‘You took your time,’ says Alan Edgar, a sergeant in Lenny’s squad. His nickname is Poe, for obvious reasons.
‘How bad is it?’
‘Messy.’
A ghostlike figure walks from the house. Lenny Parvel is dressed in white forensic coveralls, latex gloves and a plastic face shield. She pushes back the hood and appraises me with hazel-coloured eyes. Warm. Intelligent. Judgemental.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Rampton.’
‘Are they letting him go?’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you feel about that?’
‘Nervous.’
‘That’s understandable.’
My relationship with Lenny is difficult to label. She was the young police constable who found me hiding in our garden shed, wearing muddy football socks and armed with a mattock, convinced that Elias was hunting for me. It was Lenny who coaxed me out and wrapped me in her coat and sat with me on the swings until back-up arrived.
Later, she chaperoned me during the police interviews and watched over me when I fell asleep on a foldout bed at the station. Over the next few months, she escorted me to the funerals and the coronial inquests and when Elias appeared in court. And later still, during my wilderness years, it was Lenny who came to find me when I was cutting, drinking, injecting, and vandalising my body with home-made tattoos.
Although only in her mid-forties, she has been like a mother to me, and maybe I’m like a son. Lenny didn’t have children of her own, having married an older man and helped raise his two boys, who are not much younger than me. One is a doctor, the other a dentist. A credit to them both.
Lenny hands me a set of white polythene coveralls and I shimmy inside them, pulling elasticised plastic booties over my shoes.
‘What do we know about the victim?’
‘Rohan Kirk. Aged sixty-seven. Disability pensioner. His wife died in a car accident ten years ago. Rohan was at the wheel and suffered brain injuries. They have two daughters. Twins. Thirty-two. Maya lives with her dad and runs a mobile dog-grooming business. Melody is married with kids. Lives two streets away. Maya hasn’t been seen since yesterday.’
A police siren approaches at speed. The car pulls up and a detective gets out. Dressed in a well-cut grey suit, he’s about five-nine with a wiry muscularity that will defy middle age if he stays off the booze.
He spies Lenny and something passes between them. Not so much a smile as a smirk.
‘I thought this was my case,’ he says, patting his pockets as though he misplaced the note informing him of the change.
‘I thought it might be something for SSOU,’ says Lenny. She means the Serious Sexual Offences Unit, a new task force that Lenny has been running in Nottinghamshire.
‘A man has been murdered,’ says the newcomer.
‘And his daughter is missing,’ replies Lenny.
‘That doesn’t make it a sex crime.’
‘Not yet.’
The stand-off lasts a few seconds and Lenny backs down. The detective turns his attention to me.
‘I don’t think we’ve met.’
‘DCI Gary Hoyle, this is Dr Cyrus Haven,’ says Lenny. ‘He’s our forensic psychologist.’
‘Yes, of course, I’ve heard of you,’ he says, pumping my hand. ‘You shot that guy in Scotland.’
‘In self-defence,’ I say.
‘Of course it was. His gun was empty, but you weren’t to know that.’
I can’t tell if he’s criticising me or making a genuine attempt to sympathise. I wish Evie were here.
‘Glad to have you on board,’ says Hoyle. There is something very American about his smile, broad and quick and full of optimism. In the next breath, he says, ‘I would prefer to limit contamination of the crime scene.’
‘I’m suited up.’
We match each other’s gaze for several seconds too long. Finally, he nods. ‘I shall value your input.’ Then he smacks his hands together, rubbing them as though ready to start work.
Scene-of-crime officers are carrying equipment into the house. Cameras. Lights. Biohazard bags. Back-up batteries. Swabs. Print kits. Evidence markers. Barrier tape. Duckboards. Hoyle signals to one of them that he wants a word and strides across the road.
‘He seems very friendly,’ I say.
‘Yes, he does,’ replies Lenny. ‘He’s the sort of friend I’m happy to follow.’
‘Because you don’t want him behind you.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Is he new?’
‘Hoyle? No. He’s been working with the National Crime Agency. Before that he was with SOCU. A star performer. Fast-tracked. Destined to rule us all.’
She’s talking about the Serious Organised Crime Unit.
‘A funny handshaker?’ I ask.
‘Not still a thing.’ Lenny adjusts her face shield. ‘He’s one of those detectives who seems to enjoy this job too much. It’s like he feeds off the suffering of others.’
‘A soldier who thinks that war is glorious.’
‘That sort of thing.’
I study the house, making mental notes. It fronts a quiet road, within line of sight of at least six other properties. No burglar alarm or security lights.
‘What about the neighbours?’
‘They heard nothing, for a change.’
‘Meaning?’
‘The daughter and father were known for their arguments. Rohan Kirk had a habit of calling the local cops and complaining that he was being mistreated. Said his daughters were stealing his pension payments.’
A blue van is parked in the driveway. The sign on the side says Short Bark and Sides. We have reached the entrance, which has an inner and outer door with a small porch in between designed to create a heat envelope in the winter. The outer door is double-glazed.
I step onto duckboards that are spaced along the hallway. Overcoats hang on pegs and boots are lined up beneath. The kitchen is directly ahead. The sitting room to my right.
I see his feet first, pale ankles sticking from flannelette pyjama bottoms. Dry hard patches of skin on the heels. Veins etched purple on his shins. He is curled on his side, with one arm twisted under his body. One side of his head has been smashed to a bloody pulp. He crawled no more than a few feet before dying in front of the gas fireplace. His right hand seems to be reaching out for a cushion, which has fallen from the sofa, as though he wanted something soft beneath his head.
A white duvet, speckled with blood, is lying on the floor beside him, along with a plastic Tupperware bowl.
A scene-of-crime officer is crouched beside the body.
‘Craig Dyson,’ says Lenny. ‘He’s managing the scene.’
‘We’ve met.’
Dyson turns and nods. He’s holding a moistened swab, which has been run over the victim’s fingers, nails and around the cuticles. He slips the swab into a plastic test-tube which is sealed in a tamper-proof evidence bag. Labelled. Documented. Stored.
‘Any sign of the weapon?’ I ask.
Dyson motions to a decorative fireside toolset, which includes a hard-bristled broom and a shovel. ‘The poker is missing.’ He points to the blood spray on the wall. ‘Looks like he was struck from the front as he came into the room. He kept coming and was hit again. He fell here and tried to cover his head with his arms, but the blows kept coming.’