did this would have been covered in blood and carrying a weapon, but the drops of blood end abruptly at the gate.’

‘You think they wiped the knife? Or had a vehicle parked by the gate?’ asked Erika.

‘That’s for you to find out,’ said Isaac. ‘I’ll keep you in the loop with the post-mortem.’ He went back into the front garden.

Erika and McGorry changed out of their Tyvek suits, handed them in, then ducked under the police tape into the road. They buttoned up their coats against the cold. A large police support van had just arrived, and was attempting to park against the kerb. One of the police cars pulled out to make extra room, and it got stuck in the snow, its wheels spinning and squealing.

‘So, we’re looking at someone who had a car, potentially,’ said Erika. ‘They got in and drove away. But where?’ Erika looked up and down the street. The house was on the end of the terrace, with an alleyway running along the side. It was overlooked by the back gardens of the houses in Howson Road, which ran parallel to Coniston Road. ‘I want to get the house-to-house going ASAP. There should be plenty of people home on Christmas Day. I want to know if anyone saw anything, and I need the details of persons of interest in the area: violent offenders, anyone with previous or ongoing convictions.’

Two uniformed officers had come to help the squad car, and were giving it a push. The engine roared and the wheels spun.

‘There’s a railway bridge at the end of the next road, which leads over to the Fitzwilliam Estate,’ said McGorry.

Erika nodded. ‘Worth including in our H2H, but whoever goes in there needs to go easy.’ She knew that the Fitzwilliam Estate, like many high-rise council buildings in poor areas, was known for trouble. She peered down the long alleyways running along each side of the terraces. ‘And we need to check out if any garden gates back onto these alleyways…’

They stepped out of the way as the squad car broke free from the snow. It shot past, took a right at the end of the street, and parked outside the school opposite. The support van pulled into the gap by the kerb and turned off its engine. In the sudden silence came the click of a camera shutter. Erika turned to McGorry.

‘Did you hear that?’ she murmured. He nodded. They looked up at the surrounding windows, but couldn’t see anything. There was a rustle directly behind. Erika turned and looked up into the branches of a tall oak tree across the road, next to the railings of the school playground. A young man who looked to be in his early twenties was slithering down the branches. He stepped onto the top of the metal railing lining the playground, and dropped down into the alleyway. He was scruffy, with long blond hair, and had a long-lens camera around his neck on a strap. He glanced at Erika and McGorry, then bolted for it down the snowy alleyway.

‘Hey! Stop!’ shouted Erika. McGorry headed off in pursuit down the alleyway, and Erika followed. The young man wore a long coat, which flowed out behind him as he ran. He jumped up onto the lid of a wheelie bin, and vaulted up and over a high wall with tall trees behind it. Seconds later, McGorry reached the wheelie bin, hitched up his coat and heaved himself up shakily. Erika tottered unsteadily along and reached the bin as McGorry grabbed hold of a branch of one of the thick, snow-covered evergreens and climbed up onto the lip of the wall.