Dead of Winter

Chapter 4

‘You alright, Ebb?’

She nodded but her eyes stayed focused on the house. They were sitting in his car at the edge of the driveway, still waiting for permission from the SOCOs to go inside. The first lot of furniture had been loaded into a van and was headed back to the lab. Ebony hadn’t said much since the discovery of the baby. Carter looked at her profile. ‘Not nice,’ he added. She shook her head but didn’t speak. ‘Those tyre prints, Ebb? Someone must have noticed a big vehicle sat on the driveway. Must have been at least the size of a pick-up truck. Surely the neighbours saw what cars were parked here. Did they know who lived here?’

‘They keep themselves to themselves, Sarge. I went round to speak to them after the gardener left. They never saw anyone move in or out. They had no idea who lived here.’

‘So much for people being friendlier in the country. If this was in the East End the neighbours would know everything.’

Ebony watched curiously as Carter squished the old piece of nicotine gum back into the empty space in the packet and popped a fresh one in his mouth.

‘Does that stuff help?’

‘I hope so. Tried cold turkey but couldn’t hack it. Trying to give up. . you know. .’ He glanced across at her. ‘For the baby. . My girlfriend’s pregnant.’

‘I heard. Congratulations. Is she feeling alright?’ Ebony had never met Cabrina. It felt strange asking after someone she hadn’t met but Jeanie the Family Liaison Officer had told her all about it and Ebony had listened politely. Jeanie sat opposite her in the office. Jeanie and Carter used to be an item.

Carter sighed. ‘She’s okay. . I suppose. . She’s back living at home with her parents.’ Ebony glanced across to see if she had heard right. Carter leant back against the headrest and stared out of the windscreen at the sky. The night was losing its grip and making way for dawn. A tinge of purple was creeping into the sky. Carter had a boxer’s nose. It had been broken so many times that the cartilage had been removed to allow him to breathe. Now it was straighter but flatter than it was designed to be. He cared more about his hair than he ever let on; it was thick and black, a heritage from his Italian mother, cut in a Tintin quiff at the front. ‘I used to think she was bad enough once a month. Once a month I could cope with: knew what she needed. . knew how to make her happy. Now I have no frigging idea what she wants. Whatever it is, it’s not me at the moment. It’s all talk of her and the baby managing.’

‘Sorry.’ Ebony didn’t know what to say. ‘I’m sure she’ll come back soon. Pregnancy does funny things to women.’

‘Yeah, so I heard. . back there?’ He gestured towards the house. ‘You know a lot about forensics?’

‘I did some at uni. . it interests me, that’s all.’

‘You need to get out more, Ebb.’ He smiled. ‘You glad to be working in the Murder Squad?’

She nodded. ‘It’s what I wanted. I requested it.’

Carter shifted a little in his seat so that he could turn and face her.

‘Why? What was it about it that appealed?’ Ebony shrugged. She buried her chin further into her scarf. The car was beginning to feel too small. Carter knew she was getting uncomfortable. It only made him push her a little more. ‘You know, Ebb, we’re going to spend a lot of time sat in this car together. It’s going to get very boring if you don’t start opening up.’ She turned to see if he was teasing; he was only half smiling. He was watching her intently; seeing how far he could push her before he was in danger of making her mistrust him. ‘Good detectives need to allow themselves to feel things: emotions, raw stuff. I bet you most detectives in the squad would rather watch a good rom-com than a film where people blast the shit out of each other. They are sensitive souls — too much, sometimes.’

‘I know how things feel.’ She looked at Carter; something about his manner reassured her. She realized he reminded her of a boy she once knew; a boy who’d befriended her in one of the homes she’d stayed in.

‘I’m not having a go at you, Ebb, believe me. I’m just saying, you bring a lot to the table. You’re bright, eager. I can see you know your stuff. You can make it really work for you as a detective. You’ll get further than I will, that’s for sure. You okay?’

‘Fine.’

‘Okay. . What were your initial thoughts when you saw the baby?’

She sat up: alert. He smiled to himself. If there was one way to get close to Ebony it was through dead bodies. ‘Just delivered. Cord still intact. Grave wax the same as on the mother’s body, buried the same time. Someone’s dirty secret maybe? Perhaps he got rid of his wife and baby to make room for someone else.’

‘He’s got money.’

‘Yes, Sarge, and he’s young enough to attract women.’

‘Fit enough to bury them under the patio.’

‘Over thirty-five, under fifty-five then, Sarge.’

‘But why did he choose to kill them here? In this way? If I had money I would go abroad on a holiday and have an accident happen to my wife.’

Ebony looked towards the house as the front door opened to Blackdown Barn.

‘Someone’s on the move, Sarge.’

They watched a tall frame emerge into the light at the front of the house and start to walk down the drive towards them and the empty car parked behind.

‘It’s Trevor Bishop from Forensics. That means SOCOs must have finished the initial search. We can go in, Ebb. . rock and roll. . let’s go.’ Carter got out of the car.

Bishop was loading bags into his boot.

‘You off, Trev?’

Bishop nodded: ‘Getting back to load these prints into the system.’ He lifted his case in. ‘I’ll see you at the meeting at eight. We’re going to be back-and-forth here: still need to pick up the rest of the furniture; it has to be done in stages.’ He handed them some more suits from the boot of his car. ‘Change your suits before you go inside.’

‘Will do.’

Inside the entrance Sandford, the Crime Scene Manager, head of the SOCOs, was dismantling the door to a room on the left.

‘How’s it looking, Sandford?’ Carter asked. Sandford didn’t answer and stepped past him into the lounge. ‘This place even feels dead.’ Carter stepped in with him and stood in the middle of the room looking around. ‘Exposed brickwork and low beams. Nightmare to clean. Full of spiders.’

Sandford didn’t stop what he was doing. He was thinking to himself. . ‘Rustic charm lost on him.. ’ He picked up a power tool and applied his weight to the hinges of the door. Sandford wasn’t keen on Carter. There was something about him that irritated him. Maybe it was the rattle of his heavy gold signet bracelet or the immaculate hair. Maybe it was that Sandford was pretty sure Carter had never been to a rugby match in his life; preferred to watch the footie down the pub with his mates probably. Whatever it was. . it riled him.

Sandford kept working as he replied: ‘No one left here in a hurry. We’ll be lucky to get much.’ He glanced Ebony’s way as she stood in the entrance. She was new to him.

‘Just saw Bishop leave. . seemed happy.’ Carter stepped back into the hall. ‘We allowed all over the house?’

‘Are those new suits?’ Sandford turned and looked them over. ‘Any cross-contamination from the garden and we’ll be crucified.’

‘Yep. . suited and booted.’

‘Okay, carry on. . but keep contact down to a minimum. Enter anything you find in the log. .’

Carter glanced Ebony’s way and flicked his eyes towards the stairs. ‘We’ll start at the top.’

Ebony followed him up the broad sweeping staircase, a heavy white painted banister to one side and a large expanse of smooth plastered wall to the other. They came out on a broad landing. The layout mirrored the downstairs. On the left, above the lounge, was the master bedroom. To the right the corridor ran the length of the house and bedrooms came off it left and right. ‘I’ll start in here, Ebb.’ Carter turned left. ‘You go the other way. Tell me what you find: first impressions count, keep talking to me.’

Ebony pushed open the first door. The room smelt musty; the walls looked clean. She worked her way down the corridor.

‘How many bedrooms you found?’ Carter called out to her after a few minutes.

‘Four up this end, Sarge, two en suite. All been slept in. They have a “lived-in” smell but someone’s gone to lengths to wash the walls.’

‘They got beds?’

‘Yes. The beds are still here. They look very clean. No mattress covers.’

‘This one hasn’t. Come and take a look.’ Ebony made her way back to where she’d left him. She crossed to stand next to him at the window overlooking the front of the house.

‘This is the biggest of the rooms, Sarge.’

‘Must be the master bedroom, Ebb. But why is there no bed in here and no curtains either?’ She followed his gaze down over the tops of the trees at the edge of the property: still dark silhouettes. The small digger had arrived and two officers were clearing a path to get it round to the back of the house. The dawn had just managed to take hold of the sky but it had a greenish hue; it was full of snow. In the distance was the glow of London.

He looked down at the floor. ‘Why is there lino in this room? And if you were going to have lino in a bedroom why would you choose blue? It’s like a dentist’s.’

‘It isn’t typical bathroom lino, it’s thicker, more expensive.’ Ebony paused. It was one of those times that she realised she knew something without knowing why. Because it meant something. It had meant something to her when the social worker gave her mother some money to furnish their council flat. That day they had walked around every cheap flooring place they could find and all she remembered was her mother’s growing disappointment. ‘We can’t afford that Ebony — not that lino anyway: it’s too expensive.’ She remembered the feeling of building anxiety: always watching her mother; always trying to keep her happy. Keep her under control.

‘There’s been a bed on here. . you can see its imprint. A single bed — funny imprint it’s made. It’s been dragged maybe.’ He stood back to gauge the size. ‘Why in the biggest room do you put a single bed? Could be a kid’s room, Ebb?’ He looked around him. ‘But it would have to be a very tidy kid not to scuff the skirting, let alone put their hand marks on the wall.’

‘The walls have been washed, Sarge. You can still see the cloth marks. And this room doesn’t smell like the others. It doesn’t smell slept in.’

‘The smell of people gets in the carpets, in the walls. I know what you mean, Ebb. This room smells like new plastic.’

Ebony went into the en suite bathroom.

‘What’s it like in there?’ Carter called out. He knelt on the floor to measure the indentations where the bed had been.

‘It doesn’t feel like a woman’s bathroom, Sarge,’ she answered, standing in the white-tiled room. ‘It’s not pretty, just white: ultra clean.’ Ebony’s voice echoed. ‘And it doesn’t smell so much of perfume, more of mothballs, old-fashioned. The same smell as the bedroom.’ She stood looking around at the glass shelves on the walls. ‘Someone had a lot of things they needed to keep in here, off the floor — keep clean.’

Carter came to stand in the doorway. ‘Yeah. . too clean. . too sterile. What was that bloke’s name? The one who didn’t like germs?’

‘Howard Hughes?’

‘That’s it. . maybe someone’s a Howard Hughes type. Everything has to be bleached and kept up away from contamination. I’m going to end up like him if I don’t watch it. . already see the signs of it. Cabrina says it’s like living in a show home.’ He winked at Ebony. He could see by her face she didn’t know how to take him. He wondered if she ever opened up to anyone. ‘Let’s go and see if the SOCOs have finished downstairs.’

At the bottom of the stairs Sandford was packing his drill away. He glanced at them as they came level.

‘I’ll finish up here and get my initial report to you in a few hours,’ he said to Carter with a nod towards Ebony. ‘Don’t want to be long from here. There’s a lot of work still to be done.’

‘Good man,’ Carter answered.

Ebony noticed that Carter talked differently to people with posh accents. She wasn’t quite sure whether he was taking the piss or just feeling awkward. ‘We won’t be long either. We’ll finish looking around here and then we need to get back for the autopsies. Forensics might have got something by then.’

Sandford slammed his toolbox shut. ‘Maybe.’

They left Sandford to it and walked down the corridor that ran almost the length of the house. On one side was a formal dining room and a study, on the other a snug room and a second lounge. At the end of the corridor a large kitchen opened out and led to a conservatory on the left. A utility room was at the back and to the right of the kitchen, a Dutch airer hung empty from the ceiling above them, and a washing machine sat with its door open and a plastic basket on top, a strange reminder that there was normal life in Blackdown Barn. Through the utility room a cellar door was open.

Carter flicked on a switch that illuminated the stone stairs and they made their way down. The smell of damp hit Ebony as she descended. The cold chilled to the bone. Carter stopped at the bottom, a large bare space, pitch black in its corners beneath low rafters and in hidden alcoves. He gave a small two-footed jump. ‘New, solid floor. I can smell sweat, rubber in the air. Maybe they had a gym down here, Ebb.’

‘Could be, Sarge.’

‘That’s what happens when you quit smoking, Ebb. You start smelling everything. I can smell a bacon sandwich being cooked half a mile away. I’ve already put on a few pounds. . muscle, of course. .’ He turned to wink at her but she wasn’t looking or listening to him: she’d walked on down to where the cellar narrowed. A door opened to her right. Inside was a room just big enough for a single bed and a chair. It reminded her of a place she had stayed with her mother once, reminded her of so many places. It had the same smell of damp. The corners of the rooms where mould collected. It was colourless. It was bare. She had spent a lot of her childhood sitting on a bed like that, trying hard to do her homework, her world constantly shifting beneath her feet, moving on, getting better.

‘Sarge?’

‘What is it, Ebb?’ Carter appeared beside her in the room. ‘Fuck. . this is definitely the economy accommodation.’ He looked at the bed. ‘Forensics will be taking all this as soon as the transport gets here. Christ. . how many people lived in this house, Ebb?’ Ebony didn’t answer — she was busy putting on latex gloves. ‘What are you doing?’ Carter watched her.

She knelt on the floor and stretched her right arm underneath the bed until her shoulder was wedged against the frame; she ran her hand along the bottom of the springs.

‘This bed wouldn’t take the weight of a pregnant woman.’ She moved her arm down the bed, sweeping the underside as she went. Ebony had spent so much of her childhood in bedsits and emergency housing that she tried to leave something for the next child wherever she went. Sometimes it was a smiley face sticker, stuck to the leg of the bed. Other times it was a cheap toy, the kind you get free in cereal packets. Other kids left her things.

When she drew her hand back, she was holding a piece of red cloth.

‘What is it, a piece of clothing?’ It uncurled in her hand. In its corner was a fleck of white and the beginnings of a golden embroidered circle.

‘Not sure. It was tied on to the springs.’

They heard the sound of the SOCOs making their way down with the exhibit removal team. Ebony dropped it into a plastic bag and put it in her pocket.

‘Let’s go, Ebb. We’ll leave them to it.’

On the way back to Carter’s car, still wearing her gloves, she took out the piece of cloth from her pocket and looked at it again. As she pulled it flat she saw the beginning of spokes inside the golden circle.

‘What football team do you support, Sarge?’

‘Tottenham, why?’

‘Who’s your biggest rival?’ He looked across at her. She stretched the cloth tight and held it up to show him. At the edge of it was the start of a golden gun barrel. ‘I think someone was an Arsenal supporter.’