A Matter of Blood (21 page)

‘Sorry, excuse me—’

Someone fully clothed in plastic pushed between Mat and Claire: Josh Eagleton, the young lab assistant. He almost dropped the camera he was carrying in his hurry to get to the bedside.

‘You’re late.’ The ME stared coolly at him.

‘I had no change for parking. I didn’t think. I’m so sorry . . .’ The boy’s eyes slipped away from his boss’. He was sweating and flustered and Claire felt rather sorry for him. Cass could be a bastard to work for at times, but Dr Farmer was much worse.

‘You can work through your lunch. Now start the photos.’

Bowman pushed away from the wall and looked at his own assistants. ‘Two for the price of one?’

‘I thought the more the merrier, sir,’ Claire answered, cutting in before Mat could speak. ‘I’d only have to catch up on Monday, anyway.’ She glanced back at the bed, drawn by the first camera flash. ‘Who is she? A patient?’ She couldn’t help the slight jangling in her nerves. Strain II was far more contagious than the original HIV/AIDS .

‘No,’ Dr Farmer said, ‘she’s got far too much meat on her for Strain II .’

‘Charming as ever,’ Bowman interjected. ‘She’s a specialist nurse here. Her name’s Hannah West, thirty-eight years old. She was on the night shift. Matron found her when she came on duty at eight this morning.’

‘Jesus.’ Mat’s nose wrinkled. ‘How long had she been here?’

‘According to the charts, she completed her last round with meds at two a.m. Her shift was set to finish at six. Her husband rang at seven forty-five to see where she was. He had to get to work and she was supposed to be home in time to watch the kids. They live in Kentish Town.’

‘He works on a Saturday?’ Claire asked.

‘Yeah, in a supermarket, apparently. He used to be in sales, lost his job a year or so back. Anyway, the day shift came looking and they found her in here. Matron took it upon herself to call the husband and tell him after she’d called us. Luckily, we got here first.’

‘Where is he?’

‘A couple of uniforms have him stashed somewhere. They’re taking a statement now that the poor bugger’s finally calming down. He didn’t get in here, at least.’

‘This is a big room for just one person,’ Claire said. ‘I thought there was a bed shortage going on?’

‘There were three patients in here, but the occupant of this bed died yesterday and they were going to move in someone new today.’

‘But our man got here first,’ Mat muttered. He shook his head. ‘How could he have done this with other people in the room?’

‘I wouldn’t consider the other two as people,’ Dr Farmer said, dryly, ‘not in the sense of witnesses, at any rate. They’re not exactly in full control of their faculties. They’re completely out of it, on a cocktail of drugs that includes a hefty dose of morphine. They’re both advanced cases with not long left.’ He looked over at Bowman. ‘And even the less ill patients are heavily sedated at night. The hospitals are short-staffed and operate a skeleton crew at night. If everyone’s asleep, it makes the job much easier to do.’ He peered upwards. ‘The curtains were drawn around her when she was found. If either of the other two had noticed anything - which is doubtful - they’d probably have just thought a new patient was being brought in.’

‘The hospital must be short-staffed if no one noticed her missing until her husband rang up,’ Claire said.

‘A lot of nurses refuse to work with the Strain II cases. They don’t get paid enough to take that kind of risk.’ The ME looked up and smiled. ‘I’d say she died not long after she finished that two a.m. round, or so her liver temperature would have me believe.’

‘I’m presuming by the words that he hasn’t changed his
modus operandi
in the past few days?’ Bowman stepped slightly closer. Claire thought he looked almost as pale as the body they were studying.

‘He’s injected her in her right arm, same as the rest. Her eyes are open. But look—’ He signalled Bowman closer and pointed at the red words on the woman’s chest. Claire stepped forward and peered over the DI ’s shoulder.

‘Look at the edges.’ There was something close to awe in the ME’s voice. ‘He’s painted the words in blood, as usual, then he’s outlined his words with the eggs, one behind the other in an absolutely perfect line.’

Claire looked. Although the words themselves were uneven, the ME was right: exactly as he described, the tiny white grains were laid out with the tip of each just touching the one before and the one behind. ‘
Incredible
,’ she breathed.

‘How has he done that?’ Bowman asked, incredulous.

‘God only knows. It’s like the eyes. He gets them in there perfectly too. Josh and I tried for hours, but we damaged some every time.’ He looked up at his assistant, who nodded from behind the camera.

‘He’s getting more ambitious.’ It was the first thing Dr Hask had said. Unlike the rest of them, he hadn’t moved but remained with his back against the far wall.

‘I’ve listened to the analysis you did with Jones,’ Bowman said, turning to him, ‘and it sounded good, but maybe you’re off the mark a bit? This stuff about displacing them, putting them where they don’t belong?’ He spread his hands. ‘This is a hospital, and she’s a nurse. This one’s hardly out of place, is she?’

‘But she is,’ Claire cut in before Dr Hask could answer. She could see it clearly. ‘She’s a nurse, not a patient. She shouldn’t be on a dead patient’s bed. She’s here to help them. She’s not infected. She’s a world away from the people that are patients in this wing.’

The profiler nodded. ‘That’s exactly right. This might be more subtle than the others, but she’s definitely somewhere she doesn’t belong. There’s almost an irony with this one. Maybe he’s starting to respect the opposition a little more. Whatever the reason, he’s definitely upping the ante.’

‘Oh, great. That’s just what we need.’ Bowman stepped back.

‘Show-offs invariably take a tumble, Detective Inspector. Let’s just hope this one does it sooner rather than later.’

The SOC team loitered in the doorway, eager to get on with their job, and Claire followed the three men out into the corridor. She could understand Bowman’s concerns. They were the same as Cass’s had been, primarily the press, and the ability they had to destroy careers. With this murder the killer had taken the cards out of police hands.

The corridor they were standing in was sealed off now, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that the details would be all over the papers by tomorrow. Nurses’ salaries were low and the red tops would pay well for a story like this. This new victim was a nurse and a mother, and was murdered in the hospital itself. Add that to the other details and you had a juicy by-line for any up-and-coming hack, and a guaranteed splash and spread. Claire could practically see the headlines.

‘The DCI tells me I’m holding a press conference this afternoon.’ Bowman headed slowly towards the stairs at the end. As the others followed it sounded as if they were walking through snow, their plastic soles crunching against the lino.

‘He’s no happier about it than I am, but we’ve got no choice. We’ve been lucky enough so far with keeping a lid on it, but someone in this building will call it in, and we’ll have no way of knowing who that will be. And you can bet that as soon as the papers have one story, then everyone who’s kept quiet over the others will realise this is a serial and want their share of the media pie.’ He turned to the profiler. ‘You can help me figure out what we’re going to say - what to leave in, what to leave out. If there’s anything we can mention that might make our man mad or draw him out.’

‘Not a problem.’

Claire felt a hand tug at her sleeve and she turned. It was Josh Eagleton.

‘How’s DI Jones?’ His voice was low, and Claire didn’t blame him. Cass’s name was mud around here.

‘He’s okay. This mess will all get straightened out eventually. It’s just bad timing - he hasn’t done anything wrong.’ She was aware of how defensive she sounded, but she couldn’t help it. Everyone else was too damn keen to believe that Cass was lying. She knew Cass’s faults, probably better than any of them, but she also knew that if he’d been there when things had kicked off with Christian, he would have stayed and dealt with it. She knew his record. She knew what he’d done. But that was a long time ago, and a very different situation.

‘Come on, Claire.’ Bowman had reached the door. ‘If you’re working, you’re coming back to the station with us. Otherwise, go home.’

‘Sorry.’ She smiled at the young man. ‘Got to go.’

‘I think he’s innocent too,’ Josh said, almost whispering.

She’d already turned away, aware that the others were waiting for her. ‘Thanks. That’s good to know.’ Maybe the ME’s new assistant wasn’t as bad as Cass had thought. She gave him another brief smile goodbye before picking up her pace and catching the others in the doorway where they were pulling off their shoe covers and dumping them in the bin.

‘Claire, find wherever the constable is with the husband and get his account of her day yesterday. Also, talk to some of her colleagues. See what they say about her,’ Bowman said. ‘Then grab a lift back to the station with a uniform.’

‘Yes, sir.’ She glanced back, and as the double doors swung closed she saw the geeky young man still watching her from the corridor, looking skinny and awkward in his plastic overalls. The plastic hood tight over his head wasn’t helping.

‘Has he got a crush on you or something?’ Blackmore frowned.

‘Maybe.’ She grinned at him. ‘He wouldn’t be the first, and he won’t be the last.’

She left her lover staring after her as she took the stairs down to find poor Hannah West’s husband. The reply had been unusually cocky for her, but Mat deserved it for being such an asshole for the past few days. And anyway, someone had to keep the Cass Jones spirit alive at Paddington Green until he got back. It might as well be her.

 

He knew Kate wasn’t there the moment he shut the front door behind him. The house felt empty, as if it had somehow been switched off and was waiting for some human content before becoming a home again. Cass called his wife’s name anyway, but there was no reply; even the house remained silent, with not even a click or whir from any of the kitchen appliances, or water gurgling through the radiators. He waited in the hallway for a moment. She’d said she’d be out, so it shouldn’t have come as any surprise, but he still couldn’t fight the small wave of disappointment. But at least there wouldn’t be another argument, no more accusations. He was in no state to face them right now.

He’d planned on taking a shower before getting his stuff together, but now that he was back in the house he figured he’d take a raincheck until he got to whatever hotel he’d end up checking into, despite how grungy he was. The house was already beginning to feel as if he didn’t belong there, and getting naked in the bathroom would be weird now - especially if Kate came back before he was done. He’d just have to bear the grime and cigarette smoke from his night’s excesses for a couple of hours longer.

He went into the spare bedroom and hauled down a suitcase from the top of the wardrobe before heading into the master suite. He stopped in the doorway. The bed hadn’t been slept in. Kate had obviously changed the bedding, but the creases ironed into the pillowcases by Mrs Cooper were still clear. The same with the duvet cover. His stomach tightened. There was the possibility that she’d changed them this morning before going out, but that wasn’t Kate’s way; she wasn’t a morning person. She’d have got up, showered and dressed and gone out before he’d got here. That would have been it. He went into the en-suite and felt the bristles of her toothbrush. They were dry.

He went back in the bedroom and stared at the bed for a few moments before throwing the suitcase on it. As he opened the cupboard and looked at the racks of clothes, not knowing what the fuck to take and what to leave behind, he felt a twinge of something close to jealousy. If Kate hadn’t slept here at the house, then where had she slept? And with whom? It annoyed him that he immediately wondered if she’d found a male shoulder to cry on . . . but maybe she had. He couldn’t exactly blame her if she had gone and slept with someone else; it wasn’t like he hadn’t done his share. But emotions didn’t work like that. He took a deep breath. He was overreacting. She’d probably just gone to one of the friends she was constantly on the phone to. He thought about his own brief relationship with Claire during their split. Maybe Kate had found someone too, and perhaps she’d now rekindled it. He couldn’t help the twist in his guts that came with that thought.

He looked at the neat pillowcases again. If she’d had no intention of sleeping in their bed that night, then why the hell had she insisted on kicking him out? He knew that his anger was probably unreasonable, but that didn’t stop him giving it free rein. Anger was better than pain, and unreasonable was what Kate and the rest of the world had come to expect from him anyway.

After shoving most of what he needed in the suitcase he added his phone charger and electric razor and zipped it up. Anything he’d missed he could come back for, or buy. He headed back downstairs.

The lounge was filled with too many expensive knickknacks that he hadn’t chosen and wasn’t even sure that he liked. There was nothing there that he wanted to take, and even if there had been, a small part of him was still hoping that maybe once all this was sorted, Kate would relent. Maybe he’d even agree to whatever counselling it was she kept pushing for. If he started taking things from the home, well, that was like admitting the marriage was dead. He hadn’t accepted that in all these years, and he wasn’t quite sure he was ready to cave in yet.

He carefully pulled Christian’s slim laptop bag out from behind the large TV attached to the wall. His brother and he were so different in so many ways; you only had to look at their houses to see that, but on some level he wondered if Christian’s home was as much of a façade as his own. It was the laptop Cass had taken to try and find a way inside his brother’s mind, not anything from his easy, comfortable home, nor the hard drive from his PC that sat on his desk that Jess and Luke had access to. If something was bothering Christian, he would have hidden it in his private files somewhere. He was too organised to put it anywhere else.