‘I’m Detective Sergeant Aaron Connolly, this is Detective Constable Faith Easter, South Yorkshire Police. Could we have a word?’
It wasn’t difficult to track down Clive and Amanda Branson. They were still living at the same address in Norfolk Park as they were twenty years ago when their only child, Rebecca, was killed in a hit-and-run incident.
Amanda had answered the door. She was overweight with an uncontrollable mound of light grey hair. Her floor-length dress was bright and flowery. Its cheeriness hadn’t reached her face, which looked maudlin and sad. Aaron wondered if this was her permanent expression.
‘What’s it about?’ she asked through the gap in the door.
‘It would be better if we talked inside, Mrs Branson.’
‘I’m not sure. My husband isn’t here.’ She looked nervous.
‘It won’t take long.’
She thought about it before closing the door to take off the chain. She let them in and showed the way to the living room.
‘I can’t offer you a drink, we’re out of milk. That’s where my husband is now, you know, buying a few bits.’
‘That’s fine. Do you mind if we sit down?’
‘I suppose not.’
Aaron and Faith sat on the chintz sofa. The decoration was busy and old-fashioned. The threadbare carpet a dull mix of mismatched colours. The wallpaper, cream with large pink flowers running up the walls. The furniture, orange veneer and pre-1980s, was scratched and needed to go to the skip. In fact, the whole living room needed gutting.
‘Mrs Branson, do you know of a Joe Lacey?’ Faith asked.
She flinched at the name. ‘Of course. He’s the man who murdered my little girl.’ Amanda looked uncomfortable, perched on the edge of an armchair. Her fingers were entwined, nervously playing with each other. She glanced to a framed photograph of a young bespectacled girl on the fireplace.
‘Do you know where he lives?’
‘No.’ She frowned. ‘Why should I?’
‘Mrs Branson, Joe Lacey was found dead at his home yesterday evening. We believe he was murdered.’
Amanda Branson remained stoic. She didn’t even blink. ‘Oh. Well, I can’t say I’m sad about that. What goes around, comes around.’
‘Mrs Branson, where were you and your husband yesterday?’
Her eyes widened. ‘What do you want to know that for?’
‘Purely for elimination purposes,’ Aaron said.
‘Elimination? You suspect us of killing him?’
‘At the moment—’ Aaron began.
‘Out,’ she exploded. ‘Get out of my house. It’s bad enough you come in here and bring that man’s name back into my life, but to actually accuse me of killing him. No. I won’t have it. Get out of my house.’ She struggled to pull herself up from the battered armchair.
‘Mrs Branson—’ Faith tried.
‘No. I won’t hear any more of it,’ she thundered to the door. ‘I don’t know how you’ve got the nerve. Don’t you think we’ve been through enough?’
‘Fine. We’ll leave,’ Aaron said. ‘I’m sorry to have upset you.’
‘Upset me? You don’t know the half of it. If you must know we were both here all day and all night. We watched television until eleven o’clock, then went to bed. Now go on, out.’
The door slammed behind them. On the doorstep Aaron buttoned up his coat while Faith dug her gloves out of her pocket. The temperature seemed to have dropped.
‘Well, that was a display,’ Aaron said.
Faith was about to reply when they saw a dishevelled-looking man struggling up the hill under the weight of a heavy shopping bag in each hand. She nudged Aaron. ‘Do you think that’s Clive Branson?’
‘Mr Branson?’ Aaron called to him.
‘Who wants to know?’ he asked, wheezing. He stopped walking. Judging by his laboured breathing, he could talk or walk, but couldn’t do both at the same time.
‘DS Connolly, DC Easter, South Yorkshire Police. I was wondering if you could tell me where you were yesterday,’ Aaron continued, as they walked over to him.
‘Why?’
‘Joe Lacey has been found dead. We believe he’s been murdered. We know of your history with him and we’d like to eliminate you from our enquiries.’
‘Joe Lacey’s been murdered?’ he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘How?’
‘We’re not sure, yet,’ Aaron replied before Faith could answer. ‘If you could just tell us where you were.’
‘I was out all day yesterday with my brother.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Really.’
‘Your brother can confirm that, can he?’
‘Of course.’
‘What time did you get back?’
‘Dunno. It was late.’
‘What about your wife?’
‘What about her?’
‘Was she with you?’
‘No. She was at home all day. I went out with my brother. Look, I don’t want you hassling my wife, she’s not a well woman. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’
Clive Branson barged past the detectives and waddled to his house.
‘I can smell smoke,’ Faith said.
‘That’ll be because of all the pants on fire around here,’ Aaron said, giving her a knowing look.
‘There’s nothing like a post-mortem to kick-start your working week,’ Matilda said as she cleared a few files off a chair and made herself comfortable.
The autopsy on Joe Lacey had taken just over four hours. The pathologist and the DCI, once they had washed and changed, sat in Adele’s office with a strong coffee each. The smell of caffeine mixed with soap.
‘Have you got anything to eat, I’m starving?’ Matilda asked.
Adele opened her bottom drawer and pulled out a couple of packets of crisps.
Since Adele’s date with Brian Appleby and his true identity had been revealed, Adele had changed. She said it didn’t bother her, and she tried to return to her usual bubbly self, but there was an underlying sadness that had come to the surface. The smile she painted on didn’t reach her eyes. The black eye from the burglar had almost faded; there was just the hint of a bruise.
‘Is everything all right?’ Matilda asked.
‘Yes, fine. Now, Joe Lacey,’ she said. ‘There was no evidence of a hangman’s fracture, but there were signs of a lack of oxygen to the brain.’
‘Which means the hanging didn’t kill him?’ Matilda asked.
‘Well it did, or I wouldn’t have spent four hours with my hands inside him. It means it wasn’t a quick death. He was starved of oxygen and died from asphyxiation.’
‘The same as Brian Appleby.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Interestingly, Joe Lacey seemed to have put up a bit more of a struggle than … the first victim,’ Adele couldn’t bring herself to say Brian’s name. ‘There is evidence of bruising on his back, carpet burns, which suggest he was dragged, and three of his ribs are cracked.’
‘He fought back.’
‘Don’t get your hopes up. Joe was a nail biter. There’s nothing there to collect skin samples from.’
‘Shame. Same killers?’ Matilda asked.
‘I’m no detective. All I can do is read you the results. However, the knots are identical, to the left of the neck, in both cases, and they both died by asphyxiation. The difference in this case is there was a gap of about eight inches between Joe Lacey’s feet and the floor. Whereas with … Brian Appleby, his feet were touching the ground.’
‘A complete hanging for Joe but a partial one for Brian,’ Matilda said. ‘I’ve been reading up.’
‘God bless Google.’ Adele smiled. ‘With a complete hanging, you would expect death to come quickly. As there is evidence of the brain being starved of oxygen, I would say he was strung up slowly rather than dropped from a height.’
‘Joe Lacey wasn’t a little bloke, though, was he? He’s what, five-foot ten?’
‘Five-eleven.’
‘Five-eleven, and his weight?’
‘Fifteen stone, give or take a few pounds.’
‘So, in both cases, the killer has had to subdue his victims in some way, which suggests he’s not as big as them,’ Matilda said thinking aloud, picturing George Appleby and his skinny frame. ‘Hmm,’ she mused. ‘What about the bruising on the neck? Is that similar?’
‘Yes. Very. The noose was placed around the neck and tightened. He was incapacitated before he was hanged. You can see the various points of friction on the neck from the rope.’
‘It’s got to be the same killer,’ Matilda said with a deep frown on her face.
‘Or two killers who know each other well enough to exchange notes,’ Adele said.
‘Please don’t complicate things more than they already are.’ Matilda squeezed the bridge of her nose.
‘Are you OK? You look tired,’ Adele said.
‘I am tired.’
‘So am I. I’m not sleeping much lately.’
‘Still thinking about Brian?’
Adele nodded. ‘I had a dream about him a few nights ago, a really weird and unsettling one.’
‘I suppose me saying something basic like try to ignore it won’t help.’
‘Probably not.’ Adele smiled. ‘A bottle or two of Prosecco might.’
‘Don’t go down that road, Adele. Look what happened to me after James died.’
‘I know. I don’t know why I’m behaving like this. It’s not as if we were married or anything; we had one date.’
‘But you liked him, didn’t you?’
‘I did. I really did. He was lovely. But then I remember he was a paedophile and I can feel my flesh crawling.’
‘Would a hug help?’
‘A hug from Tom Hardy might.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Matilda’s mobile started to vibrate in her pocket. She looked at the screen. It was the ACC calling. ‘Shit, sorry, I’m going to have to take this.’
She squeezed past Adele and left the autopsy suite into the cool corridor outside the double doors.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘We appear to have made the front page of the local newspaper again.’