Sian left the room, dialling as she went.
‘Where’s the woman who found them, now?’
‘She’s been taken to hospital. She was hysterical when we got here. Oh, there’s a wet patch on the carpet on the landing. It’s where she wet herself.’
‘OK. I’ll let forensics know.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Scott asked.
‘Go to the hospital and keep me informed of the girl’s condition. Take a uniform with you to keep guard.’
‘Do you think the killer will come back?’
‘I’ve no idea, but it’s a possibility.’
Matilda made her way carefully around the butchered man at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the attic. She felt her mobile phone vibrate in her pocket but ignored it. She couldn’t take her eyes from the man. Despite the horror of his final minutes, he looked at peace. Who would do something so violent, so shocking to another person?
The stairs leading up to the second floor were drenched in blood; smeared footprints and the odd paw print. Matilda looked down at her feet. The protective overshoes were covered in blood. When she got to the landing, she pulled another pair out of her pocket and replaced the saturated ones.
The attic was a hive of activity as Adele worked with the crime scene investigators. Arc lights had been erected and lit up the scene in an intruding bright white. Matilda entered the room and saw Lucy to one side, tears streaming down her face.
‘I’m sorry. I’ll be all right in a minute,’ she said.
Matilda felt sorry for her. She tried to remember when she was new to the job and the first crime scenes she had attended. In her whole twenty plus years on the force, she had never seen anything as horrific as this. If she had entered the scene as a twenty-something, she would have fainted and probably handed in her notice.
‘Why don’t you go outside for some air?’
‘I can’t. I’m needed here,’ she said between sobs.
‘I’m sure they can spare you for five minutes.’
‘I don’t think I can go down. I don’t want to see that man. Did you see his head? Oh God.’
Matilda didn’t know what else to say. She placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder then moved away towards the bloodshed.
Adele, crouched over the bed, stood up when she caught Matilda approaching out of the corner of her eye. Her blue forensic suit was stained red. She looked like the killer in a slasher film.
‘Late-fifties, early-sixties, at a guess,’ she said. ‘I’ve no idea how many times she’s been stabbed. Once we get her to the mortuary and cleaned up I’ll give you a better idea. Most of the wounds are to her face, chest and stomach. Look around you, the length of the sprays, this was savage.’
Matilda looked up at the ceiling and took in the sight of red lines, flicked up as the knife was pulled out of the body.
‘Lucy, I need your help here to turn her over,’ Adele called out.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Matilda said.
Matilda backed away and watched as Adele and Lucy gently turned the woman over. She tried to get a look at her face, see if she recognized her from somewhere, but there were no definable features. This woman had been destroyed.
Lucy turned away and made a gagging noise as if she was about to be sick. Matilda looked back at the body.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ she asked.
‘Her intestines? Yes.’ Adele nodded.
‘What the hell has he done? Removed her organs?’
‘I won’t know until I conduct a full PM. It’s not unusual, though, for someone to stab so frenzied that they dislodge the intestines.’ Adele sounded so calm, so professional. How was that possible?
‘You’ve seen something like this before?’ Matilda asked.
‘Only in text books.’
More photographs were taken by the forensic team. Matilda couldn’t take her eyes from the butchered woman. She was reminded of one of Jack the Ripper’s victims. The carnage, the sense of anger and hatred the killer must have had to perform an act of pure evil. Matilda uttered a goodbye to Adele, but she was wrapped up in her work so didn’t hear. She turned to the staircase, and headed back down, frowning at the position of the bloody footprints. A flash of something entered her head, then disappeared just as quickly.
As she reached the landing, she stepped over the man again, looking him directly in the eyes. There was nothing there. She was staring death in the face and it was looking right back at her.
‘Matilda.’ She heard her name being called from the hallway downstairs. Glad of the distraction, she turned away.
Walking downstairs, she saw how her white forensic suit and gloves were smeared with blood, even though she hadn’t touched anything. It was everywhere. Her plastic overshoes were slippery on the wood flooring of the hallway. She closed her eyes as she carefully stepped around the body at the bottom of the stairs.
‘I’ve got an ID on our victims,’ Sian said, heading into the living room.
‘Go on.’
‘Clive and Serena Mercer live here alone. They have two children: Jeremy and Leah. Now, according to neighbours, Leah got married yesterday and she and her new hubby left for their honeymoon early evening. Jeremy came home from Liverpool for the wedding with his daughter, Rachel, and stayed the night.’
‘So he’s our other victim?’
‘It looks like it.’
‘And the little girl is his daughter.’
‘It would appear so.’
‘Where’s her mother?’
‘Apparently, she died a few years ago.’
‘We need a contact number for Leah. I don’t want her hearing about this on the news. Do we know where she’s gone for her honeymoon?’
‘Paris,’ Sian replied, looking down at her pad.
‘OK. Have a look around, try and find something that tells us whereabouts she’s gone and we’ll arrange for the local police to go around and tell her. Where is everyone?’ Matilda asked, looking around and seeing no police officers.
‘I’ve just seen Scott drive off. Rory is in the back garden. He looked dreadful. I haven’t seen anyone else.’
‘Give Christian another ring. We need more people here. I need to go and see Valerie. This is going to go international once the press gets to know about it.’
Matilda left the house and peeled off the forensic suit. She passed a police car with its back door open. Behind a grill was a puppy Dalmatian caked in blood. Laying down, his head between his front paws, he looked up at Matilda with large sad eyes as she approached.
‘Hello sweetheart.’ She put a few fingers through the grill and scratched the top of his head. His tail wagged, but he didn’t stand up. ‘You’re missing Rachel?’ His ears pricked at the sound of a familiar name. ‘Poor thing. What did you see in that house?’ She tore herself away from the dog and headed to her car.
At the top of the drive she turned back to look at the house. It was a beautiful family home. Yesterday, there was a wedding. Everyone would have been so happy to watch two young people begin their new life together. They will have laughed, danced, and drank well into the night. Within hours it was a scene of horror.
It reminded Matilda how fragile life was. She