They had arrived to a scrum of uniformed officers, all trying to look like they were being useful. Murphy guessed most were just hanging around in the hope of getting a glimpse of the scene. The opportunity to tell their friends and family later, that they had been involved in what was shaping up to be a much-discussed case over dinner – or ‘tea’ if you’re from the north and correct – in the coming days.
Murphy had parked between a forensics van and a marked vehicle, squeezing the pool car into the tight space.
‘Looks a bit different around here,’ Rossi said, once out of the car. ‘Thought they’d have got more done by now, though.’
‘Yeah, sprucing it up isn’t going to do much if the residents are still the same,’ Murphy replied, looking down the street at Anfield Stadium in the distance. Regeneration projects and the expansion of the football stadium were transforming the area of Anfield, albeit slowly, and arguably not in the way most people had envisioned. ‘Disenfranchised youth and a battle-hardened older generation aren’t the best of mixes. Nice to see those boarded-up houses around the stadium finally go though. About bloody time. Might even move up the season ticket waiting list with the ground expansion. Just hope ticket prices don’t keep increasing.’
‘Like you’d go that much anyway.’
‘You never know, Laura,’ Murphy said with a grin. ‘I could become a regular for all you know. Probably better than just Sky Plussing Match of the Day once a week and fast forwarding through that big-eared ex-bluenose. Bet it’s murder round here on match days.’
Rossi didn’t reply, just gave a slow nod of her head as she looked towards the row of houses that had been marked for demolition and rebuilding a number of months ago, all post-war brick and years of disregard.
Murphy knew the front facades only told part of the story. The steel coverings on the windows would have been broken into. Never at the front, always at the back – even squatters and robbers had sense. Armed with a crowbar or some other tool, they’d have easily pulled back the coverings and taken their fill of the leftovers or settled in and set up home. The security company in charge of keeping the houses empty would have made some attempts to clear squatters out, but Murphy knew that most of the time it was more trouble than it was worth.
Murphy brushed past the uniform standing outside the derelict house where all the attention was gathered. The PC acknowledged him with a nod.
‘Have you noticed they never ask me for ID?’
‘Let’s see,’ Rossi said, keeping in step with him. ‘The two highest-profile murder cases we’ve had in the past decade, and you’ve managed to be involved with both investigations. On top of that, you’ve also successfully closed cases against a number of other people, and had your face in the Liverpool Echo more times than Ricky Tomlinson. And you wonder why you might be recognisable?’
‘It’s not like I was doing those things on my own. You were with me, remember?’
‘I know when to hide from the cameras.’
‘I wish I did.’
Forensic teams were already in place. Murphy was about to step inside the house when a voice shouted from within.
‘Suit up.’
‘Sorry,’ Murphy called back, turning round to see a smirking Rossi behind him.
‘How long have you been doing this again?’
‘Obviously not long enough,’ Murphy replied.
A few minutes later, looking like extras from a film about pandemics, they entered the final resting place of Chloe Morrison and Joe Hooper.
The smell attacked them as soon as they crossed the threshold. Decay and blood. Rotting meat and something Murphy could never put his finger on.
The house was long abandoned; gutted and ready to be pulled down and replaced by whatever the building group who now owned this part of Anfield decided. More houses, Murphy guessed. Only smaller, and using worse building materials, but with a nice modern finish to the kitchen and bathroom to con those buying or renting the properties. Walls as thin as paper, small rooms dressed up to look big enough for growing families. Similar developments were everywhere, popping up on disused parcels of land across Merseyside, making money for invisible directors on multiple boards.
‘Together until the end. Kinda nice if you don’t think about it too hard.’
Murphy didn’t respond to Rossi, who was peering past people into the room in which the couple had been found.
The house may have felt abandoned, but Murphy walked through on the off-chance the person responsible had left behind something obvious. A three-bedroomed terrace, with nothing but damp in the walls and mould growing over old wallpaper. He walked upstairs, the smell above almost as wretched as the one below. The main bedroom which overlooked the road outside was bare, its wooden floorboards broken in places, newspaper pushing its way through cracks to the surface. The second bedroom was no different apart from an airing cupboard in the corner which had once housed the boiler, now taken apart and capped off.
The box bedroom was different.
At first, Murphy was surprised that only one officer was taking pictures of the walls carefully, methodically. Then he realised the space within the room was really only big enough for one person. There was no natural light due to the boarded-up window so a small beam from a stand-up light had to suffice.
Magazine covers, articles and newspaper clippings covered most of one wall inside the room. From his position by the doorway, Murphy could just about see the other walls were bare. The forensic tech took photographs from all angles to capture the entire spectrum of pictures.
Murphy spied the headlines nearest to the room entrance, taking note of the names displayed in black capitals.
CHLOE AND JOE’S TICKET TO PARADISE
CHLOE AND JOE REVEAL ALL
CHLOJOE – WE WANT A FAMILY
‘Looks like a stalker’s collage,’ Rossi said, looking over his shoulder. ‘Some of these are from when they first started going out. They go back a long time. Must have been collecting them.’
‘I didn’t keep up, to be honest,’ Murphy replied. ‘Not my sort of thing.’
‘You didn’t watch the show?’ Rossi said, a sceptical look plastered across her Mediterranean features. ‘Everyone did.’
Murphy shook his head. ‘Couldn’t bring myself to. You know I can’t stand hearing Scouse accents on TV. Not even my own.’
‘You missed out then. You wouldn’t believe some of the things these people got up to. Made my uni days look like I was in a nunnery. Not those two though. They were a bit different. Found each other quite early on and that changed them I suppose . . .’
Murphy held up a gloved hand to stop Rossi talking. ‘There’ll be plenty of time to catch me up. Right now, I think we should concentrate on the scene at hand, yeah?’
Rossi grunted and stepped back as Murphy asked the forensics officer if he could come into the room.
The wall came into view, giving him the chance to see the message scrawled across the pictures. Red ink, bleeding into the walls.
NOTHING STAYS SECRET
Murphy blinked and the message was different. A different house, a different time. He blinked again and was back in the box room.
He was aware of Rossi on the edge of his vision. He looked at the words again, realising they weren’t red, but black.
It wasn’t that place. Not the same. Different house, different time.
‘Christ, thought I was somewhere else then for a second,’ Murphy said, turning away from the wall.
‘Merda, your mum and dad’s house after . . . after they were, you know.’
Murphy didn’t answer. He looked out towards the hall and shrugged off the memory. ‘Let’s get back downstairs.’
Murphy passed by her as she let him go. Rossi took in the wall once more before following. At the bottom of the stairs, he took a proffered mask from a tech and kept walking.
That’s just what you do.
‘In the back of the room, not the front. That’s interesting,’ Murphy said, standing in the doorway as Rossi joined him. A through lounge and dining room, the entrance in the middle. The bodies were to Murphy’s right. ‘Hidden away from the street just in case, I suppose. Not that it matters with those covers over the windows. Weird.’
‘The whole thing is a bit weird,’ Rossi said, looking towards the front of the house as she went past Murphy and into the room. ‘You all right, Mike?’
DC Hale held up a hand towards them, standing near the front window. As far away as he could possibly get without drawing attention to himself, Murphy thought.
‘How long do you reckon?’
Rossi shook her head. ‘Smelled worse. Can’t be that long. Couple of days maybe?’
The smell of ammonia and decomposition was overpowering, sticking in the air so it felt thick and tangible, but Rossi was right. They had experienced much worse.
Two bodies sitting upright on the chairs. Bound and gagged, their faces dropped into their chests. What was once life, now something indefinable, imperceptible. Empty. Murphy could just about make out the duct tape which had been used to keep them fastened to the chairs, frayed in places, pulled tight in others.
‘How long have they been missing now?’
Murphy turned towards the voice of Dr Stuart Houghton, the pathologist who delighted Murphy ever so much.
‘Two, three days?’ Murphy replied, moving towards where Houghton was crouched. ‘I forget which. How can you tell it’s them?’
‘If it’s not, someone has gone to a lot of trouble to make us believe it is. Wallet found next to him with his ID in. The tattoos covering him are pretty much exactly what I’ve seen every time I visit a newsagent and peruse the magazine shelf. He’s wearing ripped jeans and I believe that’s a black T-shirt on the floor next to him. That’ll match what he was last seen in. She’s wearing black joggers and a red vest-top, which is yet another thing I’ve read in the paper the last couple of days more than once.’
‘Still . . . could be anyone.’
Houghton sighed and raised himself from his haunches. ‘Yes, of course. I know that, you know that, even those idiots outside know that. But, I’m just trying to save you a bit of time. Look at his body. Look at the things he’s etched across himself. Do you think anyone else would be stupid enough to do that to themselves, David?’
Murphy shuddered at the use of his first name. Very few people used it outside of his own home and it still rattled.
‘Okay, okay,’ Murphy said, raising his hands in defeat. ‘I understand. Hard to look past . . . well, this scene, to start recognising faces.’
Houghton shrugged and went back to whatever he was doing, leaving Murphy to move closer to the chairs.
‘At least a couple of days . . .’ Murphy said, under his breath.
The bodies had taken on the pale pallor of death, the victims showing signs of discolouring as the process of breaking down began. The male victim was more marked than the female, but there was no doubt that both were decaying into obscurity.
Murphy couldn’t see any obvious signs of violence on the female, but imagined it lurking beneath the surface of decomposition. The male was different. Bloodspots, illuminated by the beams of lights set up in the corners of the room, had dried dark brown in places.
‘Who called it in?’ Murphy asked, not turning round to face anyone in particular.
‘Their agent,’ came the response from DC Hale who had come closer to the edge of the back room.
‘Agent?’ Murphy replied.
‘Yeah,’ Hale said, hovering in the space where living room became dining room once upon a long time ago. ‘Looks after these celebrities and that. He got an anonymous phone call earlier this morning with this address. He came down but when he couldn’t get in, he rang the local station. They gained access through the back.’
‘They broke in?’ Murphy said, raising himself up now and backing away towards the doorway.
‘No, the panel on this window was only hanging by a thread. They saw the bodies through the window.’
Murphy looked towards the window at the back of the room. Easy enough to see directly into the room and see what was inside once the steel covering was removed. ‘Uniforms must have shit themselves. Where’s the agent now?’
Hale shouted over towards the front entrance to the constable in uniform still standing guard there. ‘Where’s our man?’
Murphy didn’t hear the response, but followed as Hale left the open doorway. Rossi lingered a moment longer before following.
‘You ever get the feeling this sort of thing follows you round, Murphy?’ Rossi said as she caught up with him in the hallway.
Murphy suppressed a laugh and smiled thinly down at her.
‘All the time,’ he replied looking towards where DC Hale was heading. ‘But then . . . I chose this bloody job, didn’t I? Let’s see what Mr Agent has to say and go from there. For all we know we’ll be done by the end of the day.’
‘Murder and then suicide?’
Murphy shook off his coveralls as they left the house and didn’t reply at first. ‘They were both bound to those chairs, Laura.’
‘I know, but I’ve seen that kind of thing before. Guy doesn’t want to be known as a murderer – even after he’s gone – so he makes it look like someone else was there. It’s definitely happened in the past.’
Murphy stared down at her, giving her the look he had to every now and again.
‘I know, I know,’ Rossi said, holding her palms up. ‘I’m just saying we shouldn’t rule anything out, that’s all I’m saying.’
‘We won’t,’ Murphy said, making his way to the end of the path which led onto the street. ‘Let’s cross our fingers and hope that’s the case, shall we?’
