Kay parked her car alongside a liveried patrol vehicle and slammed shut the door before taking a moment to assess the scene in front of her.
She had passed a patrol car at the junction into the residential street, several onlookers from neighbouring properties gawping at the emergency vehicles lining the narrow road before being shooed away by a pair of uniformed constables.
‘Guv? Over here.’
She spotted Gavin’s silhouette against the headlights of an ambulance, his familiar spiky hair and height singling him out from the other people milling about the entrance to the block of flats, and walked over to join him.
‘What happened?’
‘A neighbour called it in, guv.’ He turned and led the way into the flats, taking the stairs rather than the lift. ‘We’re up on the second floor – Xander was attacked inside his flat – it looks like he opened the door to whoever attacked him because there’s no damage to the lock or signs of forced entry.’
He paused as they reached the second-floor landing and stood to one side while a paramedic emerged from a door farther down on the right, closely followed by her colleague pushing Xander in a wheelchair towards the open lift door.
It swished closed seconds later, and they could soon hear the two ambulance officers at the bottom of the stairwell steering their patient from the building.
‘Where are they taking him?’ said Kay.
‘Maidstone. Barnes just left – he’s on his way there too, so he can take a statement when the doctors let him.’
‘What about the neighbour, the one who called in?’
‘A Mr Henry Bradley,’ Gavin said, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards a man standing beside two uniformed constables at the far end of the hallway, his face concerned while he spoke with them. ‘He says he heard raised voices over his television, but by the time he turned down the volume and got to his front door and looked out, there was no one around. That’s when he noticed the door to Xander’s flat was open. Before he got to it, a man rushed out and down the stairs.’
‘Did he get a decent look at him?’
‘No – the man was wearing a baseball cap and the lighting down here isn’t great, as you can see.’
‘What about CCTV?’
Gavin snorted with frustration. ‘Mr Bradley says he and other members of the residents’ association have been trying to get that in here for over two years.’
‘Well, the owners might reconsider it after this. Has the neighbour entered the flat?’
‘Yes – he was even more worried after that. He found Xander on the floor next to the sofa. Mr Bradley said Xander was incoherent when he found him, so he dialled triple nine. Given the address and our ongoing enquiries, that’s why we got a call too.’
‘Did you get a chance to speak to the paramedics before I got here?’
‘Yes. Sounds like he’s got a broken nose and a couple of broken fingers. One of the paramedics treating him reckoned he might have a broken rib or two as well but they’re more concerned that he might be suffering from internal bleeding – he managed to tell them he was repeatedly punched in the stomach.’
‘Anyone still in there?’
‘Kyle Walker is fingerprinting the door and several other surfaces in case the attacker is on the system. We’re just waiting for a locksmith to turn up. Mr Bradley says he gets on okay with Xander so he’s offered to pay for it until he gets out of the hospital.’
‘Okay, well in the circumstances I want to take a look.’ Kay led the way towards the open door, and paused while Walker finished dusting the front panels.
He stood to one side and gave a curt nod when he finished. ‘I’ve done the living and kitchen area, too guv. I’ll show you through.’
‘Thanks.’
She put her hands in her pockets and stepped over the threshold, careful not to brush against the door and get any of the graphite powder on her jacket. Pausing at the end of a short passageway, she surveyed the damage to the flat.
Kitchen drawers had been pulled open, cutlery thrown to the floor alongside threadbare cotton tea towels, and her shoes crunched across a mixture of salt granules and peppercorns strewn across the cheap linoleum.
The lounge had borne the brunt of the attack, with a picture frame hanging precariously off its hook above the television, and a games console and controllers upended beneath the large screen. Sofa cushions lay on the floor beside a pile of old games magazines pushed to one side, and she could see blood on the carpet where Xander had lain.
‘Did he manage to tell anyone who did this to him, Gav?’ she asked.
‘Not yet – the paramedics wouldn’t let us speak to him because they were concerned for his well-being.’
‘What the hell happened here?’ she murmured.
Walker shook his head in wonder. ‘Someone definitely had it in for him, guv.’
‘It’s not that – look at everything. This wasn’t just a fight. Whoever attacked Xander was looking for something. This place has been searched.’
Gavin pivoted in the middle of the room and nudged a sofa cushion with his toe. ‘We’ll have to get a list of any stolen goods from Xander when Barnes interviews him.’
‘Does it look like anything’s been stolen to you? I mean, obviously the television’s too big to take and that games console looks like an older model so it’s probably not worth much. Did you notice whether Xander had a laptop or anything when you were here?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘I’ll have a quick look in the bedroom, guv,’ said Walker. ‘Just in case.’
‘Okay.’
She ran her gaze over the devastation in the flat as the constable wandered off.
‘Do you think he was attacked because he spoke to us earlier?’ said Gavin, his eyes troubled.
Kay sighed. ‘I don’t know what to think at the moment.’
They turned at a shout, to see Walker emerging from the bedroom, his gloved hands cradling a medley of small boxes and glass vials.
‘I found this under a pile of clothes,’ he said. ‘I guess Xander’s attacker didn’t get as far as there before he was disturbed. Some of these look like medical supplies, though – not the usual drugs paraphernalia.’
Gavin picked up one of the packets and turned it in his hand to read the label stuck to the side, and then emitted a surprised grunt.
‘Guv? These are for animals. I think this is what was stolen from Adam’s surgery.’