‘Watch the blood,’ he said, as Erika moved around to Vicky’s head. She gently took one of her shoulders and lifted the body slightly. Peterson knelt down and peered under.
‘There’s a huge knife sticking out of her back,’ he said. Erika looked underneath and then gently replaced the body. She got up and went to the back door, examining it.
‘There’s no sign that someone broke in. The door is intact.’
‘So is the window,’ said Peterson, skirting around the mirror of blood on the floor and peering out through the window to the yard out back.
‘I should have put her in a safe house. I should have got the Family Liaison to stay with them,’ said Erika, the horror of what had happened washing over her again. ‘I thought staying with her family was a safe option.’
‘There’s no point going down that road, Erika,’ said Peterson, reaching out to touch her arm. ‘You were doing your job. You did a risk assessment. You can’t predict what’s going to happen.’
His phone rang and he answered it. Erika looked around at the kitchen. There was the empty packaging from a ready meal and a dirty plate in the sink.
‘It’s number eight on the end of the short terrace. Yeah, top of the street,’ Peterson was saying. He hung up the phone. ‘Uniform will be here in a minute.’
‘Doesn’t it seem quiet to you upstairs?’ said Erika, noticing that the creaking of Tess moving around had stopped.
She turned away from the body and hurried upstairs. There were two small bedrooms and a bathroom leading off the landing. She found Tess in the bedroom with a window facing the back garden. The bed was unmade, and she was crouching on the carpet in front of the open wardrobe doors. Erika could see inside that there was a small, built-in metal safe, like the type you see in hotels.
Tess was still in her dressing gown, and she turned to Erika with a bleak, dead-eyed stare.
‘It’s all gone,’ she said.
‘What’s gone?’ asked Erika, moving around the bed to join her. There was a pool of dirty dishes and mugs on the grubby blue carpet next to the bed, and the wardrobe above the safe was a mess of packed-in clothes on hangers.
‘Money. We had cash in here. Three thousand pounds, and Jasper had some gold jewellery. I opened the safe to take some cash with me, and it’s all gone…’ Erika heard the sound of a police siren and a car pulling up outside. ‘He’s taken it. It must be him. Jasper is the only one who knows the combination for the safe.’
Erika was confused. Tess had just discovered her sister’s dead body, and now she was worrying about what was in her safe.
‘Tess, we need to leave the house, this is now a crime scene,’ she said as gently as possible. She moved to a chair in the corner piled high with clothes; she couldn’t determine if they were clean or dirty. There was a handbag on the arm. ‘Is this your bag?’
Tess was still crouching in front of the empty safe.
‘Yes.’
Erika saw a mobile phone by the bed on a charger and she picked it up and put it in the bag. ‘Please, Tess. I know this is awful for you, but you need to put some clothes on. We need to leave.’
34
Two police officers arrived as Erika and Peterson came out of the house with Tess, who was now dressed, but still dazed and in shock. They were standing out on the pavement when a silver Ford Focus came around the corner, and slowed as it drew close. Erika saw that Jasper was driving. When he saw them standing outside the house with the police car, he put his foot down and shot past.
‘What’s he doing? He saw what was happening,’ said Erika. They watched as the car came to a screeching halt at the end of the road, and then with a roar reversed back to the junction leading to the main road. He turned into it with another screech of rubber, and the car vanished. Peterson looked at Erika.
‘I don’t like this,’ he said.
‘Neither do I, come on,’ said Erika. After quickly handing off Tess to be looked after by one of the uniforms, they jumped in to Erika’s car.
‘He’s heading towards the South Circular,’ said Peterson as Erika started the engine and put the car in gear. They set off towards the junction in pursuit of Jasper, and Peterson gripped the door as Erika floored the accelerator and switched on the blue lights and sirens. She took the left turn with a scream of rubber, and up ahead she saw Blackheath Common, the grass a dirty brown colour.
‘There,’ said Peterson. Jasper’s Ford Focus was already halfway across the Common, waiting at a set of traffic lights.