Stuart Pawson - Chill Factor

We went in separate cars with me leading the way, and were there in less than fifteen minutes. One of our Escorts was parked outside number 15, the corner house at the end of a cul-de-sac with a PC standing in the gateway. He stepped forward and opened my door as I coasted to a standstill.

“Hi, Jim,” I said, climbing out. “What’ve we got?”

“Hello, Mr Priest,” he replied. “We’ve got a murder. One bloke dead, in the kitchen, and a guy in the front room saying he did it.”

Gilbert had joined us. “Hello, er, John,” he said. “What have we got?”

“Hello, Mr Wood,” Jim said, and repeated what he’d told me.

“Let’s go have a look then, shall we?” Gilbert suggested, moving towards the house. A woman was standing in next door’s garden, watching us, and another woman from further along came out to join her.

“You’re sure he’s dead, Jim?” I asked.

“Yeah, they don’t come any deader,” he replied, “but not for very long.”

“A wild guess at how long?” I invited.

“One or two hours. No rigor, and the blood’s hardly dry.”

“Great,” I said to him. “It’s nearly six o’clock. If this body lived here his family might be coming home any time now. Have a word with those two,” I nodded towards the neighbours, “and see what you can find out.”

“Right, Boss,” he replied, then hesitated. “Er, how much can I tell them?” I’d known Jim a long time. First in Halifax, and now at Heckley. He had about twenty years in and was solid and dependable, but unimaginative. This wasn’t the first dead body he’d attended.

“Say it’s a suspicious death,” I told him. “Find out who lives here, what they look like. Then radio in and see who’s on the electoral roll for this address.”

“Right,” he repeated, and headed towards the women.

The house looked sad and seedy, with unwashed windows and weeds growing in the borders. The lawn had been mown recently, but the grass cuttings were still lying on it, as if the owner felt that clearing them up was a task too far. I wondered if mine looked like this to a casual visitor and vowed to have a crash clean-up, when I had the time. The two cars parked on the drive didn’t look neglected. There was a Citroen Xantia tight up against the garage door and an Audi A8 behind it, at a slight angle, with the driver’s door not fully closed. The front door of the house was wide open. I stepped over the threshold and that old feeling hit me, like the smell of a bacon sandwich on a frosty morning. Some primordial instinct was being tapped: the thrill of the chase, and all that. At times like these, when news of a murder is breaking, I wouldn’t change my job for any in the world. At others, when there are names and faces to fill in the blank spaces, and I’ve lived with the grief that people cause each other, I could walk out of it at a moment’s notice. Except that someone else would have to do it. There’s always an except that.

I was in a hallway that faced straight on to a staircase, with a grubby biscuit-coloured carpet on the floor, nice but impractical, and Victorian bird prints on the walls. One of the first things I look at in someone else’s home is their pictures. It’s usually depressing and today was no exception.

Gilbert was in the front room, to my left, and I heard him say: “Do you live here, sir?” I peeked in and saw a man slumped in an easy chair, head down, his elbows on his knees. Gilbert was sitting facing him, his back to me, and another PC was standing nearby. The PC saw me and I winked at him. There was a glass door, slightly ajar, at the end of the hall. I placed the knuckle of my forefinger against it and eased it open.

I was in a kitchen of the type they grandly call a galley, which is probably one of the finer examples of the estate agent’s art. Cooking might be the rock ‘n’ roll of the Nineties, but back when these houses were built they had the real thing and food was something you grabbed between living. Somebody had been preparing dinner. A pan was on the worktop, lid alongside it, and a spaghetti jar was standing nearby. One gas ring was burning at full blast, and it was hotter than Hades in there. The floor was done in brown and cream carpet tiles, and spread-eagled across them was the body of a man. A turkey carver was sticking out of his chest, in the approximate vicinity of the heart. That’s the way to do it, I thought. He was wearing a white shirt, before someone ruined it, with the sleeves loosely rolled halfway up his forearms. That’s how middle class people turn them up. Workers, proper workers, take them right over the elbow. The man in the parlour, talking to Gilbert, was wearing a blue suit.

It looked to me as if the person lying dead on the kitchen floor had lived here, and the one in the other room with Gilbert was a visitor. It takes years of experience to make deductions like that.

The PC came to join me standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “Shall I take over outside, Mr Priest?” he asked.

“Oh, er, hello Martin,” I replied. “Yes, if you will please. How much has laddo told you?” I took three careful steps across the kitchen and turned the gas off.

“Not a great deal. His opening words were: ‘I killed him,’ but since then he’s clammed up, refused to answer any questions.”

I backed out again, trying to place my feet on the same brown squares. “Right. I’ll radio for the team if you’ll take up station on the gate and log all visitors, please. There might be someone — family — coming home from work anytime, so watch out for them and don’t let them in.”

“So will you do a full enquiry?” he asked.

“We’ll have to,” I told him.

“What? SOCOs and all that?”

“You bet.”

“Even though you know who did it?”

I tapped my nose with a finger and said: “Something’s fishy.”

“Blimey,” he replied, and went outside.

When I stepped into the front room Gilbert looked up at me and shook his head. “This is Detective Inspector Priest,” he said to the man, enunciating the words as if he were addressing a foreigner. “Perhaps you would like to talk to him.”

It looked to me as if the chief suspect was playing dumb. “Maybe we should let Sam have a look at him,” I suggested. Sam Evans is the police surgeon, and we needed him to certify the victim dead, but when a witness or suspect is in any sort of a state it’s always useful to have a medical opinion, if only for self-defence at a later date.

“Good idea,” Gilbert said, rising to his feet. “I’ll send for him while you…” he gestured towards the man, “…try to have a word.”

“I haven’t sent for the team, yet,” I said to his back.

“I’ll do it,” he replied.

The team was comprised of the collection of experts we had on duty round the clock, plus a few others that we always called in for a murder enquiry. They’d be at home now, tucking into their fish fingers and chips or playing with the kids, but they’d grab their jackets with unseemly haste and be out of the door before their wives could ask what time they’d be back. We needed SOCOs and a photographer to record the murder scene before anything was moved, exhibits and statements officers, and sundry door-knockers. Then there was the duty DCS at region, the coroner and the pathologist to inform. I dredged up the checklist from the recesses of my mind and ticked off the procedures.

The man was smartly dressed, with slip-on shoes that gleamed and a gaudy silk tie dangling between his knees. The top of his head was facing me and he was completely bald, his scalp as shiny as his shoes. I placed my hands on his lapels and eased him upright.

“Could you just sit up please,” I said to him, “so I can see you.”