Luke Delaney - Redemption of the Dead

‘Speaking from experience, sir?’

‘Maybe. And knock off the “sir” bollocks.’

‘Sorry,’ Sean apologized before moving closer to one of the chairs opposite and crouching next to it, leaning in close, staring at the empty seat, his eyes narrowing with concentration.

‘Problem?’ Bannan asked.

‘The blood spray pattern on this chair doesn’t seem right.’

‘So you’re an expert on blood spray patterns as well now are you?’

‘You don’t have to be — you just have to look.’ He pointed at the blood sprays on the chair. ‘Here, on this middle area of the seat, the patterns don’t match the blood sprays on the rest of the chair or the other furniture.’ He gestured his hand over the table and chair next to where he crouched. ‘It’s as if the heavier sprays of blood have somehow been broken — here and here and here.’ He pointed to the inconsistent patterns as he explained. ‘It’s as if something, or someone was sitting here, but these other finer sprays are unbroken, so …’ Sean stalled, his inexperience beginning to tell.

‘The finer spray marks would have been caused when her throat was cut — when her pulse was still creating enough pressure to send even the tiniest of drops from the sofa to the chair,’ Bannan helped him. ‘The larger drops would have been literally thrown there by the killer as he went to work on her after she was dead — the drops flicking and flying off the knife and his hand. But what does that tell you, son? What picture’s that painting?’

‘The doll,’ Sean said, remembering the doll from the crime scene photographs of the Rebecca Fordham murder. ‘He placed the doll so it could watch him, but here he had the child.’

‘And?’

‘And the distribution of the blood means the child wasn’t sitting here when he cut the mother’s throat — when he killed her — but she was when he did the rest.’

‘Good,’ Bannan told him.

‘So he killed her, then he went to get the child from her bedroom and brought her back in here. He made her sit, and he made her watch. Once he was finished with the mother he took the child back to her bedroom and killed her, but not before he … Jesus Christ — the child’s last few moments on this earth — her last minutes must have been … Did anyone hear any screaming — a child screaming?’

‘No,’ Bannan admitted.

‘Then she didn’t. The report says her mouth wasn’t covered or taped, so she didn’t scream or call out.’

‘Traumatized into paralysis,’ Bannan explained. ‘It’s not unusual in children when they witness anything even close to what this one had to see. Poor little cow. I’ll have the lab work up the blood spray patterns and check the daughter’s clothes for traces of her mother’s blood — see if your theory is right.’

‘Not just my theory,’ Sean challenged him. ‘You’d already worked it all out, hadn’t you? Everything I’ve said — you already knew it?

‘Maybe.’

‘Then why bring me here? Why let me repeat everything you already knew?’

‘Because I wanted to see. I wanted to be sure.’

‘Of what?’

‘Of you. I wanted to be sure you’re what I think you are.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘A rare type of animal, Sean. A very rare animal indeed.’

‘What does that mean — exactly?’

‘You’ll see,’ Bannan told him without offering further explanation. ‘In time you’ll see. Anyway, you finished?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Good. Now we can get out of here. You can fill me in on the rest of your insights on the way back to the nick — if you have any.’

‘Fine,’ Sean agreed. Just being in the flat was becoming unbearable. ‘Although there’s one more thing — you said the fingerprint work had already been done?’

‘It has. Forensics like to get it out the way first. Tomorrow they’ll be going for hairs and fibres.’

‘Did they find any? Fingerprints?’

‘Yeah — plenty, but they look as if they’ll be from the victims. We can’t be sure until they’re worked up properly, but it appears we’ve blown out on finding a print from the killer.’

‘No,’ Sean said, shaking his head. ‘Once the killing started he wasn’t thinking about not leaving his prints. He was in a frenzy by then. Even if he was wearing gloves at first he would have taken them off. He couldn’t have stood having a barrier between their skin and his, just like he couldn’t with Rebecca Fordham.’

‘We can’t get a fingerprint off skin, son,’ Bannan reminded him.

‘No,’ Sean agreed, ‘but when he went from here to the girl’s room he wouldn’t have put them back on and he must have touched something. He must have. Was her bedroom door open or shut?’

‘It was closed.’

‘Do you have children?’ Sean asked.

‘Yes,’ Bannan answered cautiously. ‘All grown up and gone now.’

‘But when they were young, would you close their bedroom doors when they slept — would your wife?’

‘No. We’d leave them slightly open.’

‘Is that what most people do?’ Sean asked, forgetting he could be betraying his own past.

‘Don’t you know?’ Bannan asked. ‘Didn’t your mother leave yours open?’

Sean glared at him momentarily, the anger of his childhood almost erupting to the surface. ‘Of course,’ he lied, ‘and so did Lindsey Harter, so she could feel close to her child while she slept. He closed the door, after he’d … he closed the door. Have forensics check the door handle again — especially the underside and the panels of the door, on the hallway side. He may have pushed it shut with the palm of his hand.’

‘Forensics won’t like to be told to go over old work.’

‘They dusted for prints while the bodies were still in-situ — that must have been very distracting. Mistakes could have been made.’

‘You’re telling me,’ Bannan said. ‘A woman from the forensic team has already gone off sick with stress. I don’t think we’ll be seeing her again anytime soon. I’ll get them to check again. They won’t like it, but what the fuck.’

‘Good,’ Sean agreed. ‘So what’s next?’

‘Remember the Historical Criminologist from the Fordham Team?’

‘The one who’s wrong?’

‘Whatever. I’m meeting her tomorrow, in the morning. I’d like you to be there, but you have to mind your temper. Agreed?’

‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

Bannan sat behind the large, cheap desk in his usual office at Shooter’s Hill Police Station, dozens of files, mostly marked confidential, others marked for General Registry, adorning the worktop, but all meticulously stacked in order — a tower of in- and out-trays acting like book ends holding the line of cardboard folders upright. Other than that the only things Bannan had in front of him were two pink cardboard folders, both lying open. Professional-looking crime scene photographs topped one file, whereas the other still had to make do with polaroids. One file related to the murder of Rebecca Fordham and the other to the murders of Lindsey and Izzy Harter. The two sets of photographs echoed each other closely.

Sean watched Bannan studying the files, noting the neatness of his desk and the slow, steady way he examined the two cases — an ordered mind behind an ordered desk. He wondered if he would ever become as Bannan was — organized, tidy, precise. He doubted it. He looked at his watch — it was already nine thirty a.m.

‘What time’s she supposed to be here?’ he asked.

Bannan answered without looking up from the files or at his watch. ‘Nine o’clock. She’s already half an hour late.’

‘What you going to ask her when she gets here?’