Paul Gitsham - Silent As The Grave

“I contacted the council who confirmed that he worked for them for many years until taking early retirement to care for his wife, when he drew a reduced pension. A fair few in the Estates department remembered him and they’ve given us a list of people he worked with regularly.

“On a similar note, forensics are still searching his house. Nothing of interest yet, but they have found the box file that he used to keep track of his part-time gardening jobs. Documents analysis are going through it and compiling a list of customer contacts.”

“Good, pass them on to Tony when you have them to set up interviews. Anything else?”

“The remainder of the mobile phone data from the cell dump is being collated as we speak, but there’s not a lot we can do with it until we get a more precise time of death. Those cell towers serve hundreds of houses each. We’re looking at over a million individual network access requests for the twenty-four hours between Thursday afternoon and Friday alone. Bloody smartphones, pinging Twitter every ten seconds to check if Beyoncé’s changed her hair.”

Warren thanked him quickly, knowing that if he didn’t cut him off now they could be in for a lengthy grumble about the frivolous use of modern technology and its impact on modern policing.

So far nothing. Were they looking at a random stabbing after all? Warren hoped not. With no extrinsic motive or apparent link to the victim, such a killer would be hard to find. The explanation gnawed at him, however. The careful hiding of the body and the fact that no witnesses had come forward suggested that if the killer was mentally disturbed, they were still in possession of at least some of their faculties. It seemed a fair degree of planning and forethought had gone into the attack.

They needed a motive.

“Then it looks as if our best bet so far is Mateo Menendez—an unemployed love rat and small-time fraudster who did the dirty on Reggie Williamson’s niece, Tabitha, and saddled her with large debts before going back to the mother of his two kids. A real charmer.” He smiled slightly. “He made quite an impression on DC Hardwick.”

“Not a good one. I need a shower.”

“Any reason to suspect him, other than possible conflict with her uncle?” asked DS Hutchinson after the chuckles had died down.

“By his own admission, he was with the kids up the common Thursday afternoon. Unfortunately, he claims to have gone home when it got dark, which is a good hour before Reggie Williamson’s mobile phone lost contact with the network. He says he was in McDonald’s before he went to the park, feeding his two toddlers something appropriately healthy and nutritious. We’re waiting for the restaurant’s CCTV footage to see if he was there when he said he was.”

“Where is he now?” asked DS Margaret Richardson, a mother of two, her expression clearly conveying what she thought of Menendez’s dietary choices for his young offspring.

“Downstairs. I’m going to bail him for further questioning. He’s co-operating so we haven’t arrested him yet and he still hasn’t asked for a lawyer, despite being advised of his rights. Either he’s as arrogant as Tabitha Williamson says, he’s incredibly naïve or he’s innocent. Maybe all three. As soon as we get a time of death, we’ll start picking away at his alibi.”

* * *

A cause and time of death became available late that evening. Professor Ryan Jordan was one of a number of Home Office Certified Pathologists used by Beds and Herts Major Crime Unit and Warren was pleased to see that he’d picked up the case. Not only was the middle-aged American highly competent and easy to work with, he didn’t insist on holding meetings in the morgue.

It wasn’t that Warren was particularly squeamish—he wouldn’t have been staring at the A4 colour photographs spread across his desk otherwise, he told himself—however, he’d rarely seen the need to see the victim’s dissected remains up close and personal. He’d much rather have high-resolution photographs, pre-interpreted by experts far more qualified than he.

“The cause of death was fairly straightforward—single stab wound to the heart. Dead before he hit the ground. There would have been lots of blood, so the attacker’s clothes would have been soaked, although the heart will have stopped pumping pretty much instantly so once he dropped there shouldn’t have been a huge puddle.”

Warren remembered the blood smears on the grass and the relatively small patch on the tarmac pathway. “Given the lack of blood spatter on the path away from the pool where we think he fell, would that be consistent with his attacker standing in front of him?”

“I’d say so. If he’d been attacked from behind—” Jordan mimed a stabbing action towards his own body “—he’d have sprayed at least some blood forward, leaving marks on the sidewalk. It looks as though his killer caught the brunt of it.”

Warren made a note on his pad. A search was already underway to comb bins and possible hiding places for discarded garments. There might also be spots of blood leading away from the scene of the attack. There hadn’t been any rain and so they might still be visible. He made a note to request a fingertip search to find any such trace.

Assuming they found a suspect, perhaps they had been seen trying to clean clothes or dispose of rubbish unexpectedly.

“What about defensive marks?”

“None that we can find.”

“So his killer took him by surprise. Do we have any information about the murder weapon?”

“From the size of the laceration, we’re talking about something sharp with a five- to six-inch blade. Not too wide, but pointed. No serrations. We’ve not found any traces of rust in the wound and, unfortunately, the nature of the attack means that it missed any bones or ribs, so there aren’t any metal fragments that would allow us to identify the knife more precisely.” Jordan shrugged. “I suspect that we’re looking at a run-of-the-mill stainless steel kitchen knife, unused, or at least well cleaned before the attack. Assuming there was any premeditation, it may have been bought anywhere from a supermarket chain to a hardware store. Find me the weapon and I might be able tell you more, but until then I’m speculating.”

Warren sighed. They’d found the victim’s wallet, but nothing else. “So it could still be a bog-standard, mugging gone wrong?”

Jordan shook his head. “I’m not so sure.” He picked up the folder that he’d brought the photographs in. “Leaving aside all the inconsistencies, the precision of the killing worries me—a single stab wound to the heart. It’s very clean. Straight into the diaphragm, missing the sternum and ribs, but angled upward directly into the heart. Ordinarily, I’d be happy to dismiss that as good luck. But there’s also the dog.”

“How was it killed? I didn’t see any blood.”

Jordan pulled out another sheet of paper. “According to the vet, its neck was broken. A shattered jaw suggests a single kick, snapping its head back with such force the cervical vertebrae were fractured.”

Warren felt a chill go down his back. “What are you suggesting, Professor?”

“A perfectly targeted, instantly fatal single stab wound to the heart with no opportunity for the victim to defend himself and a precisely killed dog, both concealed quickly with little trace evidence left behind—I think we’re dealing with a trained killer.”

Tuesday 27th March

Chapter 5

Warren was back at his desk well before seven a.m. Tuesday morning. The proverbial ticking of the clock had weighed heavily on his mind the previous night, resulting in broken and restless sleep. By late afternoon Menendez had been getting impatient and making noises about getting a lawyer so Warren had authorised his release, knowing that if Menendez was innocent, the suspect column would soon be empty. Before he left, Warren broke the news of Reggie Williamson’s murder to him. The man’s look of incredulity, then horror as he realised that he had been a suspect, strengthened Warren’s suspicion that he was not who he was looking for. Regardless, he had been unable to resist one last dig at the man who had caused Tabitha Williamson so much misery and was probably fleecing the hapless Candice even now.