It was nearing midday by the time Dani and Easton arrived in Oldbury, a small market town within the Black Country, a few miles west of Birmingham. Like most towns within the area, Oldbury remained scarred by the remnants of its industrialised past. At least for this town retail dynamics had taken over, perhaps due to its proximity to major road networks – the M5 included – which had seen the opening of a number of modern retail parks over the last couple of decades that now encircled the town like a corrugated steel exoskeleton.
The address Dani and Easton arrived at was a few streets away from the old high street, where traditional shops and businesses sat with stoic dignity next to numerous abandoned units, a continuous struggle to remain trading.
The street they were on was straight as an arrow with two rows of identical terraces opposite each other. Each unit was narrow with just a door and single window taking up the ground floor, and tiny front yards that were used mainly for storing wheelie bins, it seemed.
With cars parked on both sides, bumper to bumper, Dani found a space several doors away from where they needed to be, though as they headed onto the pavement, it was clear which house they were aiming for because of the uniformed copper standing outside with a bright yellow hi-vis jacket on.
At least during the week the kids and teenagers were still at school, and parents at work, limiting the gawkers somewhat.
Dani took out her warrant card as she ducked under the blue and white police tape which had been rolled across the front gate. She held it up for the PC at the door, who she didn’t recognise at all.
‘Bathroom, downstairs,’ was all the grumpy sod said as he stepped out of the way of the door.
A downstairs bathroom, in a two up, two down home: a strange quirk that remained prevalent all over the country in houses of a certain age. When these terraces were built at the start of the twentieth century, there was no bathroom inside at all, just an outside toilet. Modern plumbing had brought those toilets inside, though the cheapest and simplest solution was to tack the toilet to the back of the house at ground-floor level. Modern central heating had soon brought modern bathrooms into homes, but with such limited space, once again the cheapest and simplest solution prevailed: a bathroom at ground level, at the back of the house, beyond the kitchen.
Dani put plastic gloves on her hands and covers over her feet before she stepped inside.
She heard sobbing coming from inside the front downstairs room. Dani moved to the doorway and peeped into the modest lounge to see a female PC sat on a sofa next to a teary woman. The woman looked to be in her forties and was wearing jeans and a zipped-up hoodie. Her carefully manicured fingers were scrunched around a tissue.
‘Detectives,’ the PC said as she got to her feet. ‘If you head into the back room, the FSIs are in there.’
‘Thank you,’ Dani said. ‘And this is?’
‘Bianca Neita,’ the PC said. ‘A friend. She found Ms Doyle’s body.’
At the mention of the victim, Bianca sobbed even more loudly.
‘OK, thank you,’ Dani said. ‘We’ll come back to speak to Mrs Neita shortly.’
Dani stepped back out and she and Easton carried on through the narrow corridor into a galley kitchen. Much like the hallway and the front room, the furnishings in here were modern enough, but clearly cheap. There was little that was homely about the place at all, everything bland. Dani envisaged a landlord with a well-oiled routine of turning modest but outmoded dwellings into modern but affordable rental units, devoid of any real character.
They moved through the kitchen to a small utility area; off to their right the door to the back yard, in front of them a door open to a bathroom where two white-suited forensic investigators were hunched down by the bathtub. Beyond them Dani spotted the dark matted hair draped across the white of the bath.
The FSIs both stood and turned. Dani recognised the man who stepped forward as Saad Tariq, one of the more senior and personable of the team of FSIs she dealt with.
‘Morning, Detectives,’ Tariq said.
‘What have we got?’
Tariq moved out of the way and Dani stared down as she swallowed hard. The water had by now been drained from the bath, leaving the woman’s body slumped. Her dull skin was white as a sheet, her lips blue. Her glassy eyes were open, staring across to the wall. Her slim body was blemish free, Dani noted, with no obvious sign of external injury.
‘PC Rowden in there said she’s found the victim’s driving licence,’ Tariq said. ‘Clara Doyle. Thirty-eight.’
‘Any idea what’s happened?’ Easton asked.
‘No. This is going to need a PM.’ Post-mortems were carried out by a pathologist. The FSIs were trained to deal with crime scenes, rather than specifically dead bodies themselves, though their experience of scenes was often useful in gaining an initial insight. ‘No sign of abrasions or contusions to the body, as you can see. When we got here the water was still in the bath, but cold. No idea how long she’d been submerged for.’
‘Her head was submerged?’ Dani said.
‘Not fully, about up to her nostrils.’
‘So she could have drowned?’
‘Possible. But she was moved by the friend, who initially pulled her up to check her breathing, so you’d have to figure out with her exactly what it looked like before we arrived. We’re not going to know what’s happened to her until we take her out of here.’
‘What’s in there?’ Dani said, pointing to the half-finished tumbler by the side of the bath.
‘We’ll get it taken back to the lab, but smells like vodka to me.’
‘And there’s these,’ Easton said.
Dani turned to him. He was by the cabinet above the sink, the mirrored door open to reveal a whole swathe of toiletries and pill bottles. A lot of pill bottles. It reminded Dani of her own bathroom cabinet and her constant struggle to ease herself off the medication that had become such a big part of her life in her struggle to overcome her TBI.
‘Diazepam,’ Easton said, holding the bottle out to Dani. She didn’t take it. Instead she stepped over to the cabinet and glanced across the other labels.
Diazepam, also known as Valium, was a classic anti-depressant, Naproxen, a high-strength pain reliever and anti-inflammatory and Mirtazapine, Amitriptyline were two other types of anti-depressant.
Together with the alcohol by the side of the bath, and the lack of external injuries, Dani was already quickly coming to a conclusion as to how Clara Doyle’s life had come to an end. So why had the Homicide team received the call?
Dani turned to Easton. ‘You go upstairs, take a look around, I’ll go and speak to the friend.’
Easton nodded and headed off, and Dani was soon seated in an uncomfortably hard armchair in the cramped living room.
‘Mrs Neita, can you tell me what happened here?’
She snuffled into her tissue for a few seconds, then began to twist the wedding band on her finger around – anxiety? – as she turned her reddened eyes to Dani.
‘She didn’t turn up to work this morning. She wasn’t answering her phone.’
‘Work?’
‘Hatty’s Coffee Shop. It’s a few minutes’ walk from here. It’s not like her at all.’
‘So you came over?’
‘I knocked on the door. She didn’t answer. I was really worried, you know?’
She paused now, letting those last words hang. Why was that? Some sort of justification? But for what?
‘I tried the door. It wasn’t even locked. When I pushed it open, that was when it happened.’
She paused. Dani looked to PC Rowden and back to Bianca again.
‘What happened?’ Dani asked.
‘The back door. It slammed shut.’
Dani’s eyes narrowed. ‘Did you see someone?’
‘I… I just… I think… maybe. No, not really. But the door slammed shut. Why was the back door open if it wasn’t because someone was there?’
A good question.
‘I rushed through into the kitchen. I thought it was a burglar. I went right up to the back window. Then I saw the gate crash shut too.’
‘Did you see someone that time?’
A pause. ‘No, but the gate. It wouldn’t close itself, would it?’
She sounded more defensive now.
‘Anything you saw, however small, would be really helpful,’ Dani said.
‘I’m sorry, I… I know someone was here, but…’
Dani gave her the time, but she didn’t finish the sentence.
‘What next?’ Dani said when she realised Bianca needed the prompt.
‘I was standing in the kitchen. I called to Clara. I got no answer. I was about to go back towards the front, I already had my phone out to call 999 because I thought she’d been broken into… Then I pushed the bathroom door open. I don’t even know why.’
She hung her head and sobbed again and Dani gave her the time to compose herself. Of course, Dani had to keep an open mind to what Bianca was saying. In fact, could Bianca even be a suspect? Dani couldn’t rule out such a possibility, but right now she didn’t believe that to be the case. This woman was genuinely shocked and traumatised.
‘I screamed,’ Bianca said. ‘I ran to the bath. I grabbed her head and tried to pull her back up—’
‘So she was under the water?’
‘What? Y-yes? Her mouth, her nose, eyes. I didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t breathing. I thought about giving CPR.’
‘Did you?’
‘No. I was so confused. I ran out and called an ambulance then I went back and… oh God.’
She buried her face in her hands now.
‘Mrs Neita, was the water hot?’
She looked up at Dani as though it was a ridiculous question.
‘Of course it was. Well, not hot, but warm.’
It might have seemed obvious to Bianca, but it wasn’t to Dani. She stewed on that response for a few moments.
‘The police got here first,’ Bianca said. ‘It took… I don’t even know. Maybe not even two minutes. I was still by her side, still talking to her, trying to get her to wake up.’
The room fell silent for a few moments. Dani waited to see if Bianca would add anything unprompted. She didn’t.
‘How did you know Clara?’ Dani asked.
Bianca stared at Dani as though unsure about the change of direction.
‘I… we met at the coffee shop. She’s been around here a couple of years, I think. But… I don’t know that much about her really.’
‘She lives alone?’
‘I think so.’
‘No kids.’
‘No.’
‘Husband, boyfriend?’
‘She never talked about one.’
Nor were there any pictures suggesting she had a partner. In fact there were barely any personal items in the house at all.
‘Had she ever missed a shift before?’
‘Not that I remember. That’s why it was odd. Especially to not answer her phone either.’
‘We found a lot of pills in the bathroom. Anti-depressants mostly. Did you know she was taking those?’
‘Why would I know what medication she’s on?’
The way she said it was as though it was a horrible question to ask.
‘So you didn’t know?’
‘I didn’t know. Why would I? She was just a… wait. Are you saying…’
She didn’t finish the question.
‘I’m saying there’s a partly drunk glass of vodka by the bath,’ Dani said. ‘And a medicine cabinet filled with medication of various sorts—’
‘You think she killed herself?’
‘Would that surprise you?’
Bianca huffed as though the question wasn’t worthy of a response. ‘I already told you, there was someone else here.’
Dani nodded as she processed all of the conflicting things she was seeing and hearing. She could understand why the PCs who’d attended the 999 call had phoned the Homicide team, not least because of the as-yet-unexplained death, but particularly with a witness account of a potential intruder. But did that really explain any of what Dani was seeing here?
‘Er, Dani.’
She turned to Easton who was standing in the doorway.
‘Can I have a word?’ he asked.
‘Sorry, Mrs Neita, please excuse me for a moment.’
‘Do you know how long you’ll need me for?’ Bianca said as Dani got to her feet. ‘The shop’s still closed. We can’t lose a whole day’s takings.’
‘If you let my colleague take your details, and a brief statement, you can go. We’ll be in touch if we need anything more.’
Bianca nodded mournfully.
‘I’m really sorry you had to see this,’ Dani said before she stepped out into the corridor.
‘I overheard what she said about someone being here,’ Easton said, just louder than a whisper.
‘And?’
He pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘No sign of a boyfriend or anything. No clothes, that sort of thing.’
‘A girlfriend?’
Easton initially looked puzzled, as if that thought had never crossed his mind. ‘I mean, no, I don’t think so. No extra toothbrush either. But more to the point, I can’t see any evidence of an intruder either. No obvious forced entry, no sign of anything having been disturbed. TV, laptop, tablet, purse all still here.’
Dani thought for a moment. What were they not seeing?
Or perhaps they were seeing everything. A severely depressed woman, living alone, who’d taken a morning bath with a cocktail of pills and a glass of vodka. Back door left open because of the steam from the bath? Gate swinging in the wind. Death by suicide or misadventure, whichever it was, it was the same result for poor Clara Doyle.
‘But there is something,’ Easton said.
‘Yeah?’
‘Follow me.’
Dani followed Easton up the stairs, the coarse-weave brown carpet scrunching under her feet. The upstairs of the house had just three doors off the landing: a small toilet, a box room that was used as some sort of dumping ground for clothes and suitcases and unused furniture, and a slightly larger bedroom at the front that was clearly Clara Doyle’s space. The double bed had sumptuous sheets, ruffled from recent use. There was a small dressing table with perfume and make-up messily arranged, a bedside table, but no other furniture, though there was another internal door in one corner. Dani’s immediate thought was that perhaps it was a fitted wardrobe, or even a tiny corner en-suite, but as she looked to the handle and saw the small padlock she realised that this was the reason Easton had called her up.
‘What do you think?’ he said.
‘Let’s try and find a key. If not, we break it off.’
Easton nodded and they set about on their search. There weren’t that many places to look, and Dani was the one who found it, stuffed beneath underwear in the bottom bedside drawer.
She held the key aloft, and Easton looked over at her victoriously, though Dani was feeling quite different. What were they about to stumble on here?
She moved to the door and with a rise of tension pushed the small key into the lock. She unclasped the padlock, then held her breath as she opened the door.
She was left staring into a darkened space. She reached around the inside wall and found a corded switch which she tugged down. A soft yellow light flickered on.
Neither of them said a word. Dani took a halfstep in, her eyes darting left, right, up and down as she took in the patchwork of photos, handwritten notes, newspaper clippings that adorned the wall. Like a crime scene board, or the work of a raving conspiracy theorist. There were scribbled notes, red and black lines drawn all over them, linking the various bits of information in some unknown way.
‘What is this?’ Easton said.
Dani said nothing as she continued to look. One thing was for sure. There was a theme here. Two men in particular, whose faces appeared several times over.
‘Go and get Mrs Neita.’
Easton hurried off. Dani continued to try to take in what she could. What was Clara Doyle doing with all this?
Easton was soon back, both PC Rowden and Bianca with him. Bianca now looked both scared and seriously uncomfortable.
‘This is horrible,’ Bianca said as Dani stepped back out of the cupboard, or whatever it was. ‘I’m in her bedroom. She’s dead downstairs and we’re all in her room going through her things.’
‘I know it’s not nice to do, but we have to do it,’ Dani said. ‘Please, can you come and take a look in here.’
Bianca hesitated but was soon by Dani’s side within the small space, staring aghast at the picture wall, much in the same way as Dani had moments before.
‘Do you recognise any of these people?’ Dani asked.
No response. Bianca’s eyes flicked across the wall.
‘Are they her family? Friends?’
‘I… I just don’t know.’
Except one thing was clear: she wasn’t paying any attention to the older guy. One of the pictures was a press cutting and gave his name as Nicolae Popescu. Bianca was looking all over, anywhere except at his pictures.
Dani reached forward and grabbed the largest, most clear photo she could of Popescu. With a round but lined face, receding hair, large Slavic nose, he looked mean and vicious.
‘Do you know this man?’ Dani said. Bianca quickly looked away from the photo, catching Dani’s gaze. ‘Nicolae Popescu. Who is he?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Bianca said, her words quavering slightly.
Dani stared at her, but Bianca didn’t say anything more.
‘OK, you can go,’ Dani said.
Dani realised she sounded pissed off now, but only because she was certain Bianca was holding back on something. Why?
Bianca and PC Rowden retreated and Dani waited until she was sure they were out of earshot.
‘Who is this guy?’ she said to Easton, holding the photo up.
He shrugged sheepishly. ‘I honestly don’t know either, but I agree her reaction was off.’
‘Then let’s find out.’
Easton was soon beside Dani in the cramped space, scanning the photos on the wall. ‘And this younger guy?’ he said. ‘What’s the deal, do you think?’
Dani really had no clue. Like Popescu, the younger man appeared in several of the pictures, though his name wasn’t clear as there were several other names written on the pictures or next to them: Michael Marin, Patrick Beatty, James Alden. Dani’s eyes flicked across the pictures, the clippings, the notes, the jumble of names and words – coded? – that adorned it all. How could anyone make sense of this…
Then her eyes settled. She felt a sickly feeling in the pit of her stomach. A shiver ran right through her and she whipped her eyes back into the bedroom as though she was expecting to see a ghoul there.
There was nothing. Nobody at all.
Her eyes soon found the picture again. Her heart rattled away in her chest.
‘What is it?’ Easton said, clearly picking up on her edginess.
Dani said nothing as she reached forwards with the tip of a blue plastic-covered finger.
‘What the—’ were the only words she could muster.
It made no sense to her, it made no sense to him, but there was no doubt whatsoever that the man her finger had rested on – the man standing with a wide smile in a group of five, alongside the young man who appeared in several of the other photos – was her brother, Ben.