Jack asked Mal to confirm the size of this cannabis farm. ‘We found the remains of approximately four hundred plants in pots, some pots stacked ready for the next crop, and some boxes already packed for distribution.’
For the life of him, Jack couldn’t imagine that Avril Jenkins was the mastermind behind such a huge drugs haul.
To Jack’s left, a paper-suited CSI was taking a footprint cast from the soil beneath the back garden wall, and another was taking fingerprints from the handle of Avril Jenkins’ wheelbarrow, which had been propped up against the brickwork, handles upwards, in a position that suggested it had been used as a ladder. Jack gave a heavy sigh, making the vents in his mask click as they allowed his excess breath to escape. Jack toyed with the idea of whispering quietly to the CSI, but the truth was that good gossip shot round the station like a dose of the clap so, instead he decided to own his mistake — loud and proud.
‘That will have my prints on it.’ Anik, the CSI and Mal all looked at Jack, waiting for clarification. ‘I moved the wheelbarrow when I was here interviewing Avril Jenkins.’
‘You interviewed the victim in this garden?’ Mal asked in a neutral tone, containing his amusement as best he could. ‘Next to a greenhouse containing four hundred cannabis plants?’
‘Seems that way.’ Jack quickly turned and headed for the house. He could hear their muffled sniggers as he walked away.
At the open back door, Jack added protective shoe covers to his outfit before entering. He could tell by the CSI’s evidence markers where they’d been and where they were heading — their meticulous, inch-by-inch route through the crime scene was carefully plotted to collect and preserve as much evidence as possible from the most likely path taken by the killer or killers. Jack stood still, assessing the area, before moving carefully forwards. He didn’t want to disturb or contaminate anything. The CSI taking prints from all the internal door handles, nodded him towards the stairs.
On the first floor, Jack paused sharply outside the master bedroom and Anik almost walked into the back of him. With reluctant steps, Jack moved inside the bedroom and paused again. To their right, the en suite was curtained off by plastic sheeting and, beyond that, paper-suited bodies milled around. Jack could just make out the body on the floor, framed in a pool of red. Anik looked impatient to get to the heart of the investigation, but Jack was in no rush to see Avril again. He told Anik to go ahead if he really wanted to.
The luxurious master bedroom was as eye-wateringly fussy, cluttered and eclectic as the rest of the house. The four-poster bed was made of solid oak and adorned with heavy embroidered drapes, like something from the 1700s. The carpet was deep blue and so thick that it twisted beneath Jack’s weight. The wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling wardrobe was modern, with mirrored sliding doors; but the rest of the bedroom furniture was antique or at least looked as though it was. The walls were scattered with artwork, from Lowry to Erte — although Jack had no idea if they were real or copies — and right in the middle of all that culture was a seventy-five-inch flatscreen TV. The bedside table was stacked high with modern design and décor magazines. Inside was a cut-glass whisky decanter and tumbler, a calculator, a landline phone and an intercom for the gate buzzer that he doubted even worked.
Jack slid open one of the large, mirrored wardrobe doors to reveal a vast collection of elegant clothes, expensive-looking shoes and furs. On a high shelf inside the wardrobe, were several wigs displayed on polystyrene heads.
Jack took his time to absorb everything. Whilst he was getting inside Avril’s complex mind, Anik had rushed to get to the monstrous spectacle that they knew was waiting beyond the makeshift plastic doorway into the bathroom. This was the main differences between the two of them: patience. Patience brought detail, which brought knowledge, which brought clarity. Anik would never learn to see clearly because he either moved too fast or didn’t move at all, depending on how excited a case made him feel.
Jack left the master bedroom and headed upstairs to the attic room which he knew once belonged to Adam Border. It was now even more sparse than the last time he’d seen it: the coat, jumper and suitcase had all gone, which was disturbing. Had Adam come back or had Avril thrown it all away? And if Adam had come back, was he their killer? Jack closed his eyes and recalled Avril’s prophetic words from their previous meeting. ‘You do know that stalkers invariably escalate to murder, don’t you?’
Jack couldn’t put it off any longer. He walked back downstairs and re-entered the master bedroom.
Anik now stood by the open sash window, trying to hold in his breakfast as he inhaled the heady mix of corpse secretions from indoors and cannabis smoke from outdoors. His greying skin was speckled with goosebumps from the cold and he was already deeply regretting his eagerness to see the murder scene. Jack gave him a nod, meaning, ‘You do what you need to. I’ve got this,’ and Anik grabbed the opportunity to scurry downstairs and put a decent distance between himself and the house.
Jack made his presence known to the paper-suited bodies assessing the crime scene behind the plastic sheeting, and all but one of them made way for him to enter. The CSI who remained by Jack’s side was Angelica Blenkinsopp; a woman with the most inappropriate given name Jack could imagine. Angel was from Northumberland, with a thick North-East accent and a sick sense of humour.
The blood pool on the floor had spread swiftly across the white-and-grey chequered tiles, until it had congealed, leaving little room for manoeuvre as Jack entered the en suite.
Avril Jenkins was not in one piece. As Angel described what she believed had happened, Jack pulled up his paper hood and secured his face mask, swallowing repeatedly to counteract the natural over-salivation that comes just before being sick. But it wasn’t the gruesomeness of what he was seeing that made him nauseous, it was the failure he felt in the pit of his stomach as he looked down at the naked body of the murdered woman who had insisted she was being stalked and who had asked Jack for help.
Angel got straight to the point. ‘Let’s start with the good news, ay Jacky. She died quick. One massive blow to the top of the skull killed her outright.’ Angel looked directly at the poker in the corner of the en suite. ‘It’s the right width and weight to have caused the wound, but I’ll confirm back at base, of course. The blood up the walls and on the ceiling is cast-off from swinging the weapon back and forth. Whoever was wielding it carried on hitting her around the head and face ten, twelve times at least.’ Angel looked at Jack’s eyes, which watered slightly. ‘Step out if you like. I’ll wait.’
‘I don’t need to step out, thanks, Angel. I knew her, that’s all.’
‘Right you are. So, they kill her — I say they speculatively for now, although I can’t see one person doing all this — then dismember her body. Exsanguination, as you can see, occurred where she fell. Never use white grout on floor tiles — I can’t even get the stain of cat shit out of my white grout, so there’ll be no saving these.’
Angel went on to explain that, during dismemberment, they used the joints as natural points of weakness. Her lower legs and one lower arm were in the bathtub, and her head was partly severed but still in place. Just. The rest of Avril was on the en suite floor.
‘Your killer or killers would have been covered in her blood, and I mean head to toe.’