Nick Oldham - Critical Threat

One of the problems with a murder scene inside premises was often the ingress and egress, meaning that valuable evidence could potentially be lost because of an army of size elevens tramping back and forth along the route probably also used by the offender. Hall’s rundown of the people who had already been to it was discouraging, but inevitable. Henry decided that once he’d had a quick look, no one else would be allowed up until all the scientific work had been done.

Henry was irritated by Hall for keeping him in the dark regarding the identity of the deceased, but allowed him his little charade because he seemed to be getting some amusement from it and he did brief Henry on everything else with a fairly succinct narrative before they entered the premises …

‘Treble-nine came in about half past midnight to Blackburn comms. Hysterical female by the name of Jackie Kippax … yeah? Jackie Kippax?’ Hall seemed to expect Henry to know the name, but at that moment in time with a brain still slightly dulled by sex and sleep, it meant nothing to him. ‘Hm, OK … so hysterical female calls, a double-crewed car attends and finds her down at the phone box there’ — he pointed to the box down the road — ‘which, surprisingly, worked … anyway, they speak to her, get some sort of story. One stays with her and the other, with trepidation, goes up into the flat over the Spar shop here and finds the dead body, who had been shot through the head. I’m already en route and get here about ten minutes later, speak to the woman, still hysterical, and get her carted off to the nick to be looked after — emotionally and evidentially — and then I lumber up to the scene and lo and behold, I’m pretty sure there’s a murderer on the loose.’

‘Unless it’s the hysterical woman.’

‘Unless it’s her, which I doubt. She, by the way, is the dead man’s common-law wife, Jackie Kippax?’ Hall raised his eyebrows.

‘Means nothing.’ Henry shook his head.

‘It will,’ Hall said confidently.

Henry remained to be convinced, but gave a shrug, then walked across to the Scientific Support van and helped himself to a paper suit and shoes, introduced himself to the young copper who had been detailed to note the comings and goings to the crime scene. He told the young lad not to let anyone else in until further instructed. He’d then followed Hall into the property, through the ground-floor door adjacent to the front door of the Spar shop.

As he’d entered the premises behind Hall, Henry had checked to see if there was any sign of forced entry at the front door and seen nothing to suggest it; no splintering of wood either on the door or its frame …

Hall stepped into the room which was the crime scene ahead of Henry, then took a sideways step to the left to give the senior officer an unrestricted view.

Henry placed his feet on the threshold but did not move into the room, just stood and let his eyes wander.

‘It’s the dead guy’s office,’ Hall explained. ‘He’s a private investigator.’

It was sparsely furnished: one desk with a black swivel chair behind it and a chair on the other side of it, one of those uncomfortable plastic ones found the world over. He could see a pair of feet sticking out from behind the desk, trainers on. Behind the desk was a wall and on it Henry could see the mess and blood that had once been the innards of the dead man’s head. His eyes lingered on that for a few seconds.

And that was about it.

No other furniture, just a calendar on the wall; nothing on the desk either, other than a pen and an old-fashioned telephone.

A blank canvas. Something Henry was grateful for. Cluttered rooms were a nightmare. At least with an empty one it was generally pretty easy to work out what might be missing or what might be extra, two things that could be crucial to any investigation. And already, Henry was thinking that there was something missing that should be there, but he didn’t know what.

So the dead man was lying on the floor on the far side of the desk.

Henry’s eyes narrowed as he started to put the pieces together, even though he hadn’t yet got a clue what the picture looked like.

He glanced at Hall, who was looking enquiringly at him.

‘I like to take my time, think about things,’ Henry said. ‘Only one chance at a pure crime scene before everyone gets their mits on it.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘What are your thoughts so far, Trevor?’

With a meditative pout, he said, ‘Just practicalities at the moment, boss.’ He munched his words. ‘Front door not forced, which could mean one of several things. Either the offender had a key or was allowed in, unless the door was actually open. It’s a Yale lock, so if it was closed, whoever comes in either needs a key or has to be let in. My first thought is that he knew his killer and met him here.’ Hall shrugged.

‘You could be right,’ Henry agreed. He rubbed his face and looked around the room again. Nothing particularly caught his eye, but he did have that uneasy feeling again that something was missing from the whole set-up.

Working on the assumption that the killer would have walked from the door straight to the desk, a matter of six feet, and may have left some evidence on that journey, Henry and Hall avoided this route and edged their way around the perimeter of the room, sticking close to the walls until they arrived at the wall behind the desk, the one splattered with blood, brains and cranium, behind the body.

The swivel chair had been upended, and was lying on its side like some strange, stranded sea creature and the body also lay on its side at an angle to the desk, almost in the recovery position, one knee drawn up, arms pointing forwards. But there would be no recovery from this position.

Henry swallowed as he slowly bent his knees and settled on his haunches, inspecting the back of the man’s head. He could not yet see the face properly. He blinked as he thought of the damage the bullet must have done, spinning through the guy’s brain.

‘Recognize him yet?’ Hall asked hopefully.

‘Not from this angle.’ He pushed himself up. Because of the position of the body, they could go no further in this direction without actually stepping over it, which would have resulted in lost evidence as they would have been forced to step in blood. For Henry to see the man’s face, he had to edge back around the room and come in from the other side. He told Hall to backtrack to the door, where they both paused.

‘So the killer — or killers — possibly known to the deceased, comes up the stairs after having been invited in, comes down the hall, maybe with the deceased. Perhaps the deceased is already sitting at his desk, waiting for the killer, or he plonks himself behind the desk after entering the room with the killer, who he has just let in. Whichever, he is sitting at his desk and the killer then shoots him in the head, spreading most of his grey matter across the back wall, knocking him out of his chair.’

‘Fair supposition,’ Hall said.

Henry tried to imagine the scene, which wasn’t too difficult. He took a few seconds to take it in, measuring the angles, working out what might have happened.

‘OK, got that,’ he said and was about to move past the door and sidle around the edge of the room to come in to see the victim from the opposite direction when the noise of footsteps on the stairs made him pause and look back down the hallway. ‘I said no one else should come up here,’ he shouted. His mouth was still open with the last word when the paper-suited figure of the deputy chief constable appeared on the landing. ‘Ma’am,’ he added.

‘Oh, sorry, am I not allowed up here?’

‘Everybody but the deputy chief constable,’ Henry said. ‘I didn’t expect you.’