The Doll's House (4 page)

‘D
earie dearie me.'

The pathologist had arrived. She stood at the doorway, suiting up. Tall, slim, long hair pulled back into a ponytail. How apt, thought Phil. By her accent and bearing she seemed more at home on a horse than with a corpse.

She smiled at him. ‘Esme Russell. You must be the new boy.' She sounded like she had never mispronounced a word in her life.

Phil introduced himself.

‘Welcome aboard.' She crossed to the body. ‘Now, what have we here…'

‘No one's touched her,' said Sperring. ‘Been waiting for you, Esme.'

‘And so you should, Ian, so you should. Right.' She stood over the body. ‘Dearie me. Something she ate disagreed with her?'

‘You tell us,' said Sperring.

Crime scenes were always horrific. And those that attended them often hid their revulsion with sardonic gallows humour. The alternative being to break down in tears or throw up. It was something Phil had never subscribed to. Laughing, for whatever reason, disturbed the scene, blocked the signals, the instructions that the ghosts were sending, made them angry. And he didn't want that. He carried enough angry ghosts around with him already.

‘You boys can run off and busy yourself with whatever it is you boys do.'

Phil shared a look with Sperring, who moved towards the hall. ‘Let's have a look upstairs,' he said. ‘We'll leave you alone, Esme.'

‘Hardly that.' She turned to the body, already engrossed.

They left the room and started up the stairs. They reached the landing, both treading warily in case they disturbed any potential evidence, hands not touching walls or banister, feet making as little tread as possible. Phil looked out the window. Uniforms were going door to door, talking to neighbours, trying to build up a picture of the mysterious Glenn McGowan. TV vans and journalists were waiting ready to pounce behind the barrier. Phil had to shield his eyes from the glare of the arc lights.

‘Day fourteen in the Big Brother house,' he said with a terrible Geordie accent.

Sperring didn't reply.

The redecoration downstairs hadn't extended upstairs. It was slightly shabby. Clean but not cared for. A typical rental property.

Something on the landing caught Phil's eye. He knelt down. Studied the carpet. Took his iPhone out, switched on the flashlight.

‘Ian, what d'you think that is?'

Sperring knelt down alongside him. Looked where Phil indicated. The carpet was a nondescript brown, tough and hard-wearing, but dotted about were areas of darker discoloration. The DS unfastened his paper suit, reached into his pocket, took out a pair of reading glasses. Peered at the marks once more.

‘Blood, I reckon,' he said.

‘Me too,' said Phil. ‘Let's get Jo and her team to take a look. Do a luminol test.'

He straightened up, looked round the landing, deciding which room to try first. It was hived off into three bedrooms, each one smaller than the last, and a bathroom.

‘I'll start here,' he said, entering the smallest bedroom.

Sperring moved off to one of the others.

The room held a laptop, desk and chair. Some empty shelves on the wall. A racing car calendar had been pinned up. Phil checked the dates. The last entry was 10 December, the previous Friday night. It had a big star scribbled on it. There was nothing planned beyond that.

He left the room, moving into the main bedroom. It had a bed, two side tables and a wardrobe. All in variations of brown and beige. He opened the wardrobe. A couple of suits, some jeans. A few plaid shirts. T-shirts, socks, underwear. An empty canvas holdall on top of the wardrobe. Nothing remarkable. He left the room for the bathroom.

It was small, feeling crowded even with just Phil in there. He looked round. The showerhead was lying in the bath, curled like a long metal snake. There was something around the rim of the tub.

He knelt down, examining it closely. Dried blood. Watered down but not totally washed away. He checked the shower curtain. The same. It had been streaked a pinkish-brown colour in parts. The wall behind the bath too.

Phil felt that familiar tingle. This was the crime scene. He was sure of it.

He stood up again, scrutinised. The bathroom looked clean apart from that. Trying to leave as little trace as possible, he carefully opened the mirrored cabinet on the wall. It was divided in half. On one side was shaving equipment, aftershave. Men's moisturiser. Toothbrush and mouthwash. On the other side were more feminine things. Make-up. Removing pads. False eyelashes. Depilatory cream. Phil noticed the halves weren't equal. The female side was fuller, overpowering the male side.

Glenn McGowan hadn't lived here alone, he thought.

He closed the cabinet door but didn't move. He'd missed something. He turned, open the door again. Saw it.

Two people, but only one toothbrush.

Maybe she just visits, he thought. Leaves her stuff here. He looked again. Awful lot of stuff…

He closed the cabinet door, left the bathroom.

‘Think I've found the crime scene,' he said to Sperring. ‘Bathroom.'

Sperring nodded. ‘Come and look at this, sir.'

Must be important, thought Phil. The older man had forgotten to be sarcastic.

Sperring was in the middle-sized bedroom. Phil entered. It couldn't have been more different from the main one. It was a miniature version of the living room. All pinks and frills. Curtains and matching duvet and pillowcases. Pink walls, pink carpet. Sperring was standing by the wardrobe. Phil joined him, eyes widening. It was full of women's clothes. Dresses, skirts, blouses. Mostly pink and frilly like the dead woman downstairs. But in amongst them were others. Fetish wear. PVC. Rubber. Uniforms. He pulled out the drawers. Lingerie ranging from filmy and wispy to industrial and constraining. Another drawer yielded restraints, bondage material. The bottom drawer held sex toys. Phil took one out, held it. It was a huge black plastic phallus, about the thickness of his forearm.

‘Sex toy,' said Sperring, clearing his throat.

‘Doesn't look like there's much fun involved,' said Phil. He replaced it, closed the drawer. Turned to Sperring. ‘Well.'

‘Well indeed, sir.'

Esme called them. They made their way downstairs.

‘Looks like we've got a deviant sex killer on our hands,' Phil said to her. ‘We'd better find Glenn McGowan as soon as possible.'

‘That's why I called you,' said Esme. ‘I think I have.'

‘Where?' asked Sperring.

Esme pointed to the body, held up a blonde wig.

‘There,' she said.

‘
D
ear Christ…' Phil discovered his voice.

‘Indeed,' said Esme Russell.

Phil looked from the pathologist to the dining table tableau to the blonde wig and back again. ‘But what is…' Questions formed and fizzed in his brain quicker than he could articulate them.

‘If it's answers you're looking for,' said Esme, ‘then I'll have to disappoint you. Lot of work to do on this one.'

‘Glenn McGowan…' Phil took in the scene once more. ‘Transvestite. Murdered while… eating? Or before?'

‘Hard to tell. Of course, it may not be him. He may have done the murdering and run.'

‘Possible,' said Phil. He thought of the bathroom upstairs. Two identities, one toothbrush. ‘My gut instinct says this is Glenn McGowan. But I'll keep an open mind.' He looked again at the artfully arranged body.

‘We've got our work cut out for this one,' said Esme.

‘Yeah… Time of death? Any idea?'

‘He's been here a few days. The house is cold. Whoever did this turned the heating off before they left. Knew the body would keep longer.'

Phil breathed deeply. ‘How long before you can do the post-mortem?'

Esme shrugged. ‘Week before Christmas? Don't know what it's like in your neck of the woods, but it's our busy time. The lonely and the skint top themselves, hypothermic pensioners freeze to death, binge-drinking teenagers think they're superheroes… they all come out of the woodwork.'

‘Cameron's Britain,' said Phil.

No one answered him. Everyone looked away.

‘Right…' He felt uncomfortable, reminded once again that he didn't belong here. ‘So… time scale?'

‘As quick as I can. But…' Esme gestured to the body, ‘there's a veritable smorgasbord to be going on with, so don't expect anything soon.'

‘Smorgasbord. Right.'

‘Including what's on those plates. But get your boss to bump this up in importance and you'll have your answers quicker.'

Esme's eyes twinkled as she turned back to the body. Phil, thinking how all pathologists were the same, made his way out of the house.

The street was cordoned off, the outer barrier keeping prying eyes away. Reporters had gathered beyond that point, telephoto lenses in position, waiting for one of the team to give something up. Beside them, members of the public craned their necks to see what was going on. Unable to believe how their own unremarkable street had become the focus of something so dramatic. Phil had been at the centre of enough crime scenes to know what they would be experiencing. And it would be conflicting: horror at discovering that the place they had regarded as a safe haven was just as terrifying as the places they imagined they were seeking refuge from; relief that it was happening to one of their neighbours and not themselves. And the illicit thrill of vicarious deviancy, as they wished for the crime to be the most depraved, salacious and titillating they could imagine because it made for better gossip. Phil had seen enough to know that the imagination of the general public was something to be very frightened of. Because that was who he cleaned up after every day.

As he was removing the blue paper suit, Sperring came alongside him.

‘What now? Sir?'

‘Now?' echoed Phil. ‘We plan what we're going to do next.' He shivered, flapped his arms about him, but it was no good. He could feel the cold penetrating through his clothes, right down to his bones. ‘But not here,' he said. ‘Too bloody cold.'

‘I know somewhere,' said Sperring.

He walked towards the barrier. The crowd parted for him. Phil bobbed along in his wake.

J
ust over five minutes later, Phil was sitting in the lounge of the Edgbaston Tap, an old, low, sixties red-brick box of a pub on which a contemporary facelift had been attempted. Phil didn't care about the decor. He was just pleased to be somewhere warm.

On entering, Sperring had taken charge. He had flashed his warrant card to the landlord, asking for privacy and for any journalists to be kept away. A couple of uniforms were standing by the door to do just that. Phil, again, hadn't challenged him.

He sat down with Sperring and a very pale-looking Khan. His new team. He felt their eyes on him. Still sizing him up, still – in Sperring's case, at least – finding him lacking. He had to win them over. He had to inspire. He had to lead.

‘OK,' he said, huddling with them round the table, ‘let's gather, let's pool. I like my team to put together their first impressions while they're still fresh in our minds. It's the way I've always worked. I've found it helpful.'

Phil noticed that Sperring's eyebrows had risen at the mention of the words
my
team
. Khan looked between the pair of them, seemingly wanting to go along with Phil but glancing at Sperring as if waiting for the older man to give him the go-ahead.

Sperring gave an almost imperceptible nod. Phil noticed.

‘DC Khan,' he said. ‘You first.'

Khan took out his notebook. ‘House-to-house hasn't given us much yet. Most people didn't even know there was someone living there. They saw someone moving stuff in, carpets and that, but thought it was being rented again.'

‘He must have decorated,' said Phil. ‘Thought everything looked new.'

‘Apparently it was rented to students before that, but the neighbours complained about the noise. Gated community an' all that, so the letting agency said they'd only rent to professional people in future.'

‘And Glenn McGowan was a professional man?'

‘City Lets had references for him from his employer,' said Sperring.

Phil remembered the Christmas card. ‘Allard Tec?'

Sperring checked his notes, nodded.

‘We'll talk to them. Coventry, according to the Christmas card. We'll also need to look into his background, friends, colleagues. And we'd better do a check with prisons and hostels, see if any known deviants have recently moved into the area.'

‘Apart from McGowan, you mean?' Khan laughed. Sperring's mouth lifted, eyes twinkled.

‘Very funny. We still have to make sure it's him. And there were other Christmas cards in the house,' said Phil. ‘We need to find out who they were from. How well they knew him, what their relationship was. He must have given an address when he rented the house; the letting agents should have that. We've got to find out everything about him, get some lever into his background. Also those DVDs by the TV.'

Khan gave a snort. ‘Not the only TV in there, was it?'

‘Hilarious,' said Phil, his face demonstrating that it wasn't. ‘The DVDs. The home-made-looking ones. They had no labels, no names. Also the laptop in the box room. See what that can tell us. He's a man of mystery.'

‘We'll set up a mobile incident room in the street, keep the door-to-door going,' said Sperring. ‘Someone might come forward. I'll get the techies to check on local CCTV as well. Car number plates, see if anything's been recognised.'

‘Elli's got some new computer software thing she wants to try,' said Khan. ‘Some Venn diagram thing.'

‘Elli's the team's resident geek,' said Sperring, his tone of voice showing his opinion.

‘Every team's got one,' said Phil. ‘Let's see if we can identify some kind of pattern to his life, where he went, what he did, who he knew.'

‘If he liked dressing up,' said Khan, ‘he'll be down Hurst Street.'

‘What's there?' asked Phil.

‘Gay quarter,' said Sperring, voice neutral. ‘Bars and clubs. Every city has one.' Stressing the word
city
, reminding Phil he only came from a town.

Khan giggled. ‘Bender Central. Shirtlifters' paradise.'

Sperring's lips curled in amusement. Phil's didn't.

‘If that's the case, we might need someone to go round those bars, see if our victim was known there. I don't condone homophobia on my team, DC Khan, so I wouldn't laugh if I were you, because going down there might be your job.'

Khan stopped laughing. Sperring's face was unreadable.

‘There's something else,' said Phil. ‘Something we haven't mentioned.'

‘What?' said Khan, his voice betraying a sulky edge.

‘The doll's house,' said Phil.

‘So what?' said Khan, masking his anger at Phil's earlier words. ‘It's a doll's house. The bloke liked to dress up as a girl. Probably liked playing with girls' toys as well. Bet he's got a bedroom full of Barbies.'

‘He's got toys up there,' said Sperring, smiling unpleasantly, ‘but they're a bit more grown up than Barbies. Bit bigger, too.'

Khan laughed. ‘Saw that. Take it down Hurst Street with me. Might open a few mouths.'

‘Open more than a few mouths,' said Sperring.

He and Khan laughed, heads back, cackling. The laughter died away. Sperring looked at Phil, who hadn't joined in. His eyes were hard, challenging. Khan's eyes jumped away, wouldn't meet Phil's.

Phil held Sperring's gaze, unblinking. He knew he shouldn't, knew he should rise above what his junior officer was doing, but he couldn't help it. He had to put him in his place.

‘Do you have a problem with me being in charge, DS Sperring?'

Sperring kept his face impassive. ‘Me, sir? No, sir.'

‘Good. Because we have to work together here. This case is the very definition of what the Major Investigation Unit should be dealing with, so we're going to be in the goldfish bowl. We have to get a result. And the only way we're going to do that is if we pull together and respect the chain of command. Are we all agreed on that?'

‘Absolutely, sir.'

‘Good,' said Phil. ‘As long as we're all clear.'

The other two nodded. Phil looked round the room, breathing hard. While his head was angled away from them, he felt Khan smile. He was sure Sperring had winked at him.

‘The doll's house,' said Phil, turning back. ‘Did you look inside?'

Khan shook his head. Sperring nodded.

‘A perfect copy of the living room of the house. But no doll.'

Sperring shrugged. ‘So?'

‘So that's a massive clue. That's telling us something.'

‘What?' asked Khan.

‘I don't know,' said Phil. ‘That's what we have to find out. It's not random, not accidental. It was there for a reason. We have to find that reason.'

‘There was no doll,' Sperring repeated.

‘No,' said Phil. ‘Either… I don't know, maybe the victim thought one wasn't needed, he was going to take the place of it himself.'

‘Maybe the killer took it with him,' said Khan.

‘Very good,' said Phil. ‘Maybe he did.'

Sperring leaned forward, eyes lit by amusement. ‘Maybe we should bring in a psychologist, sir. Know any good ones?'

He's read my file
, thought Phil.
He knows about my wife, what she does
. He felt angry at that.

‘I do, yes,' he said. ‘I know an excellent one. And if we need her, we'll call her. We could also do with a couple more officers, too.'

Sperring's face was once again impassive. ‘Belt-tightening, sir. We all have to do more with less, as our masters tell us.'

‘And you know that's bullshit,' said Phil. ‘We'll just end up doing less with less. But in the meantime, we've all got jobs to do. So let's go and do them.'

They rose from the table, Sperring and Khan leaving first.

Phil breathed deeply. Wished he had his old team alongside him.

And his wife.