Michael Wood - The Murder House

‘Will you let me sleep on it?’

‘Sure, no problem,’ Matilda said, slightly dejected. She thought Pat would have jumped at the chance of a project to test her brain power.

‘Pat, where’s the Gaviscon?’ Anton called out from the kitchen. ‘Those kippers I had for lunch are repeating on me.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Pat said quickly to Matilda.

DS Sian Mills was a married woman with four children. As much as she tried to leave work behind when she left the station, it was difficult not to take the emotions home with her, especially on difficult cases such as what had happened with the Mercer family. She was preparing a quick and easy meal for the family – spaghetti and meatballs. It was only when she took the mince out of the fridge, slapped it onto the chopping board and went to take a handful to roll into balls when it hit her. She couldn’t face touching the raw, pink meat. She started crying.

‘What is it?’ Stuart asked, coming into the kitchen with a basket full of dirty clothes for the laundry.

‘I can’t do this.’

‘Do what?’

‘This. I can’t touch the mince. I keep looking at it and seeing …’

Stuart put the basket on the floor and took his wife in his arms. He was much taller than Sian; in fact, he towered over her. He was a large-built man and would not have looked out of place on the rugby pitch at Twickenham. He held her close, her head on his broad chest.

‘I’m sorry,’ she cried, her words muffled.

‘Don’t be. We’ve been through this before, we’ll go through it again. I’m here for you, you know that.’

‘I’ve never seen anything like this before, Stuart.’

‘Come on.’ He led her to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair for both of them and sat Sian down. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

Sian and Stuart had been married for twenty-four years. Although Sian was not supposed to discuss delicate work matters with anyone outside of the station, she often unburdened herself on Stuart. That’s what kept their marriage so strong. They supported each other and didn’t keep secrets. She refused to be a cliché detective who hid things from her husband, bottled things up and turned to drink to ease her pain. She lowered her voice so the kids in the living room couldn’t hear and told her husband what she had spent the day doing. When she finished, he grabbed her in his massive arms and pulled her towards him once again.

Being a detective, especially working on a Homicide and Major Enquiry Team, you saw the worst side of human beings, the depraved behaviour, the evil they inflicted on others. Eventually, it began to seep into your subconscious, and suddenly, you were seeing potential killers everywhere. Having someone stable in your life, just one person, to talk to, to lean on, made all the difference. Sian could tell Stuart anything and knew it wouldn’t go any further. She trusted him with her life. She felt safe in his arms.

‘Don’t tell the kids any of this; they don’t need to know,’ Sian said when she’d finished crying.

‘Are you going to be all right? You can ask Matilda to reassign you. She’ll understand.’

‘I know she will, but, no, I can’t do that. This is my job,’ she said, trying to sound positive and determined. She looked over at the chopping board, at the pink flesh of mince waiting to be cooked. ‘Tell the kids we’re having pizza tonight,’ she smiled.

‘Will you slow down? You’re killing me.’

Chris Kean stopped running and leaned against an oak tree in Graves Park. Further ahead, Scott Andrews was speeding up the incline. He stopped, turned and headed back down.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Chris asked, breathing rapidly. ‘You’re like the Duracell bunny on acid.’

‘Sorry. Bad day,’ Scott said, stretching his limbs to keep them warm while Chris caught his breath.

‘Must have been. I’ve heard about taking your frustrations out through exercise, but this is ridiculous.’ He tried to laugh, but couldn’t.

‘I’m not frustrated, I’m just …’ Scott couldn’t finish. ‘Besides, you want a good time for the marathon, don’t you?’

‘Yes. I don’t want to kill myself though.’ Chris lowered himself down carefully and sat on the rough tarmac.

It was dark and the wind had picked up, an ice-cold stiff breeze was blowing. The temperatures hadn’t risen much above zero degrees all day. Now night had fallen, the temperature had plummeted. The clear sky, the billions of twinkling stars, the hard frost on the ground, it all looked stunning, but not when you were running in it, not when your face was bright red and your nose wouldn’t stop running.

Scott went over to him and joined him on the ground. He let out a heavy sigh.

‘Mum told me about the crime scene,’ Chris eventually said, referring to his pathologist mother, Adele Kean. ‘She said it was one of the worst she’d ever seen.’

‘It was.’

‘You stayed with the girl, didn’t you? The survivor?’

‘Yes.’

‘How is she?’

‘I was going to say she’s lucky to be alive, but is she? She’s going to live with the memory of what happened for the rest of her life, and with the fact that her father and grandparents were butchered. Would you want to live with that?’

‘She’s got an aunt. She won’t be alone.’

Scott wiped his eye before the tear fell. ‘Fuck.’ He turned away.

‘It’s OK to cry, Scott.’

‘It’s times like this that you wish you had someone to go home to.’

‘You’ve got Rory.’

Scott laughed. ‘He’s my flat mate. I meant, someone to … you know … hold you. I hate being single, sometimes.’

Chris put his arm around Scott and placed his head on his shoulder. ‘I know, mate. It’s been a while for me too. I know it’s no substitute, but you’ve got me if you need to talk.’

‘Thanks, Chris,’ he replied, not comforted.

‘And we’ve got running.’

Scott laughed.

‘And as a last resort, there’s always alcohol.’

‘And turn into Matilda Darke? No thank you.’

Scott and Chris ended their training session early. Neither were in the mood after that. Chris suggested going for a drink but was secretly pleased when Scott turned him down. He had a busy day tomorrow and a lot of marking to get done tonight. His job as an English teacher was originally temporary to cover someone on maternity leave. Fortunately for him, she decided not to return to work, so he was given the job full time. As they left Graves Park, Scott asked Chris not to tell his mother how he was dealing with this case. He didn’t want it getting back to Matilda. Chris promised.

Scott and Rory shared a two-bedroom apartment on the third floor of Riverside Exchange, on the outskirts of the centre of Sheffield. The view from the lounge overlooked the dirty water of the River Don and the sprawling city, which, at present, was a building site. Sheffield seemed to be going through a new burst of regeneration with ugly concrete eyesores being demolished and replaced with modern office blocks, cinemas and coffee outlets. Soon, the extension on Meadowhall that nobody wanted would begin. More roads would be built, more traffic would come into the city, more noise. It wasn’t shops and hotels Sheffield needed it was affordable housing. Scott and Rory were in their mid-twenties and the only way they could afford to leave their parents’ homes was to share. How long would they be doing that for? It didn’t look like either of them would be settling down soon. Another few years and they would have to decide who was going to be Jack Lemmon and who was going to be Walter Matthau.

Still wearing his Lycra running gear, Scott dragged his heavy feet along the corridor to his apartment. The bag with his work suit screwed up inside was dragging along the floor behind him. He’d pushed himself too hard tonight in Graves Park, but he needed to do something to forget what he had seen that morning in Fulwood. Not that it would make much difference: he would be seeing it again tomorrow.