Fearful Symmetry Read online

  Blake nodded. “Yes. The Taylors have a landline still. A home cleaning service would be easy to call from here. And then just wait.”

  “Like a sort of dial-a-victim service?” Manikas said. “That’s a bit grim, sir,”

  “I hate to say it, but I wonder if Ellen Kevney is lying somewhere in an empty house,” Blake said. “She was a mobile worker, too. Our killer could have done the same to her. Another part of me wonders if Kevney might be responsible for the death…”

  “Really, sir?”

  “Her scissors ended up in the woman’s eye and the passport was in Kevney’s car.”

  “But why would Ellen Kevney kill Katerina?”

  “Why would anyone kill her? Like that too. It’s horrible. We need to check the phone records for… Are you with me, Alex?”

  But Manikas had his head tilted and a curious frown on his face. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “It’s just that picture…”

  Blake turned and saw ‘The Little Black Boy’ still hanging, slightly tilted on the wall. “Oh, that. Yes, it caught my eye, too.”

  “It looks out of place, sir…”

  “Yes,” Blake said, a sinking feeling growing in his stomach. “It’s a William Blake print apparently…”

  Manikas looked at him but said nothing.

  “You think that was placed there? By the killer?” Blake said, at last.

  “I don’t know, sir,” he said, looking sheepish. “I’m just saying, there was that Radio Times in perfect condition in the car and now this. I’m not being funny but look at that oil painting on the other wall; it fits in with the rest of the house. But the print looks wrong and it’s by William Blake…”

  “It could be pure coincidence, Alex,” Blake said, trying to convince himself more than Alex; he’d thought the painting to be curious when he first came to the scene. “I’m not so big-headed as to think somebody is trying to attract my attention with all this…”

  Alex Manikas shrugged. “But we should consider all possibilities. All we have to do is ask the Taylors if they own a William Blake print, sir. Then we’ll know.”

  “Fair enough. Ring in and get someone to ask the question.”

  Manikas went out into the hall and Blake stood shaking his head at the scene. “How did the killer know?” he said as Manikas returned.

  “Know what, sir?”

  “That the Taylors would be on holiday? The killer must have watched them, but how do you know how long somebody will be away for?”

  “The number of bags they stick in the car, sir?”

  “Maybe, but it would be hard to assess…”

  “Well, it doesn’t really matter, sir, once the deed is done, does it? I mean, if they’re away for a week, the poor victim is still dead. If they’re away for a fortnight, then there’ll be more decomposition. More distance between the crime and the killer. Three weeks is a bonus.”

  “True but he must have been keeping a close eye on them to know that they’d be gone for more than a day. It would all need to be planned. How could he book a cleaner without knowing when the house would be empty?” Blake edged around the blood stain on the hearth rug and looked out of the front window. The Grove was quiet, nobody in their front gardens or cleaning their cars. “Any of these other houses would give you a great vantage point and the neighbours would be the most likely people to know each other’s movements.”

  Manikas joined him at the window. “You think the killer might be that local, sir?”

  “It’s a strong theory, Alex,” Blake sighed and wandered into the kitchen. “Or at least there’s a strong local connection. Why is there tape around the sink?”

  “Apparently, there were two coffee cups in there. One had lipstick on the rim.”

  Blake shook his head. “The killer had coffee with his victim first? Jeez.”

  Manikas’s phone rang. “Yep? Right.” He gave a long breath. “Thanks.”

  Blake raised his eyebrows. “And?”

  “Better get that picture bagged and tagged, sir,” Manikas said. “Mr Taylor has never heard of William Blake and has never had a painting of a Little Black Boy in his living room. That’s been put there deliberately.”

  But Blake wasn’t listening. He strode up the hall and out into the front garden, staring at the bungalow next door. It lay silent and still; curtains drawn tight. “Who lives there, at number three?”

  Manikas flicked through his notes. “That’s a woman called Jean Quin. Single, lives on her own. Currently on holiday… sir, you don’t think…”

  “I’m hoping not but we both agreed, Ellen Kevney must be somewhere. We need to check.”

  Chapter 11

  Happy Homes Cleaning was clearly the kind of place you phoned to book a cleaner; anyone who had come direct to the office would have run a mile. Google maps had led DS Vikki Chinn off the Dock Road, down a narrow street that led into a crumbling alley. This had all been warehouses once but since the shrinking of the docklands, garages, wholesalers and woodyards occupied the area. The new businesses stood between decaying warehouses with empty, staring windows, overgrown with opportunistic weeds and bushes. Vikki had been told that more goods went through the port of Liverpool than ever before, but the decay here seemed to contradict that.

  A little door, its tired blue paint peeling in huge flakes, stood lost in a wall of blackened brick. The sign above was functional but hardly sang Happy Homes Cleaning. One tiny window at the side of the door was so grimed with dirt and dust from the street that it was impossible to see inside. Vikki tried the door and it shuddered open, the bottom snagging on old linoleum.

  A woman stood behind an old counter in a tiny room. The whole place looked faded and in need of a good wiping down and a lick of paint. A few faded posters of cartoon cleaners holding thumbs up clung to the wall, slowly losing their grip by the corners. Three chairs sat along one wall but a large, bald man dressed in black sat on the middle one, effectively making the other two unusable. He scrolled through his phone without looking up.

  “Can I help you love?” The woman said. Vikki weighed her up. Mid-fifties, perhaps, dyed blonde hair, her heavily-made-up face had a mean, pinched look about it.

  “DS Vikki Chinn. I’m here enquiring about an employee of yours. A Katerina Dragavei?” From the corner of her eye, Vikki noticed the big man stop scrolling and look up at her.

  The woman behind the counter blinked and then gave a curt nod. “Ex-employee,” she corrected. “Cleared off a few weeks ago. Haven’t heard from her since. Took her uniform with her, too. Is she in trouble?”

  Vikki scribbled in her notebook. “I’m sorry. I didn’t get your name…”

  “Joynson,” The woman said. “Heather Joynson. Manager of Happy Homes Cleaning.”

  “Thanks, Heather. So when did you last see Katerina?”

  The man to Vikki’s left shifted in his seat, his leather jacket creaking.

  Heather Joynson exhaled deeply. “I dunno about three weeks ago. She went on a call and didn’t come back. I tried ringing her but there was no answer. Bloomin’ annoying if you ask me.”

  Vikki consulted her notebook. “Would that call be to number two Hilbre Grove, Upton on the Wirral?”

  Heather Joynson gave a grumpy sigh and pulled out a huge appointments book. She flipped it open and flicked through the pages. “Yeah… Hilbre Grove, Wirral… Mrs Taylor…”

  “And you took the call?”

  “Course I did.”

  “Can you remember anything about the caller?”

  “No. We get hundreds of calls in here every day,” she glanced down at the silent phone. “Well lots anyway. How am I meant to recall every punter?”

  “Please. If there’s anything. It might be important. Was it male or female?”

  “Well, it says ‘Mrs Taylor’ in the book but… hang on, now you mention it. It was a male voice. A young man. He said he was ringing for his grandma.”

  “Local accent?”

  “Think so, yeah.”

  Vikki
frowned “When she didn’t come back; weren’t you worried about her?”

  Joynson shrugged. “These casual workers come and go. She hadn’t been with us all that long. I just figured she’d gone home. I wish she hadn’t taken the uniform with her. I go through loads of them.”

  “Do you have an address for her?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t, sorry,” Joynson said, pouting. “I did ask her a few times, so I could put her on the books properly but she kept putting me off. Said she was just in the process of moving.”

  “You’ll have to forgive me, Heather,” Vikki said, lowering her notebook. “But that sounds awfully odd. You didn’t know where she lived and yet you employed her. Don’t you need references? Don’t you vet your employees? How on earth did you pay her?”

  “Cash,” Heather Joynson said, staring coldly at Vikki. “I suppose you’re right. I should’ve done more background checks but, to be honest, it’s so hard finding staff who’ll stick the job. I’d take you on if you wanted to fill in the time between your shifts.”

  The bald man grunted and Vikki flashed him a look. His grin faded.

  “What about friends. Did she know any of your other employees?”

  “No. Not really. Ours is more of an agency model. The girls don’t work together much and Katerina came in alone. What is this anyway? I feel like I’m being interrogated, here…”

  “Katerina’s card and uniform were found at a crime scene,” Vikki said. “It’s essential we trace her last movements and any next of kin.”

  If Vikki Chinn had expected to shock Joynson, it didn’t work. Instead, her face hardened. “Well, I don’t think I can help you other than that. Now, unless you have any other questions, I’d like you to leave.”

  The big man stood up and took a step forward but Vikki didn’t move. “I don’t think there’s any need to be like that, Ms Joynson. I’m investigating a serious crime. If I have to come back here with a warrant, I think there may be a number of other interested parties who might like to tag along. HMRC might be a start. Possibly a couple of immigration officers too. What d’you think?”

  Heather Joynson didn’t blink. “I think you’d have to have a bloody good reason for getting a judge to agree to a warrant, Detective Sergeant Chinn. Now I asked you to leave.”

  Vikki clenched her teeth but turned and left. As she climbed in her car, she glanced up at the windows high above the door. Someone had wiped the grime from the inside and a pale face stared out at her. A piece of paper was pressed against the glass and it had one word written on it: HELP. Then a hand wrapped around the girl’s mouth and dragged her away from the window.

  Chapter 12

  Even as he approached the door, Blake could smell it. That familiar stink of death. He pushed at the front door but it was locked. “We’ll check round the back,” he said and led Manikas down the side of the house. “Why didn’t anyone pick up on that smell when they did the door-to-door?”

  “Dunno, sir,” Manikas replied, a handkerchief to his mouth and nose. “Maybe they just thought it was from the Taylors’ house…”

  A side gate led them into a garden and to the back door. There was no sign of any forced entry. “Gloves,” Blake said to Manikas, producing a pair from his jacket pocket. Blake tried the handle and it opened. A gust of warm, fetid air caressed Blake’s face and he grimaced. The brightness of the kitchen only made the hall darker. It lay waiting for them, shrouded in shadow. Blake inched forward, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth. The smell grew stronger and thicker, until he felt that if he opened his mouth, he would taste the air itself.

  The body lay on the living room floor. Its legs were straight but the arms were extended, as if the poor soul had been crucified. The face was grey and swollen, but Blake could see a dark beard, matted with blood. The whole body was puffed up, straining at what looked like dark overalls. A pair of scissors protruded from one eye.

  As Blake backed out, something caught his eye. A picture hung, crookedly on the wall above the fireplace. Half the frame was occupied by a poem, the image below showed a boy with a sack on his back. “It’s the same style as the one at the Taylors’,” Blake said, trying hard to hold his breath and speak at the same time.

  “The Chimney Sweeper,” Manikas read aloud from the painting. “Is it a William Blake, poem, sir?”

  Blake gagged on the smell. “Jeez! I dunno, Alex. let’s get outside.”

  They staggered into the fresh air, the smell clinging to them. Manikas retched and doubled up over the hedges in the front garden. Gesturing to one of the Scene of Crime Investigators who was leaving the other house, Blake leaned against the gatepost, bending over and sucking in air.

  “You okay, sir?” The CSI said.

  Blake nodded. “I’ll be fine. There’s another one in there…”

  “Another what, sir?”

  “Another body,” Blake snapped. “Call in. Get another team down here quickly.”

  The man’s eyes widened and he sprinted to the van parked outside number two.

  Blake watched the man go and then groaned at the sight of Don Pleavin marching across the Grove. “Are you all right Mr Blake?”

  “Yes, Mr Pleavin, I’m fine. Just made a… discovery…”

  Pleavin’s eyes widened. “Another murder? In Jean’s house?”

  Blake straightened up and Manikas had managed to recover himself, too. “I’d rather you kept this to yourself until we have a team to secure the area.”

  “Absolutely,” Pleavin said, nodding. He seemed pleased to be involved in some kind of official secret. “Was it him?”

  “Who?”

  Pleavin winked and made a stabbing gesture to his eye. “You know, the Scissor Man. Was it him?”

  “The Scissor Man?” Blake said.

  Pleavin looked taken aback. “I thought that’s what you called the killer. The Scissor Man. He stabbed the woman in the eye with a pair of scissors, didn’t he?”

  “Where did you get that from?”

  “The PCSO who called round told me. Tom Dacre. Nice fella.”

  “With respect, Mr Pleavin, he shouldn’t be divulging details of the crime scene to members of the public. I’ll be having words with him as soon as I can. mark my words.”

  “I see,” Pleavin said. He looked as if he was trying to think of a way to make amends. “Is there anything I can do to help? I could stand guard over Jean Quinn’s house…”

  “No. No,” Blake said. “We need to keep the place secure until an official team arrives. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Right,” Pleavin said, still standing there.

  “Maybe a mug of hot tea?” Manikas said, his eyebrows raised, expectantly. “Or coffee. We’ve had a shock, Mr Pleavin…”

  “Ah! Right!” Pleavin said, giving them a thumbs up. “Yes. I can do that.” He hurried off, glad to have a role.

  Blake gave a bleak smile. “Good thinking, Alex. The last thing we need is Mr Pleavin gumming up the works. If I catch up with that PCSO, I’ll tear him a new one. Gossiping with the bloomin’ public. Is that what they’re calling the killer? The Scissor Man? Jeez.”

  “Beggar’s belief, sir.” Manikas scanned the houses. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re right. Whoever did this is likely to have a close connection with Hilbre Grove…”

  “And whoever did this, has Ellen Kevney. If she isn’t dead already.”

  *****

  Tina White looked out of the front window of number four Hilbre Grove and caught her breath. She dropped the curtain and slid out of view.

  “Paul!” She cried. “Paul!”

  Paul rushed into the room. “What is it? What’s up?”

  “There are two policemen in the road. They just came staggering out of Jean Quinn’s house. Oh my God. D’you think they’ve found another body?”

  “Don’t be daft!” Paul snapped, grabbing Tina by her arms. “You’ve been watching too much Columbo!”

  Tina didn’t smile at his feeble joke. “Well why e
lse would they come running out of that house? The tall dark one threw up in the front hedge. He wouldn’t do that unless he’d seen something horrible, would he?”

  “No,” Paul said, quietly. “No. I don’t suppose he would…”

  “Oh. Paul. What are we going to do? They’re just hanging around out there. They’re bound to come asking more questions. We have to tell them!”

  “Stop it!” Paul snapped. “We don’t! All we have to do is sit tight. So what if they ask us questions? We don’t know anything. Do we?”

  “But what if it’s her? What if it’s her in Dot and Dave’s house? Or what if it’s her in Jean’s?”

  Paul looked out of the window. Don Pleavin had come out with two mugs of tea for the policemen. “Trust him, Mr Neighbourhood Watch. If they knew what a creep he really was. Wouldn’t surprise me if he did it…”

  *****

  Once more, Hilbre Grove was full of vehicles as Crime Scene Investigators buzzed around both houses. Blake had brought the team down and now they stood in a huddle outside Number two. A line of uniformed officers stopped the large crowd of gawkers that had grown at the entrance to the road. Blake cast an eye to the alleyway that led between number four and number five. The PCSO blocking that route raised a hand to him and Blake nodded. “Is that the fella who was pushed over by those kids the other day?”

  “I think so, sir,” Kinnear said.

  “Bloomin’ hopeless,” Blake muttered. “Go and tell him to keep the far end of the alleyway shut. He’ll have half the neighbourhood blocking it as they peer over into the garden of number three.”

  “Will do,” Kinnear said and jogged across the Grove.

  “Oh and Kinnear! If his name is Tom Dacre, tell him I’m putting in a complaint about him blathering on to the residents about the crime scene.”

  Blake watched Kinnear gesticulate to the man who went pale, nodded and vanished down the alleyway with appropriate haste.

  “Right. No need for anyone to go into the house. I’ve seen all I need to see and more besides,” Blake said once Kinnear had returned. “We’ll let CSI do their job. I want to focus on the residents here. Talk to them. Find out all you can: how well they know the Taylors or Jean Quinn, what they think of each other, attitudes, any relatives with criminal records, anyone who visits regularly, anything that might give us a clue as to who selected this Grove to be their dumping ground for bodies and why.”