The Embalmer, page 22
part #3 of Mullins & Sullivan Series
Every morning she woke up confused, sleep-deprived, and wrung out, struggling with the most basic tasks. Hands shaking too much to apply toothpaste to toothbrush. Too clumsy for a hot cup of tea.
How long had she been here?
But this morning, they woke her early and, in a haze of sleep and anxiety, she gathered her few belongings and followed the warder through the silent prison to the discharge area. They patted her down and gave her no privacy as she changed out of her prison kit back into the clothes she’d been wearing for her court appearance. They were crumpled and smelled musty. They hadn’t been cleaned during the time she’d been inside – just bundled into a bag with her other possessions.
As the charges had been dropped, she was ejected without the usual plethora of licence conditions and parole appointments. She stumbled out through a small door and blinked at the bright white of the sky. The air was fresh and didn’t stink of prison. She looked around. She’d been given money and told to get a bus, but she didn’t even know where the bus stop was. She’d got her mobile back, but the battery was flat. Anyway, who would she call? Last time she’d left a prison, Thierry had been there for her. For her and Alex. The memory stopped her in her tracks.
A dark saloon car was waiting, engine idling, just beyond the red-and-white traffic barriers. The front passenger door opened and Alex appeared behind it.
‘Mum!’
‘Alex!’
Marni couldn’t help herself and broke into a run, arms outstretched. He came round the door and seconds later she felt herself being swept into his embrace, and he seemed taller, broader, stronger. She didn’t want to cry, but she did. She took a deep breath, fighting back against the tide of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her.
‘Mum, thank God you’re out. Are you okay?’
Marni leaned back so she could look at him. ‘Now I’ve seen you, I’m fine.’
Jayne Douglas emerged from the driver’s side of the car.
‘Marni, how are you?’
‘I’ll be better once we’re away from here,’ said Marni.
Alex opened the back passenger door and they both slid onto the beige leather of the back seat – and into a different world. Marni sighed and took a final look at Bronzefield as the lawyer turned the car around.
‘You must be relieved to be out,’ said Jayne.
Marni shook her head. ‘I don’t know . . . Relieved, of course. But I’m so angry. I shouldn’t have been in there in the first place. They just didn’t listen to me.’
Alex reached out and took her hand.
‘Francis believed in you, but the rest of his team were against him. They couldn’t look beyond the end of their noses to see what was going on.’
It hardly compensated for what she’d been through – how could Francis Sullivan have let her languish in a cell for so long?
Jayne turned out of the prison access road in the direction of the M25.
‘What happens now?’ said Marni.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do I have to go back to court?’
Jayne Douglas glanced across at her, then back at the road. ‘No. Of course not. The charges have been dropped – that means it’s over.’
‘Why did they suddenly drop them?’
‘Because of Alex’s evidence.’
‘What evidence? There can’t be anything short of a confession from Paul that would finally make them believe my version of events.’
‘That’s exactly what he gave them.’
Marni twisted in her seat to face her son. ‘What? How did you . . . ?’
‘I confronted Paul and taped the conversation.’
With a sharp intake of breath, Marni was thrown right back to the moment she’d walked into her kitchen to find Paul and Thierry in the centre of a growing pool of blood.
‘Please God, tell me you didn’t really do that. Did Francis Sullivan put you up to this?’
‘It was my idea,’ said Alex. ‘Sullivan was against it.’
‘The police had nothing to do with it,’ said Jayne. ‘Thankfully, because if they had, it wouldn’t be admissible in court and you’d probably still be inside.’
Marni bit on her lower lip. She’d rather suffer a thousand years in prison than lose Alex.
For the rest of the journey, she just held Alex’s hand, lost in a troubled world of her own, while Jayne took a number of calls and Alex rested his head on her shoulder. Finally, when they arrived back in Brighton, Alex sat up straight and leaned forward.
‘Can you drop me here?’ he said, as they drove down Old Steine, before turning into St James’s Street.
‘You’re not coming home?’ said Marni.
‘I’ll come by later, I promise.’
‘I’d be happier if you would come home for a while . . . with Paul still out there.’
‘I’ll be fine, Mum.’
Then he was gone, leaving Marni feeling unsettled and wondering when she’d next see him.
Jayne restarted the car and took Marni to Great College Street.
‘Have you got house keys?’ she asked, as Marni reached for the door release.
‘Yes. Thank you for coming for me, and for bringing Alex.’
‘Will you be all right now?’
Marni smiled, hiding the trepidation she felt. ‘Of course. Alex said he’ll come round later.’
‘Okay. Let me know if you need anything.’
Marni got out of the car. Jayne Douglas didn’t mean anything. She meant if you’ve got any legal issues . . . Marni unzipped her bag and dug around for her keys. Despite what she’d said, she felt far from fine. The last time she’d been in the house she’d been clutching Thierry’s dead – dying – body. She’d been soiled by his blood. She’d been dragged out, kicking and screaming, by a giant of a policeman. And that was the last she’d seen of her husband. She wondered where his body was – in the morgue, of course. In a cold steel drawer, waiting until the police decided that his loved ones could send him on his way. Bastards.
Her eyes filmed over with tears, but it didn’t matter. She could have unlocked her front door with her eyes shut.
As she stepped inside, she sniffed. Something pungent hung in the cold air, the stink of something rotten. The house was completely silent. No barking as Pepper ran to greet her – Alex had taken him to Liv’s. She dropped her bag on the table in the hall and went towards the kitchen, partly thinking about putting the heating on, while at same time wondering about the smell.
It grew stronger as she pushed open the kitchen door, sharp and acrid, catching in the back of her throat.
She immediately realised what it was. Thierry’s blood. Black and sticky, smeared by the footprints of the police as they’d dragged her away. It didn’t seem real, but she knew what had happened here. She gasped, then ran across to the sink, vomit flooding her mouth before she got there. There wasn’t much to come up – she’d hardly eaten in prison – but she stood bent over the stainless-steel bowl, retching until she had no more to give. The sight of Thierry’s lifeblood so carelessly spilled on the tiled floor that he himself had laid . . . She hadn’t expected it. It wasn’t that she’d assumed someone would have cleaned it up. It was that she hadn’t thought about it at all.
And now it confronted her, the repulsive gore pulling her right back into the moment. Thierry slipping from consciousness. Paul nearly skidding in the blood, as he couldn’t get away fast enough. The horror of realisation. All of it, all over again. She couldn’t breathe, and as her legs shook, she gripped the strip of countertop along the front of the sink.
Water.
She opened the tap, pushing the lever to the cold side, and splashed her face. She drank from her cupped hands. After a minute, she turned off the tap and stood in front of the sink, eyes closed, breathing deeply, not wanting to turn around and confront her new reality. Gradually, her heart stopped pounding and she opened her eyes.
She needed to see Alex, and to talk to him. But she couldn’t have him come here and see this. She looked around the kitchen. As well as the blood on the floor, every doorknob and cupboard handle had a silver dusting of fingerprint powder. The police had been thorough in their job, but they’d left a mess.
Taking a deep breath, she went out to the hall and dug her phone from her bag. She brought it back to the kitchen and put it on the charger, then rolled up her sleeves. Bucket. Mop. Bleach. Scrubbing brush. Cloth. Cleaning liquid.
An hour later, when the doorbell rang, she was on her hands and knees, blinking away tears as she tried to scrub her dead husband’s blood out of the grouting. Still wearing rubber gloves, she answered the door, not caring how dishevelled or tear-stained she might appear.
‘Marni!’
Francis Sullivan stood on the threshold and, other than Alex, she realised he was just about the only person she could bear to see right now. She stepped back to let him in without speaking, and as he hugged her, she felt herself go rigid. She wasn’t really sure she was even ready to see him. Obviously sensing her hesitation, he stepped back quickly.
‘How are you?’ he said, as he followed her into the kitchen. He looked around, taking in the cleaning paraphernalia and the bucket of pink-tinged water.
‘Oh god, did no one arrange to have this cleaned up?’
The tight grip in which Marni managed to hold herself collapsed. She felt her bottom lip tremble and the tears came again, unbidden. She wanted to be strong but the sympathy in Francis’s voice had undone her. He stepped forward and took the scrubbing brush from her hand.
‘Let me. You sit down.’
It was the last thing she’d ever imagined seeing – Francis Sullivan on his hands and knees, scrubbing her kitchen floor in his suit. He concentrated on the task in hand, giving her time to pull herself together. She stared up at the ceiling, taking deep, slow breaths until the urge to cry had passed.
After a few minutes, Francis sat back on his haunches and looked across at her.
‘You know, of course, that we’ve got a confession from Paul.’
She nodded.
‘I’ve redoubled our efforts to find him, but we’ve got no idea where he is. Can you think of anywhere that he could be hiding?’
‘The hostel where he stayed before?’
‘We’ve checked that, and the manager knows to get in touch with us if he turns up. But I don’t think he’ll go back there.’
Marni couldn’t think of anywhere else. ‘Do you really think he’s still in the city?’
Francis shrugged. ‘He was here on Thursday, when he met Alex. He might have left since then, but I get the feeling he can’t stay away.’
Marni shivered, even though the heating had kicked in and the kitchen wasn’t cold any more.
Francis stood up and poured the bucket of bloody water down the sink. It was an almost unbearable act for Marni to watch. She wasn’t sure she could have managed it herself. Was it really so great to be out of Bronzefield and back in her own home?
‘Have you seen Alex yet?’ said Francis, as he finished putting away the cleaning materials.
‘Briefly. He’s coming back later.’
‘Listen, Marni . . . ’ His eyes searched hers, and though she was tempted to look away, she held his gaze. ‘I’m not really happy about you being here on your own. Do you think you can get Alex to stay for a while? Just until we’ve got some idea of where Paul is?’
‘I don’t want Alex here if there’s any chance of Paul turning up. I don’t want him anywhere near the man who killed his father.’
Francis digested her words. ‘Fair enough. But you’re a threat to Paul. You’re the one eyewitness who can place him here when Thierry was stabbed. That puts you in danger.’
‘I’m not scared of Paul.’
‘You should be.’
Marni shrugged.
‘I want to give you police protection.’
‘No.’
‘Marni . . . ’
‘No. Look, thanks for your help, but I need to phone Alex now.’
Marni felt like a bitch as she hustled Francis out. But she needed time alone so she could start to grieve for her husband. As the door closed behind him, she sank to the floor and finally let the pain of losing Thierry wash through her.
45
Wednesday, 15 November 2017
Francis
Francis left Great College Street kicking himself. He should have given Alex a heads-up to get some cleaners into the property. He could hardly bear to think of what it must have been like for Marni to come back into her house alone and find the whole stinking crime scene in all its gory glory. She was so vulnerable and so alone. He decided to have a quiet word with Alex and suggest that he stayed with his mother, regardless of her views on the matter. Paul Mullins was clearly a psychopath and it seemed unlikely that he would let matters rest.
As he got out of his car in the police-station car park, he saw Rory standing outside the heavy double back doors, smoking a cigarette. So much for all that smugness over vaping when Rory had given up smoking during the summer – he’d lasted all of a few months. Francis lit one of his own and went across to his sergeant.
‘All right, Rory?’
‘Not particularly. Just heard that the CPS have released Mullins.’
‘I know. I’ve just been to check that she got home okay. Bloody CSI hadn’t sent any cleaners in – she was scrubbing her husband’s blood off the floor when I arrived.’
Rory rolled his eyes. He was clearly still furious about the taped confession. They’d listened to it over and over again up in the incident room. ‘No jury’s going to convict Paul Mullins on that – it’s ambiguous at best.’
‘Works both ways though,’ Francis had replied. ‘No jury will convict Marni after hearing it – it’s more than enough to raise reasonable doubt.’ Bradshaw had been equally unimpressed and now the pressure was on Rory to bring in Paul and secure a conviction – or else.
‘Oh, and more bad news . . . ’
‘What?’ said Francis.
‘Hazelton’s date with Sarah Bateman stands up as an alibi. She vouched for him, he produced a receipt from Malmaison for the date of Alicia’s death, and one of the waiters recognised a picture of him.’
Francis shrugged. He’d never thought Hazelton had been in the frame for Alicia Russell’s killing anyway, so checking his alibi was just a formality. They were looking for some sort of lunatic, and Hazelton just didn’t have it in him.
‘So we’re back at square one,’ he said. ‘And now we’ve got another body to contend with as well.’
They stubbed out their cigarettes and went upstairs to the office.
‘Tell me what you know about Ada Carmichael,’ said Francis, addressing the members of the team who were present.
‘According to her driving licence, she’s thirty years old,’ said Gavin. ‘She lived on Stanley Street, near Queen’s Park.’
‘And the flatmate?’ said Francis. ‘I take it no one had called her in missing on Friday night?’
‘Shared a house with a girlfriend,’ said Kyle, ‘but she was away for the weekend. Angie’s gone to interview her this morning, so we should get some more details about her personal life.’
‘Got anywhere with her phone yet, Gavin?’
Gavin shook his head. ‘It’s got touch ID, so no luck so far. Got a guy coming over from forensics with an extraction gizmo – he’ll be able to crack it wide open.’
‘Excellent. Let me know if you find anything relevant.’
‘Of course.’
‘Kyle, how’s it going with the statements from the pier staff?’
‘All done, sir. But nothing useful between the lot of them.’
Francis had suspected this would be the case. The CCTV was more useful, but all the staff were busy working and none of them had noticed anything around the time Ada was on the pier.
‘Also, where are we with the list of missing women? Been able to exclude most of them?’
Kyle picked up a sheaf of paper from his desk. ‘We’ve just got two left on the list – a Lynne Mazur and a Denise Drysdale. Lynne Mazur’s been missing for nearly two years. Last seen leaving a pub in Portslade, a Saturday night, near closing time. No sightings. No leads. I spoke with the officer on her case – they reckon that she probably hitched a lift with the wrong bloke.’ He shrugged. ‘Doesn’t really add up for our case.’
‘And the other?’
‘Denise Drysdale. Claimed to be an actress. Known to have done exotic dancing. Didn’t show up for work. She’s got family in Spain, so might just have decided a life of sunshine was preferable.’
‘When was this?’
‘Five, six months ago.’
‘Doesn’t sound very promising either. Well, keep at it, Kyle. Maybe widen your search parameters.’ He glanced up at the clock on the incident-room wall. It was gone six. ‘Okay, call it a day. Let’s hope we hit some leads tomorrow.’
The team started packing up and Francis headed back down to his car. He was a man on a mission.
‘Since when did you do DIY?’ Robin came into the kitchen and put a bag of groceries down on the kitchen counter.
‘Let me help you with that,’ said Francis, putting down the drill he was wielding.
‘It’s fine. I can manage to put the shopping away, Fran.’ She sounded tetchy, like she always did when anyone reminded her of her limitations. ‘But what are you doing?’
‘Fitting new window locks,’ said Francis, turning back to his task.
‘But . . . we already had window locks. What was wrong with them?’
