Michael Wood - For Reasons Unknown - A gripping crime debut that keeps you guessing until the last page

‘Good morning,’ she said in her usual cheerful manner.

He was startled from his thoughts and quickly turned around. ‘Oh, good morning Adele. You were quick.’

‘The call came through while I was on my way in so I detoured.’

‘Well prepare yourself for a nasty one. All I can tell you is that he’s male. I can’t give you an age range or a description, he’s been roughed up pretty badly.’

‘If you want to come with me you’ll need to suit up. Sian,’ she called over to the waiting, and shivering DS, ‘can you bring some footplates from the back of my car?’

‘I’m guessing whoever designed these suits were the same people who created maternity clothing,’ Sian said as she approached the pathologist and handed over the aluminium footplates.

Adele dotted them around the alleyway, finishing directly in front of the victim.

‘Stick to the plates, please,’ she said as Hales, now suited up, entered the mouth of the alley.

She then stepped forward, surveying the surrounding area before looking down at the victim. She took a deep breath and then pulled the mask up over her mouth and nose. Hales was not kidding; he looked like he’d been through a blender.

‘I think it’s safe to say he was killed here,’ she said, pointing at the frozen globules of blood on the walls. She lifted up the left hand and had a good look at the fingernails. ‘They’re nice and neat so he took care of himself. There are some good pieces of skin under here too, whether they belong to him or the attacker I don’t know but we’ll definitely be able to get a match from them.’

‘Excellent,’ Hales said to himself. ‘Time of death?’

‘That’s not going to be easy seeing as it was bloody cold last night. I don’t think it got above freezing all day. He could have been here since ten o’clock last night or just an hour.’

‘Can’t you be more accurate?’

‘Not right now. Rigor mortis has been given a helping hand by the weather. I’ll take temperature readings but he’s stone cold.’ She shivered. The thin plastic suit she had over her clothes was not designed to withstand such cold temperatures. She couldn’t wait to get into her office and turn on the heater. ‘I’ve got my assistant coming. She’ll take some photographs, we’ll get him bagged, then back to the lab and we’ll take some samples. Give me a couple of hours and come by for the PM.’

‘Thank you, Adele.’

Hales turned his back on the crime scene and headed for the Audi. He tried to suppress his grin but this could not have worked out better. Last night he had hardly slept. Lying next to his snoring wife his mind had been a whirl of what was going to happen to him and his career now Matilda Darke was back. He’d had the creeping feeling he’d get a phone call over breakfast from the ACC telling him to return to the CID incident room, but now he could relax, for the time being. This was a fresh murder scene, and, judging by the gossip that had been doing the rounds at the station yesterday, Matilda was in no fit state to lead one. This would be his. All his. And, fingers crossed, so would every other suspicious death that happened within the South Yorkshire boundary.

Matilda woke with a vodka-induced headache and had to force herself out of bed. It was only her second day back at work but it felt like she’d never been away, and not in a good way. As she dragged herself to the shower she wished she had never gone back.

The force of the hot water stung her aching body. She was tender and every muscle seemed to be screaming out in pain. She ignored the cries to return to bed and allowed the water to cascade down her body. To continue the torture she quickly turned the temperature from hot to as cold as it could go and the needles became sharper. She soon woke up and once again her brain was alert and ready.

Like yesterday she had to force down her breakfast of an extremely strong coffee and a slice of toast before dressing and leaving the house. She had sent a text to DC Fleming the night before, saying she would pick him up and they would go straight to the Harkness house in Whirlow to watch the demolition. It was pointless going into the station first. Or did she just want to avoid seeing her replacement, Acting DCI Ben Hales?

When she reached Rory’s terraced house in Woodseats she pulled up and beeped for him. Within a minute the front door was pulled open and he bounded out of the house like a puppy going for his morning walk. She heard him shout a cheerful goodbye behind him and head towards the car. He had a silly grin on his face. She tried to remember a time when she was as happy about her job as he seemed to be, but the memory didn’t appear to exist.

‘You’re looking chirpy this morning,’ she said, indicating she was about to pull out into traffic, before Rory had secured his seatbelt.

‘Well for the first time in I can’t remember how long I had an early finish yesterday. I cooked a lovely meal, then we curled up on the sofa and watched a DVD together.’

She glanced at him and noticed his smile was even wider. She could guess the lovely evening had continued into the bedroom. She would also bet they didn’t get to the end of the DVD.

Underneath his Jonathan Creek duffel coat Rory was dressed smartly in a navy blue suit, white shirt, and light blue tie. Matilda was wearing the same navy suit as yesterday; the trousers were creased, and there was a stain on a lapel she couldn’t remember getting. Compared to her subordinate she felt like a bag lady.

‘Another cold one this morning,’ Rory said, making conversation after a silence of a couple of minutes. ‘Forecast said there could be some snow by the weekend.’

Matilda didn’t reply. She didn’t feel as if she had anything to add to the pointless dialogue.

‘What’s the plan for today then, after the demolition I mean?’

‘Well I thought we’d track down Jonathan Harkness. He’s the only relative living in the area. We’ll tell him we’re having another look at the case and see what he has to tell us.’

‘And if he doesn’t have anything new to tell us?’

‘Then we work the file. There has to be something in there that someone’s missed.’

‘Do you think he’ll remember something new twenty years down the line?’

‘I’ve absolutely no idea. The brain is a complicated organ. It can block things out to protect a person from whatever horrors they’ve experienced or it can torture them by repeating it over and over.’

‘Fingers crossed for the last option then. Let’s just hope it hasn’t screwed him up too much.’

‘Well I’m expecting him to be a complete basket case. Anything different will be a bonus.’

By the time they arrived at the scene in Whirlow a huge hydraulic excavator was being slowly driven off a low-loader. There was a team of more than a dozen workers in HI-Vis safety gear milling about preparing to begin.

The house had been surrounded by large plywood sheets to stop potential thieves or squatters gaining access and this was now being taken down. Two members of the team donned hard hats and entered the property via the back door. They were to give the house a final sweep just to make sure a homeless person wasn’t taking shelter, before the house was pulled down.

Matilda pulled up a few hundred yards away from the house. From the back seat she lifted a pile of papers: the reports she had taken home and Charlie Johnson’s book, which she was almost halfway through, and began flicking through them.

‘I was talking to my fiancée about the Harkness case last night and she had a look on the Internet about it while I was in the shower. She thinks Matthew may have a part to play in the murders.’