‘Decision time, Warren. Have you got enough to charge Anton Rimington or not?’
Warren sighed; Grayson was right.
The case against Rimington was circumstantial at best. So far, forensic analysis of his clothes had yet to find any traces of blood and a thorough search of his friend’s flat and car had failed to find anything suspicious. They had no evidence placing him at the scene of the attack, or even in the area. Ruskin’s suggestion that Rimington had used his own car but had changed the licence plates had all but been ruled out by Forensics who were confident that the dirt and grime coating the car had been building up for weeks or months.
The man was clearly a bully and a nasty piece of work – and Warren had genuine concerns for the wellbeing of his fiancée, even if she had gone to stay with her cousin – but he could see no justification for charging him. With the custody limit fast approaching, Warren had no choice but to release him.
‘Cut him loose on bail, pending further inquiries,’ said Grayson.
It was a good suggestion; it would ensure that Rimington could be called back at any time for further questioning. It might also make him think twice about harming his pregnant fiancée if he thought he was on still on the police’s radar.
And if Rimington thought he was no longer a person of interest and free to go, he might relax and slip up.
Four days after the murder of Stevie Cullen, the massage parlour where he met his demise was ready to be reopened. No longer a crime scene, a specialist cleaning firm was due the following morning to remove the bloodstains and make the room usable again.
Whether that would be enough to attract clients back again remained to be seen; Warren couldn’t imagine relaxing in a room that had witnessed such a horrific crime.
Something still bothered Warren about the scene though, and so before driving home for the day, he decided to drop by one more time.
The massage parlour was dark by the time he arrived. The crime scene tape still fluttered outside, but there was no longer a police presence. The cold November night made Warren tighten his coat as he used a spare key to open the front door. He disabled the alarm, using the code, and flicked the lights on.
Several days without heating had sucked the warmth out of the building, and the smell of massage oils had faded away, leaving only the tang of dried blood.
Standing in front of the reception desk, Warren mentally replayed the CCTV footage of Stevie Cullen as he entered through the front door. He took a pace forward and turned on the spot. This was where Cullen had stood, for several seconds, speaking to someone behind the reception desk, and off the edge of the poorly positioned camera’s field of view.
With the desk in front of him, Warren tried to work out who Cullen had been talking to. There was clearly no one at the desk, so that left someone in the space behind. There were two nail stations to his left; the open doorway through to the rest of the house was on the right. The carpet that covered the reception area, gave way to a more hard-wearing, wooden laminate in the nail bar area. Easier to clean up spillages, Warren supposed.
Thinking back to the video, Cullen was clearly angled to the left. There were no other customers and the nail technicians weren’t working that day. Perhaps one of the two masseuses was sitting on one of the nail technician’s chairs as she waited for a client to arrive? Warren cursed the poorly installed camera.
Giving up on the question for the time being, Warren continued through to the back room. Switching the lights on, he could see that whilst it wasn’t the worst murder scene he’d been to, the clean-up crew would probably have to completely redecorate. The raised massage bed was certainly a write-off.
Warren pulled on a pair of gloves and slipped on some plastic overshoes, the precaution more about protecting his clothing than avoiding contaminating the crime scene. Again, the feeling that something wasn’t quite right struck him.
He walked around the room carefully. The massage bed was in the centre of the room, the head towards the window. The walls of the room were painted a pale, pastel yellow, with small shelves holding vases of flowers or scented candles. Thick velvet curtains covered the windows, and concealed the door, muffling sound and blocking out any light. A second light switch activated a number of shaded spotlights. Warren switched the main lights off and found he could easily imagine Stevie Cullen drifting half asleep, relaxed from his massage, enjoying the smell of the scented oils and the soft music floating from the concealed speakers.
Moving over to the window, Warren undid the security bolt and pushed up the sash; it barked loudly against the wooden frame, letting in a blast of chill night air. His coat brushed against the windowsill as he leant out.
The backyard stretched into the darkness beyond, the security gate and fence nothing more than a dim outline against the night sky. To the right, the wall of what would have been an outside toilet and coal scullery when the house was originally built extended a few metres beyond the room he was stood in now, knocked through to make a store cupboard. A couple of rickety-looking chairs sat next to a metal sand bucket studded with cigarette butts. Warren estimated the distance between the window ledge and the uneven paving slabs below to be closer to four feet than three feet.
It was then that it struck him what was wrong with the scene.
And it changed everything.