Ten Guilty Men (A DCI Morton Crime Novel Book 3) Page 3

  Despite the mess, the extravagant decor shone through. The entranceway was the most decadent example of Ellis DeLange’s lifestyle. Twin staircases rose to either side of the hall, a sweeping cascade of marble and oak.

  The swimming pool came a close second, but although many of the house’s original features were impressive, a closer inspection revealed that all the other rooms were perfectly ordinary. Morton thought they could have been picked up and dropped into almost any two-up two-down in the country without appearing out of place.

  Imitation furniture, costume jewellery and high street clothing suggested that Ellis wasn’t living quite the life she wanted her home to portray.

  The mess continued upstairs except in the master bedroom, which was an oasis of cleanliness. A sleigh bed dominated the room, with an oak armoire next to it atop which sat a number of birthday cards which were displayed facing towards the bed. A few bore the message ‘Happy 30th Birthday!’ but it was the largest card that caught Morton’s eye; it read ‘Happy Birthday, Big Sis!’

  Morton opened the card, scanned the handwritten message. A name, scrawled in tiny lettering in such a way that made it look as if the author’s hand had never left the page, was at the bottom: Brianna. Morton nodded appreciatively. That took care of identifying next of kin.

  Morton surveyed a series of photographs in a collage covering the longest wall. Three women recurred throughout. In the centre was Ellis, petite and curvaceous. The woman on the right was Ellis’ likeness, but taller and thinner. The third, on the left-hand side, was about Ellis’ height, but much less careworn.

  Morton peeled one of the photographs off the collage; it came away easily. He flipped it over. A blob of dried-out Blu-tack had been used to stick the photograph to the wall. Below the Blu-tack someone had scrawled in pencil, ‘L -> R: Brianna; Ellis; Gabriella, NYE 2012’.

  The three women had been photographed in various combinations throughout: Brianna and Ellis, Ellis and Gabriella, all three together. Oddly, there were none of Gabriella and Brianna alone. Perhaps, Morton mused, Ellis was so narcissistic that she preferred to display only photos that included her. It certainly appeared that way. None of the photos failed to feature Ellis.

  One other figure seemed to be included in many of the photos, a man that Morton thought looked vaguely familiar. He was tall and rugged, and he appeared in the largest photograph with his arm draped casually around a much younger Ellis DeLange. She was smiling broadly and looked much more fresh-faced than in her more recent photos. Again, Morton took the photo down from the wall and flipped it over. The same swirly handwriting had pencilled ‘Me + Kal, my 25th birthday’ in looping cursive. The ‘i’ in birthday was dotted with a tiny heart, as if written by a schoolgirl.

  The photograph was only five years old, but the difference between the happy girl in the photo and the thirty-year-old now in the morgue couldn’t be more chalk and cheese. Morton snapped a quick photo on his phone of the three girls and the man called Kal, then felt his stomach rumble. No wonder. It was getting on for three o’clock already. There was just about time to grab a quick sandwich before going to meet the coroner – if the autopsy began at the time promised, which was never guaranteed with Dr Larry Chiswick.

  Chapter 4: Date with Death

  Ellis DeLange’s body was tiny in death, lying atop a full-size gurney which could have accommodated her body twice over. Her eyes had been closed out of respect and a paper covering guarded her modesty. Dr Larry Chiswick leant over the body to take a final sample, his bear-like shoulders almost obscuring Morton and Ayala’s view.

  Next, Doctor Chiswick picked up a hypodermic needle with his left hand, and spoke gruffly as he held it aloft: ‘I’ll be with you in a moment. Got most of your samples bagged and tagged. There was something organic under her nails. That’s already gone off to DNA. On the shelf there, you’ve got liver, brain, bile and blood samples. Just got to get this last one.’

  Chiswick swept a hand towards a metal tray behind him which held the evidence, ready to be sent over to the Met’s forensics department by the diener. Morton glanced at the blood samples. The nearest one was labelled ‘Femoral Artery’ followed by Ellis’ name, and various numbers. The other was marked ‘Heart’.

  Ayala followed Morton’s gaze and frowned.

  ‘Doc, why do we need multiple blood samples?’ Ayala asked as he focused hard on the row of vials. It was his first time attending an autopsy. Morton wondered how long it would be before Ayala excused himself due to the smell.

  The coroner swung round, pointing the high-gauge needle in Ayala’s direction. ‘You said there were drugs found in the house. If we’re testing the full range, we need two samples because the concentration can vary in different parts of the body. Basic science, you know.’

  Chiswick turned back to the body, and used the thumb of his right hand to push open Ellis’ left eyelid. Moments too late, Ayala drew back as he realised what was about to happen. The coroner deftly plunged the needle into the eye, then pulled back on the syringe end to withdraw a sample from the vitreous humour. He injected the fluid into a glass phial, then set the needle down.

  Ayala retched, then bolted from the room.

  ‘Eight minutes. That’s a new record, even for you. You should get a new second-in-command. That lad doesn’t seem to have the stomach for this sort of work,’ Chiswick said.

  ‘If only. I think I’m stuck with him. Besides, if I ditch him I’ll only have Mayberry left and nobody wants that.’

  Chiswick’s expression darkened. ‘I wondered who’d get stuck with him. Sorry it had to be you.’

  ‘Office politics. With Vaughn gone, I had to promote Ayala from within and Mayberry is Ayala’s replacement. How’s life down here treating you, Larry?’

  ‘Can’t complain. Compared to my patients, I’m doing dandy,’ the coroner joked.

  Morton scowled at the coroner’s dark sense of humour, and then glanced out into the corridor.

  ‘Ayala’s long gone. Let’s get on with it. I’ll catch him up later.’

  ‘Right you are. Ellis DeLange, age thirty. Death was caused by blunt force trauma to the back of the head resulting in a subdural haematoma. Her brain bled out from the inside. It would have been pretty quick.’

  ‘Definitely murder then?’

  ‘Unless she ran backwards at about fifteen miles an hour into a solid object, then threw her own body in the pool to cover it up, I think we can rule out accidental death or suicide.’

  ‘What was she hit with?’

  ‘Damned if I know,’ Chiswick said. ‘Something oblong, reasonably heavy. The force was dispersed over a large contact area, so it wasn’t as narrow as a pipe. I’d be tempted to say a brick, but there doesn’t appear to be any transfer evidence to support that. You find anything like that?’

  ‘Nope. All we found were drugs, condoms, pizza boxes and a towel in the garden.’

  Chiswick leant against his workbench, and smiled. ‘Sounds like my student days.’

  ‘She was a bit old for that, and not looking too good for her age either.’

  ‘That’s nothing more than a poor diet, her make-up being washed off in the water and a touch of adipocere.’

  Morton examined the tray of samples ready to go off to the lab. ‘You don’t think she was on drugs then?’

  ‘Oh, she was taking something but she hid it well. No track marks, so she wasn’t shooting up.’

  ‘Oral administration?’

  The coroner grinned. ‘Guess again.’

  ‘Injections between her toes? Some sort of cream?’

  Chiswick shook his head. ‘Sorry. Your victim liked her barbiturates taken rectally. See that baggie over there?’

  Morton glanced over at what appeared to be a woollen rag soaked in a yellow goo. ‘No. You’re kidding!’

  ‘That was inside her. It’s definitely been soaked in some kind of nembies, and if I had to guess from the bitter smell and yellowing, I’d say its pentobarbital, most commonly used by vets t
o euthanize animals. We’ll need to wait a few weeks for forensics to confirm that though.’

  ‘A euthanasia drug? Are you suggesting she was suicidal?’

  ‘Oh no. It acts like an opiate in low doses. There’s a fine line between getting high and overdosing, but she didn’t cross it. She’d have been high, and lost all her inhibitions.’

  ‘That’d explain the evidence of drunken sex.’

  The coroner grinned, and let out a hearty, booming laugh. ‘See. Just like university.’

  Chapter 5: Next of Kin

  By the time Morton and Ayala arrived at home of Brianna Jackson, Ellis DeLange’s next of kin, the sun had set. They parked underneath a nearby railway bridge in a bay marked “Permit holders only”, and set off on foot towards Amelia Street. It was a residential area, with a steady flow of foot traffic, but it wasn’t well lit. There were few lampposts, and even where there were lights it seemed that bulbs had been allowed to burn out without being replaced. The faces of those they passed swam into view and then disappeared into the darkness just as quickly.

  ‘Damn!’ Ayala cried out.

  Morton turned to see Ayala on the ground, clutching at his ankle.

  ‘This is no time to take a break,’ Morton joked, and held out a hand.

  ‘Bloody bin bags. Didn’t see ’em in the darkness.’

  Brianna lived in a fourth-floor walk-up in a listed building. While exceptionally pretty, it lacked the charm of her sister’s home, and there were no outer security doors let alone a perimeter fence. A terracotta archway led through to a narrow hallway with a steep spiral staircase on the right. At the very top of the stairs, Morton and Ayala paused to catch their breath.

  Morton spotted Ayala wincing. ‘Your ankle all right?’

  ‘No. I’ll be suing for worker’s comp next week,’’ Ayala quipped.

  ‘That’s the spirit. Mind knocking the door? I can’t reach from here.’

  The landing was barely big enough for the two of them. The stairwell had a solitary window through which a street lamp could be seen a few feet below casting a pale glow over the street. Three doorways at the top were marked ‘1A’, ‘1B’, and ‘1C’.

  Ayala rapped his knuckles on the middle door.

  The sound of shuffling preceded a woman’s voice.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she asked shrilly.

  Morton imagined someone pressing their eye to the peephole, and trying to make out the two shadowy figures in the stairwell.

  ‘Metropolitan police, ma’am,’ Ayala said.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Do you know Ellis DeLange?’

  ‘She’s my sister. Why?’

  ‘May we come in?’ Ayala asked. The Met had strict rules against giving death notices on the doorstep.

  A chain rattled on the other side of the door, a lock clicked and the door swung open inwards. Ayala shuffled in then stopped suddenly, causing Morton to bump into him.

  Morton nudged him in the back to keep moving, and then stood on tiptoe to glance over Ayala’s shoulder. The flat, if it could be called that, was little more than a bed, a microwave and a curtained area at one end that Morton presumed concealed a bathroom.

  Morton nudged Ayala again, and he shuffled forward just far enough to let Morton squeeze in. Morton pushed the door shut then breathed a sigh of relief. Just by closing the door, Morton had doubled the available space to stand in.

  Brianna Jackson, born Brianna DeLange, sat on the end of the single bed with knees tucked up beneath her chin. She looked up expectantly, quickly glancing between the two detectives.

  ‘Miss Jackson, I’m DCI David Morton. I have some bad news to tell you. I sorry to inform you that your sister has been found dead at her home,’ Morton said.

  Brianna inhaled deeply, then nodded. ‘It was it an overdose, wasn’t it?’

  ‘We believe your sister was murdered.’

  She clapped her hands to her mouth, her eyes flaring wide in apparent surprise. ‘How? When?’

  ‘We’re not sure yet. When did you last see your sister?’

  ‘Her... her birthday party, the weekend before last.’

  ‘What night was this?’

  ‘Saturday. She was stressing about turning the big three-oh.... It just seems so silly now. She’ll be young forever now.’ Brianna began to sob loudly. Ayala reached into his pocket, and pulled out a silk handkerchief monogrammed with a golden ‘B’.

  ‘Was the party in the evening?’ Morton asked.

  Brianna nodded. ‘It was supposed to start at seven... but she only picked seven to get everyone there by nine. Everyone turns up late, don’t they?’

  ‘Do you remember who was there?’

  ‘I... I’ve got a list. She invited everyone on social media. Pass me that laptop.’ Brianna pointed at a small notebook sat on top of the microwave. She flipped up the lid, and the trio waited for the notebook to boot up in silence. Once it was on, Brianna tapped away at the keys to log in and brought up the details of the party.

  She pointed at the screen. ‘See, eighty-two attendees. She even invited my ex-husband, the useless git. He didn’t turn up, thank God.’

  ‘Eighty-two!’ Ayala cried out.

  ‘Miss Jackson–’

  ‘Please, call me Brianna.’

  ‘‘Miss Jackson,’ Morton repeated firmly. ‘Tell us about the people your sister had in her life.’

  ‘Me. I’m pretty much almost all she had. We lost our parents a few years back, though Ellis never really got on with them. She was only two years older than me, but she looked out for me.’

  Brianna might have been twenty-eight, but she looked a decade younger than her sister. In the most recent photos Morton had seen at the house, Ellis had a sunken, weather-worn appearance with waxy skin and eyes that seemed lifeless and dull; Brianna was still chubby-cheeked and cherub-like.

  ‘Why didn’t Ellis get on with your parents?’ Morton asked.

  ‘They disapproved of her lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong, they were proud of everything she achieved... but Ellis got mixed up in the wrong crowd. It was that Paddy Malone that did it. He got her hooked, and she’s been his meal ticket ever since.’

  Ayala pulled out a notebook and pencil from his inside jacket pocket. ‘Do you have an address for Paddy?’

  ‘How should I know where he lives? He comes and goes. Most of the time he’s in her kitchen with a needle jammed in his arm.’

  ‘Could he have killed her?’ Morton said.

  ‘I doubt it. He’s a loser, but he’s pretty laid back. And like I said, he needed my sister.’

  ‘Is there anyone that would have wanted her dead?’

  ‘No... Yes. Her boyfriend, Kallum. Kallum Fielder. I saw them arguing at the party. It was embarrassing really. We all tried to ignore it.’

  Morton’s forehead creased as he strained to remember where he had heard the name Kallum Fielder. He hated it when things slipped out of recall.

  ‘When was this?’ Morton asked.

  ‘Ten o’clock, maybe. Maybe a little after. I was gone by eleven so it had to be before then.’

  ‘And was there anyone else?’

  ‘Not that I can think of. Look, I don’t mean to be rude but I’ve got to make some phone calls. I’m sure you’ve work to do anyway.’

  ‘Of course. Do you have a phone number we can reach you at?’

  Brianna scribbled on the back of a leaflet for a local takeaway, and handed it to Ayala. It had two phone numbers on it.

  ‘The top one is my mobile number. The bottom one is the landline for my work – the Walworth Veterinary Clinic and Pet Hospital.’

  ‘Thank you for your time, Miss Jackson.’

  Chapter 6: The Boyfriend

  Monday April 7th – 08:45

  For Morton, a quarter to nine o’clock in the morning felt like an early start for a Monday. But the man he and Ayala were at Broadcasting House to see had been up for several hours already.

  Kallum Fielder, known to the nation simply a
s Kal, was the face of hit morning television Wake Up Britain! Over a bleary-eyed cup of tea or bowl of cereal, Kal would read out the morning’s headlines in his deep, soothing baritone. He was also considered something of an in-joke and as celebrity-chaser Gifford Byrnes put it: “Kal speaks smart but acts dumb.”

  From the back of Studio One, the detectives watched Kal finish up his six ’til nine stint in front of the camera.

  ‘And that’s all from Wake Up Britain! I’ve been Kal Fielder and I’ll see you tomorrow morning,’ Kal signed off with a wink.

  CRT monitors, which were affixed to the ceiling to show what was being broadcast in real time, cut to a preview of the next show.

  ‘That’s a wrap! Take five, everybody,’ the director called out.

  Morton pushed his way past the sound techs stampeding towards the snack tray out in the hall, flashed his ID at the single cameraman giving him a quizzical glance, then stepped onto the stage.

  A pair of plum-coloured sofas, one used by the show’s hosts and the other by the guests, were arranged at right angles in the centre of the stage. Almost immediately after Morton stepped onto the stage the heat from the lighting hit him. His suit suddenly felt clingy. But Kal was apparently immune. The television presenter sat right on the edge of the sofa with a mug of coffee in hand. His attention was focussed on holding his head deathly still so that his make-up could be reapplied.

  ‘Mr Kallum Fielder?’

  Kal waved a hand in reply, but didn’t turn away from the beautician desperately trying to paint over his panda eyes.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m DCI Morton. This is Detective Ayala. We need to talk to you about Ellis DeLange.’

  Kal tensed visibly, and Morton saw his left biceps twitch. He pushed the hand of his make-up artist away. ‘Leave.’

  When the make-up artist was out of earshot, Kal continued: ‘Eli’s been arrested?’

  ‘No, Mr Fielder. I’m afraid I have some bad news. Ellis was found dead at her home.’