DI Sean Corrigan Crime Series: 5-Book Collection: Cold Killing, Redemption of the Dead, The Keeper, The Network and The Toy Taker

‘Looks that way. It’s early days, but there’s definitely some decent hi-fi and TV stuff around the place, and I notice several of the photies have our boy in far-flung corners of the world. Must have cost a few pennies. We’re not dealing with a complete loser here. He had a decent enough job, or he was a decent enough villain, although I don’t get the feel this is a villain’s home.’ Both men craned their heads around the hallway area, as if to confirm Donnelly’s assessment so far. He continued: ‘And I’ve found a few letters all addressed to a Daniel Graydon. Nothing for anyone else.’

‘Well, Daniel Graydon,’ Sean asked, ‘what the hell happened to you? And why?’

‘Shall we?’ With an outstretched hand pointing along the corridor, Donnelly invited Sean to continue.

They moved from room to room, leaving the living room to the end. They trod carefully, moving around the edges so as not to disturb any invisible footprint indentations left in the carpets or minute but vital evidence: a strand of hair, a tiny drop of blood. Occasionally Sean would take a photograph with his small digital camera. He would keep the photographs for his personal use only, to remind him of details he had seen, but also to put himself back at the scene any time he needed to sense it again, to smell the odour of blood, to taste the sickly sweet flavour of death. To feel the killer’s presence. He wished he could be alone in the flat, without the distraction of having to talk to anyone – to explain what he was seeing and feeling. It had been the same ever since he was a young cop, his ability to step into the shoes of the offender, be it a residential burglary or murder. But only the more alarmingscenes seemed to trigger this reaction. Walking around scenes of domestic murders or gangland stabbings he saw more than most other detectives, but felt no more than they did. This scene already seemed different. He wished he was alone.

Sean felt uncomfortable in the flat. Like an intruder. As if he should be constantly apologizing for being there. He shook off the feeling and mentally absorbed everything. The cleanliness of the furniture and the floors. Were the dishes washed and put away? Had any food been left out? Did anything, no matter how small, seem somehow out of place?If the victim kept his clothing neatly folded away, then a shirt on the floor would alert Sean’s curiosity. If the victim had lived in squalor, a freshly cleaned glass next to a sink full of dirty dishes would attract his eye. Indeed, Sean had already noted something amiss.

Sean and Donnelly came to the living room. The door was ajar, exactly how it had been found by the young constable. Donnelly moved inside. Sean followed.

There was a strong smell of blood – a lot of blood. It was a metallic smell. Like hot copper. Sean recalled the times he’d tasted his own blood. It always made him think that it tasted exactly like it smelled. At least this man had been killed recently. It was summer now – if the victim had been there for a few days the flat would have reeked. Flies would have filled the room, maggots infesting the body. He felt a jolt of guilt for being glad the man had just been killed.

Sean crouched next to the body, careful to avoid stepping in the pool of thick burgundy blood that had formed around the victim’s head. He’d seen many murder victims. Some had almost no wounds to speak of, others had terrible injuries. This was a bad one. As bad as he’d seen.

‘Jesus Christ. What the hell happened in this room?’ Sean asked.

Donnelly looked around. The dining-room table was overturned. Two of the chairs with it had been destroyed. The TV had been knocked from its stand. Pictures lay smashed on the floor. CDs were strewn around the room. The lights from the CD player blinked in green.

‘Must have been a hell of a fight,’ Donnelly said.

Sean stood up, unable to look away from the victim: a white male, about twenty years old, naked from the waist up, wearing hipster jeans that were heavily soaked in blood. One sock remained on his right foot, the other was nowhere to be seen. He was lying on his back, the left leg bent under the right, with both arms stretched out in a crucifix position. There were no restraints of any kind in evidence. The left side of his face and head had been caved in. The victim’s light hair allowed Sean to see two serious head wounds indicating horrific fractures to the skull. Both eyes were swollen almost completely shut and his nose was smashed, with congealed blood clustered around it. The mouth hadn’t escaped punishment, the lips showing several deep cuts, with the jaw hanging dislocated. Sean wondered how many teeth would be missing. The right ear was nowhere to be seen. He hoped to God the man had died from the first blow to his head, but he doubted it.

The pool of blood by the victim’s head was the only heavy saturation area other than his clothing. Elsewhere there were dozens of splash marks: on the walls, furniture and carpet. Sean imagined the victim’s head being whipped around by the ferocity of the blows, the blood from his wounds travelling in a fine spray through the air until it landed where it now remained. Once examined properly, these splash marks should provide a useful map of how the attack had developed.

The victim’s body had not been spared. Sean wasn’t about to start counting, but there must have been at least fifty to a hundred stab wounds. The legs, abdomen, chest and arms had all been brutally attacked. Sean looked around for weapons, but could see none. He returned his gaze to the shattered body, trying to free his mind, to see what had happened to the young man now lying dead on his own floor. For the most fleeting of moments he saw a figure hunched over the dying man, something that resembled a screwdriver rather than a knife gripped in his hand, but the image was gone as quickly as it arrived. Finally he managed to look away and speak.

‘Who found the body?’

‘That would be us,’ Donnelly replied.

‘How so?’

‘Well, us via a concerned neighbour.’

‘Is the neighbour a suspect?’

‘No, no,’ Donnelly dismissed the idea. ‘Some young bird from a few doors down, on her way home with her kebab and chips after a night of shagging and drinking.’

‘Did she enter the flat?’

‘No. She’s not the hero type, by all accounts. She saw the door slightly open and decided we ought to know about it. If she’d been sober, she probably wouldn’t have bothered.’

Sean nodded his agreement. Alcohol made some people conscientious citizens in the same way it made others violent temporary psychopaths.

‘Uniform sent a unit around to check it out and found our victim here,’ Donnelly added.

‘Did he trample the scene?’

‘No, he’s a probationer straight out of Hendon and still scared enough to remember what he’s supposed to do. He kept to the edges, touched nothing.’

‘Good,’ Sean said automatically, his mind having already moved on, already growing heavy with possibilities. ‘Well, whoever did this is either very angry or very ill.’

‘No doubt about that,’ Donnelly agreed.

There was a pause, both men taking the chance to breathe deeply and steady themselves, clearing their minds, a necessary prelude before trying to think coldly and logically. Seeing this brutality would never be easy, would never be matter-of-fact.

‘Okay. First guess is we’re looking at a domestic murder.’

‘A lover’s tiff?’ Donnelly asked.

Sean nodded. ‘Whoever did this probably took a fair old beating themselves,’ he added. ‘A man fighting for his life can do a lot of damage.’

‘I’ll check the local hospitals,’ Donnelly volunteered. ‘See if anyone who looks like they’ve been in a real ding-dong has been admitted.’

‘Check with the local police stations for the same and wake the rest of the team up. Let’s get everyone together at the station for an eight a.m. briefing. And we might as well see if we can get a pathologist to examine the body while it’s still in place.’

‘That won’t be easy, guv.’

‘I know, but try. See if Dr Canning is available. He sometimes comes out if it’s a good one, and he’s the best.’

‘I’ll do what I can, but no promises.’

Sean surveyed the scene. Most murders didn’t take long to solve. The most obvious suspect was usually the right suspect. The panicked nature of the crime provided an Aladdin’s cave of forensic evidence. Enough to get a conviction. In cases like this, detectives often had to do little more than wait for the laboratory to examine the exhibits from the scene and provide all the answers. But as Sean looked around something was already niggling away at his instincts.

Donnelly spoke again. ‘Seems straightforward?’

‘Yeah, I’m pretty happy.’ He let the statement linger.

‘But …?’

‘The victim almost certainly knew his killer. No forced entry, so he’s let him in. A boyfriend is a fair bet. This smells like a domestic murder. A few too many drinks. A heated argument. A fight kicks off and gets nastier and nastier, both end up beaten to a pulp and one dies. A crime of passion which the killer had no time to prepare. He’s lost it for a while, killed a friend. A lover. Now all he wants to do is run. Get away from this flat and be somewhere safe to think out his next move. But there’s a couple of things missing for me.’

‘Such as?’

‘They’ve probably been having a drink, but there are no glasses anywhere. Can you remember dealing with a domestic murder where alcohol wasn’t involved?’

‘Maybe he cleaned the place up a bit?’ Donnelly offered. ‘Washed the glasses and put them away.’

‘Why would he bother cleaning a glass when his blood and fingerprints must be all over the place after a struggle like this?’

‘Panic?’ Donnelly suggested. ‘Wasn’t thinking straight. He cleaned up his glass, maybe started to clean up other stuff too before he realized he was wasting his time.’

‘Maybe.’

Sean was thinking hard. The lack of signs of alcohol was a small point, but any experienced detective would have expected to find evidence of its use at a scene like this. An empty bottle of cider. A half-empty bottle of Scotch, or a champagne bottle to fuel the rage of the rich. But it was the image he was beginning to visualize that was plaguing him with doubt – the image his mind was piecing together using evidence that was missing as much as evidence that was present. The image of a figure crouching very deliberately over the victim. No frenzy, no rage, but evil in a human form.

‘There’s something else,’ he told Donnelly. ‘The killing obviously took place in the living room. We know he must have gone out the front door because everything else is locked up nice and tight. But the hallway is clean. Nothing. The carpet is light beige, yet there’s no sign of a bloody footprint. And the door handle? Nothing. No blood. Nothing.