Deadly Secrets: An absolutely gripping crime thriller Read online

  Mark had also been a police officer. Erika, Marsh and Mark had all trained together, but Mark had been killed four years previously, during a drugs raid. The photo of Mark was taken in the living room of the house that he and Erika had shared for fifteen years in Manchester. The sun streamed through the window, catching in his close-cropped blond hair to create a halo of gold. His face was handsome, his smile warm and infectious.

  ‘I don’t know what to say to Marsh and Marcie… I just want to turn the page and move on, without any fuss.’

  Mark grinned back.

  ‘Bah, humbug, eh? Is it too late to think up an excuse?’

  Yes, his grin seemed to say. Come on Erika, play nice.

  ‘You’re right, I can’t cancel… Happy Christmas.’ She put a finger to her lips and pressed it against the glass.

  Erika went through to the small kitchen/living room, sparsely furnished with a little sofa, a television, and a half-empty bookshelf. Perched on top of the microwave was a tiny plastic Christmas tree. It sat on top of the telly in years gone by, but since the advent of the flat screen, the top of the microwave was the only place it could go without looking ridiculous. She switched on the coffee machine, and opened the curtains. The car park and the road beyond were under a deep carpet of snow, glowing orange under the street lights. There were no people or cars, and she felt like the only person in the world. A gust of wind blew across the ground, skimming a dusting of snow across the surface to join the banked-up drift by the car park wall.

  The landline rang as she poured her coffee, and she hurried through to the hallway and answered, hoping for a miracle and that lunch was cancelled. It was Mark’s father, Edward.

  ‘Did I wake you up, love?’ he said, in his warm Yorkshire accent.

  ‘No, I’m up. Merry Christmas.’

  ‘Merry Christmas to you, too. Is it cold down there in London?’

  ‘We’ve got snow,’ she said. ‘It’s ankle deep, admittedly, but it’ll be enough to make news headlines.’

  ‘We’ve got four feet here. And over in Beverley, it’s even deeper.’ His voice sounded frail and strained.

  ‘Are you keeping warm?’

  ‘Yes, love. I’ve got the fire on, and I’m feeling a bit rakish, so I’ll keep it on all day… It’s a pity I won’t be seeing you.’

  Erika felt a twinge of guilt.

  ‘I’ll come up in the New Year. I’ve got holiday saved up.’

  ‘Have they got you working today?’

  ‘Not today. I’m invited for lunch at Paul Marsh’s place with his family… After everything that happened to them, I felt I couldn’t say no.’

  ‘Who’s that, love?’

  ‘Paul; Paul Marsh…’

  There was a pause on the line.

  ‘Yes, of course. Young Paul. Has he had any luck selling that Ford Cortina?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I doubt he’ll get much for it. It’s such a rust bucket. You can poke your finger through the body work.’

  ‘Edward, what are you talking about?’ said Erika. Marsh had owned a red Ford Cortina, but that was years ago, back in the early nineties.

  ‘Oh, course. I’m being daft… I didn’t get a very good night’s sleep. How are things with them, after what happened?’

  Erika didn’t know what to say. She twisted the phone wire in her fingers. Edward was almost eighty, but always so sharp and on the ball.

  ‘It’s early days. I haven’t seen them since…’

  She heard the kettle whistle in the background.

  ‘You give them my best, will you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’ll be off, love. I just need my morning cuppa, and to wake up. And open my presents. You take care, and happy Christmas.’

  ‘Edward, are you sure everything’s okay?’ she started, but he’d hung up.

  She stared at the phone for a moment, then went to the window. The Victorian manor house opposite was large and ornate, and like the rest of the houses on the street had been converted into flats. Several lights were now on, and she could see in one of the windows a couple with two small children opening their presents around a large Christmas tree. A woman in a thick coat struggled past on the pavement, her head down against the driving snow, pulling along a small black dog behind her. Erika went back to the phone and picked it up, then put it down again.

  * * *

  Erika got ready, and left the flat just before eleven. The snow was coming down thick, and there was a sleepy quality to the day, with all the shops closed, and she saw a few children playing outside, having a snowball fight.

  As she drove past the row of shops by Crofton Park train station, the traffic began to thicken and slow, and then things ground to a halt. The windscreen wipers squealed as they cleared the dry snow. Up ahead she could see the flash of blue police lights. This cheered her a little; it made her think of work. The traffic crept forward, and just past Crofton Park School, one of the roads on the left was blocked by two squad cars and a line of police tape. Detective Constable John McGorry was talking to two officers by the fluttering tape. As Erika drew level, she honked her horn and they looked over.

  ‘What’s going on?’ shouted Erika, winding down her window. A flurry of snow poured in, but she took no notice. McGorry pulled up the lapels of his long black coat and hurried over. He was a handsome young man in his mid-twenties, with dark hair which fell over his face with a floppy fringe. His skin was smooth and pale, and his cheeks flushed from the cold. When he reached her window, he swept back his hair with a gloved hand.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Boss. Going somewhere nice?’ he asked, noting that she was wearing make-up and earrings.

  ‘Lunch… What’s going on?’

  ‘A young woman, found stabbed to death on her doorstep. Whoever did it went crazy on her, blood everywhere,’ he said, shaking his head. The traffic in front started moving, and he stepped back onto the pavement, expecting Erika to drive off. ‘Have a nice lunch; I was hoping to be off duty by now. You on tomorrow?’

  ‘Who’s the DCI on call today?’

  ‘Peter Farley, but he’s out at a triple stabbing in Catford. People don’t seem to stop killing each other just because it’s Christmas.’

  The car in front pulled away, and a van behind sounded its horn. Erika thought how much more appealing a brutal murder scene was than Christmas lunch with Marsh. The van behind honked again. She put the car in gear and pulled up onto the pavement, causing McGorry to jump back. She grabbed her warrant card and coat and got out.

  ‘Show me the crime scene,’ she said.

  Three

  Erika flashed her warrant card, and she and McGorry ducked under the police cordon. They started along the street, passing the rundown houses where neighbours watched from their doorsteps in various states of early morning dress, gawping at the police tape at the end of the road, and craning up the street to where uniformed officers milled around another police tape cordon.

  Erika struggled to keep up with McGorry, finding the heels she’d put on for Christmas lunch had no grip on the icy pavement. She wished the weather was warm so she could take her shoes off and go barefoot.

  ‘It’s the worst day to close off the road; we’ve already had to turn people away who are coming to visit relatives…’ He glanced back and saw Erika gripping a nearby wall as she carefully picked her way along.

  ‘What?’ she said, when she’d caught up, noticing McGorry staring at her.

  ‘Nothing. You’re wearing heels,’ he said.

  ‘Great work, detective.’

  ‘No, you look great. I mean smart, really good…’

  Erika scowled and went to move off, but slipped. McGorry grabbed her just as she was about to fall.

  ‘Do you want to take my arm?’ he asked. ‘The house is a little way down the end.’

  ‘Not really, but it might be quicker. And I don’t want to go arse over tit in front of uniform.’

  She grabbed his arm and they moved off at a sl
ower pace.

  ‘I wore heels, once,’ said McGorry.

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Six-inch stilettos. When I was at Hendon, we did a charity Christmas show. I played Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest.’

  Despite her annoyance, Erika smiled as she picked her way through the ice.

  ‘Six-inch stilettos? Isn’t Lady Bracknell meant to be a staid and stuffy elderly Victorian lady?’

  ‘I’m a size twelve. They were the only heels I could get for my feet,’ he said, indicating his large shoes.

  ‘How much did you raise for charity?’

  ‘Four hundred and seventy-three pounds fifty…’

  ‘Go on then, give me a bit of Lady Bracknell,’ said Erika.

  ‘A handbag?’ he said, affecting an upper-class old lady vibrato.

  Erika shook her head and smiled, ‘I’m glad you didn’t give up your day job.’

  She let go of his arm as they reached another police cordon ballooning out in front of a terraced house near the end of the street. A low wall and a tall snow-topped hedge obscured the front garden, and through the open gate they could see a crowd of forensics officers in their blue paper Tyvek suits. The officer at the cordon peered at Erika’s warrant card.

  ‘A DCI has already been called. He’s delayed, triple stabbing in Cat…’ she started.

  ‘Well, he’s not here, and I am,’ said Erika. The officer nodded and lifted the cordon. They went to the forensics van parked up on the pavement. Another uniformed officer, a stern middle-aged woman with a nose stud and cropped grey hair, handed them each a Tyvek suit. They took off their coats, draping them over the top of the van.

  ‘Bloody hell, it’s freezing, said McGorry, quickly stepping into the legs and pulling it up over his thin suit.

  ‘It got down to minus twelve last night,’ said the officer. Erika held on to the van, balanced on one foot, and pulled on the paper suit, but her left heel caught in the fabric and tore the leg as she pulled it up.

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘I’ll bag that up; here’s another one,’ said the officer, handing her a fresh suit. Erika took it and pulled it on, but the same thing happened again. ‘You should be in flats, especially on a day like this,’ the officer said.

  Erika shot her a look, and McGorry looked away politely as she took a third suit, and successfully managed to get it on over her heels. She zipped it up, and they both pulled up the hoods. They put on shoe covers which, again, Erika found tricky, but once they were ready they moved to the front gate and entered the tiny, cramped front garden.

  Isaac Strong, the forensic pathologist, was working in the small space with two assistants. He was a tall, thin man in his early forties. The widow’s peak of his dark brown hair poked out from under the hood of his Tyvek suit. He had long, thin eyebrows, which made him look constantly quizzical.

  The blood-spattered body of a young woman was on her back under the bay window. Her long black coat lay open. The plummeting temperature during the night had frozen her spilled blood to the consistency of a ruby-red sorbet. Her throat had been sliced open, and this was where there was the most concentration of blood, stretching out in a pool underneath her. It saturated her thin green strapless dress, split up the left leg to reveal black stockings and suspenders, and it covered the bay window and sill above in a fine frosted spray.

  ‘Morning, Merry Christmas,’ said Isaac, shaking his head. His greeting hung awkwardly in the air. Erika looked back at the face of the young girl. Her face was frozen, figuratively and literally, in fear. Her lips were drawn back, and one of her front teeth was broken off close to the gum. Her eyes, though cloudy, were violet, and they were strikingly beautiful, even in death.

  ‘Do we know who she is?’ asked Erika.

  ‘Marissa Lewis, twenty-two years old,’ replied Isaac.

  ‘Is that a formal ID?’

  ‘Her mother discovered her body this morning, and there’s a driving licence in her wallet.’

  Erika crouched down and took a closer look. A square vanity case with the initials ‘M.L.’ was half-buried in snow by the hedge, and beside it was a black high-heeled shoe. They were both marked up with plastic numbers.

  ‘Anyone touched the body?’

  ‘No,’ said McGorry. ‘I was first on the scene with uniform. The mother found her and said she didn’t touch anything.’

  ‘Do you have a time of death?’

  ‘The extreme cold is going to make it difficult,’ said Isaac. ‘Her throat was slashed with a very sharp blade, resulting in deep cuts and severing both carotid arteries on each side of the neck. You can see this led to rapid blood loss, and she would have bled out very quickly. On her right hand, the index finger is almost severed, and there are lacerations to the thumb, middle finger and arms, which indicates she put up her hands to defend herself.’

  ‘There’s no way out of the garden, apart from the gate, or through the front door,’ said McGorry. Erika saw that in addition to the window, the front door had a fine spray of frozen blood on its faded blue paintwork.

  ‘Are those her keys?’ she said, noticing a bunch of keys with a heart-shaped keyring.

  ‘Yes,’ said McGorry.

  Erika closed her eyes for a moment, imagining what it must have been like, overpowered by a knife wielding maniac in this small enclosed space. She opened them again, and looked at Marissa’s face.

  ‘Her nose is broken,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. And her left cheek. We also found her front tooth, embedded in the gate post,’ said Isaac.

  Erika and McGorry turned to look at the gate post, where a numbered marker was fixed halfway up. Clumps of snow clung to the brickwork. Next to it was a wheelie bin, and a recycling box stuffed with empty vodka bottles. Erika turned back to look at the house. The curtains were drawn, no lights were on.

  ‘Where’s the mother?’

  ‘At the neighbour’s house,’ said McGorry, indicating a terraced house diagonally across the street.

  ‘And we’re sure the victim lives here? She wasn’t visiting her mum for Christmas?’

  ‘We need to check that.’

  ‘We’re going to have difficulties moving her,’ said one of Isaac’s assistants, who had finished clearing the snow from the blood-spattered legs.

  ‘Why?’ asked Erika.

  He looked up at her – a small man with large, intense brown eyes. He indicated the vast pool of frozen blood spreading out from under the body.

  ‘The blood. She’s frozen solid to the soil underneath.’

  Four

  Isaac came to the gate with Erika. He looked up at the cloud hanging low and grey.

  ‘I need to move her before the weather turns; there’s more snow on the way,’ he said. She looked back at the body, where Isaac’s assistants worked carefully to dig her out of the frozen blood-soaked soil. Erika felt the same pang of horror and excitement she always experienced at the scene of a murder. So much in her life was out of her control, but she had the power to track down whoever had done this. And she would.

  ‘When do you think you can do the post-mortem?’

  Isaac blew out his cheeks. ‘Sorry. Couple of days. I have a backlog; this is a busy time of year for suspicious deaths. And did I tell you? I’ve been moved. I’m working out of the morgue at Lewisham Hospital.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since the morgue in Penge has been sold to a developer. A big sign went up for Parkside Peninsula Apartments a few weeks ago, and we moved last week. It’s causing all sorts of delays.’

  ‘Parkside Peninsula Apartments, Penge,’ repeated Erika, raising an eyebrow. Isaac raised one in return.

  ‘Oh, and another thing,’ he said. ‘Blood spatter. The person who did this would have been covered in blood and carrying a weapon, but the drops of blood end abruptly at the gate.’

  ‘You think they wiped the knife? Or had a vehicle parked by the gate?’ asked Erika.

  ‘That’s for you to find out,’ said Isaac. ‘I�
�ll keep you in the loop with the post-mortem.’ He went back into the front garden.

  Erika and McGorry changed out of their Tyvek suits, handed them in, then ducked under the police tape into the road. They buttoned up their coats against the cold. A large police support van had just arrived, and was attempting to park against the kerb. One of the police cars pulled out to make extra room, and it got stuck in the snow, its wheels spinning and squealing.

  ‘So, we’re looking at someone who had a car, potentially,’ said Erika. ‘They got in and drove away. But where?’ Erika looked up and down the street. The house was on the end of the terrace, with an alleyway running along the side. It was overlooked by the back gardens of the houses in Howson Road, which ran parallel to Coniston Road. ‘I want to get the house-to-house going ASAP. There should be plenty of people home on Christmas Day. I want to know if anyone saw anything, and I need the details of persons of interest in the area: violent offenders, anyone with previous or ongoing convictions.’

  Two uniformed officers had come to help the squad car, and were giving it a push. The engine roared and the wheels spun.

  ‘There’s a railway bridge at the end of the next road, which leads over to the Fitzwilliam Estate,’ said McGorry.

  Erika nodded. ‘Worth including in our H2H, but whoever goes in there needs to go easy.’ She knew that the Fitzwilliam Estate, like many high-rise council buildings in poor areas, was known for trouble. She peered down the long alleyways running along each side of the terraces. ‘And we need to check out if any garden gates back onto these alleyways…’

  They stepped out of the way as the squad car broke free from the snow. It shot past, took a right at the end of the street, and parked outside the school opposite. The support van pulled into the gap by the kerb and turned off its engine. In the sudden silence came the click of a camera shutter. Erika turned to McGorry.