Author's note: the novel begins with the previous part, the prologue
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Six weeks later...
Monday February 12th, 5.33 p.m
Another patrol car blared around the corner the corner outside, came screeching to a halt. The whole living room was pulsed a strobing white, the venetian blinds in the front window slicing perfect knife strokes through the incoming light.
"I know this is hard Adam. All such a lot to take in right now."
Detective Sergeant Annie Wye touched a finger to Butterfield's cheek, rotated his head thirty degrees. Forced him to look at her. His was a shivering, huddled figure there on the settee beneath her, his eyes wide, unblinking, as if what they'd witnessed had frozen them hard. He would be in his early-thirties, she judged, a year or two older than herself. Hair blonde like her own, the eyes a similar shade of bluish grey. WPC Cathy Hargreaves was crouched beside him, her hand circling his lower back. A thick smear of blood gleamed across the shoulder of his coat, the shirt beneath.
"I need you to help me though. Think you can do that Adam?"
He frowned up at her, as if unsure of where he was, how he might have come to be there. Trembling from the shock, the after-reverberations of a hammer blow. They needed to get him cleaned up, Wye thought. Get him out of there. Away.
"You say you've been at work all day. I need you to tell me where that is exactly."
His gaze had slipped back towards the half-opened kitchen door. The angle mercifully acute, only the bloodied sole of a slipper was visible.
"We need to know where you work Adam."
Forcing his gaze back up at her, he finally twitched dry lips into motion. "Epcott and..." A deep, stuttered exhale was required to get it all out. "And Preston."
At this, Wye snapped her fingers purposefully at DC Larkinson behind her. The constable remained motionless however, unstirred, his gaze similarly fixed on the kitchen doorway. There was something about him, a certain long-limbed awkwardness, which made him seem a decade younger than his twenty-five years. A mere kid playing at being a plain-clothed copper. Never more so than that particular moment, his flesh noticably paled, did he seem a fish floundering out of water.
"Larkinson! Epcott and Preston. I need you to get on it please."
The added volume to her voice, its hissed no-nonsense urgency, was enough to snap him back to attention, have him wheel dutifully away, phone fumbled from pocket.
New to Ravensby, she wondered what Epcott and Preston was precisely. Some kind of law firm? Solicitors? Wondered too why the hell Inspector Kubič wasn't picking up his damn phone. It wasn't lost on her that for the moment at least she was the most senior officer in attendance at a murder scene. An unprecedented state of affairs, one which required the calmest of heads, the steadiest of nerves. She'd attended enough training sessions on serious incident response to know just how crucial those first few minutes were, how any oversight or misjudgement could potentially compromise an entire investigation.
"During the afternoon, at work." Her attention had once more turned to the forlorn figure beneath her. "Did you pop out at any point?"
Butterfield appeared not to register the question though. Just looked through her. Beyond her. The frown again, that awful constant tremble.
"I thought it was just a... just a crank. A sick joke." His head tumbled between palms. "Something like that... Christ. If you took it seriously..."
He looked back upwards then, gaze direct this time, pleading somehow.
"Well, you... you'd go round the bend. Lose your bloody mind."
*
Like many divorced couples, the parents of Daniel Kubič did school visits in turns. Last term it had been the mother and dopey-looking new husband to pull up chairs at Maureen Booth's desk; this term it was the imposing, bear-like figure of the father. He wasn't so bad-looking perhaps if you liked your men a bit on the bulky side. Personally, Maureen had always preferred the slightly more lithe variety; but still, it was difficult not to be beguiled just a little by those deep brown eyes. Melancholy and yet somehow playful at the same time. He reminded her of that American actor her mother had always liked. Oh, what was his name?
"Nice to see you again Mr Kubič," she dutifully smiled. Unlike many of her colleagues, she at least aimed at a passable pronunciation of the foreign surnames on her class lists; knew that there should be one of those funny squiggles over the 'c' - a softener rather than a hardener. Not Kubick but Kubitch. In father as in son it was a slavic ancestry most apparent in the high, slanted set of the cheekbones.
Her attempt at linguistic precision was rewarded by a returned smile.
"You too, er..." There was a glance at her unadorned ring finger. "Miss, er..."
This, in her experience, was a typically paternal trait: unlike mothers, fathers almost never knew the names of their offsprings' teachers.
"Booth" she reminded him. "I'm Daniel's form teacher. Take him for English too."
"Miss Booth, yes."
The man's tongue, she noted, was strangely grey in colour, as if he'd recently bitten into a squid's head. A little unnerved, she opened up her register, refreshed her memory regarding Kubič junior's recent attendance record and test scores. The fact that neither were particularly awe-inspiring provided the basis of the subsequent, rather one-sided conversation. Most specifically, she sought to pass on her concerns over the boy's continued struggles with paragraphing and basic punctuation, the virtual illegibility of his handwriting and somewhat haphazard attempts at spelling. All of which was met by a kind of barely-veiled boredom, the man's eyes flitting off through the window, up at the display of Year 7 haiku poems on the wall behind her, down to the ancient coca-cola stain on the carpet beside her desk. The nails of his right hand were long and well-manicured, those of the left bitten and ragged. A guitarist perhaps. The more attractive hand had at one point dug into coat pocket, slipped something into his mouth. Whatever it was that made his tongue that colour perhaps. Not chewing gum, she hoped, this one of the more inexcusable vices listed in the school's behaviourial code.
As son, the man seemed simply unable to concentrate; was no doubt incapable of spelling Shakespeare correctly too. Then there was his phone... Dear Christ, it had rung three times already. Though he'd quickly swiped the annoyance away like a man swatting at a pesky fly, it was still infuriating. They had sent some sixth formers round to put up signs requesting that parents switch them off before entering.
"Year 10 is such an important year Mr Kubič," she was now explaining. "I can't stress this enough. The mock exams are only three months away, but at his current rate of progress I really can't see Daniel---"
The damn phone again!
"Perhaps I'd better just..." There was an embarrassed sort of grimace as he clasped the bloody thing to his ear. "Sergeant, this had better be..."
Whatever it was, it was enough to stop him dead in his tracks. A single rasped blasphemy escaped his lips.
"Jesus."
There was a sudden flurry of motion then, his chair toppling over as he shot to his feet. He was different all of a sudden, that glazed expression gone, replaced by a brow-lowered urgency.
"Sorry about this Miss... Miss, er..."
"Booth."
"Something's come up."
And without further explanation he was gone, desks rattling in his wake as he bounded towards the classroom door. As he did so, the name finally came to her. The American actor he reminded her of.
Robert Mitchum, yes.
"Lad's doing okay though," he called back over his shoulder. "That's basically what you're saying, right?"
*
Hurtling round the corner into Churchill Avenue five minutes later, Kubič saw that he'd been preceded by no less than five marked vehicles, these plus Larkinson's Nissan and an ancient Ford Granada which he recognised as the district coroner's. The flashing lights seemed out of place somehow - a rude, invasive clamour. The street was the very essence of lower-middle class suburbia: twin rows of identical 50s-built semis, neatly trimmed hedges and front lawns, the cars parked in the drives sporty housewife runarounds or new reg company saloons.
Here, he thought, of all places.
The news had come like an arrow strike, a jolting uppercut. As he'd dashed across the school car park, phone clamped to ear, he'd struggled to take it all in. A young wife had been knifed to death in her own kitchen. Eight months pregnant. These the most salient of a breathless avalanche of details, the quickly sketched scene every bit as confusing as it was stomach-churning. There were no signs of forced entry, but the husband claimed to have been at work all afternoon; claimed also to have received some kind of threatening letter, this however subsequently destroyed. Wye had at that moment been loading him into the back of a patrol car to see if she could tease out any further details down at the station. Virtually comatose with shock, getting much sense out of him wasn't going to be easy.
Given such a muddied picture, it was difficult for now to form any kind of initial hypothesis. He needed to view the scene for himself, get a better take on things. Only one thing was already certain: he didn't like the sound of this. Didn't like the sound of it at all.
Number 33 was three-quarters of the way down on the left. A group of uniformed officers were busy sealing off the entrance to the driveway, knotting tape around nearby lamp posts. Screeching his Audi to a halt, Kubič estimated that the huddle of shivering, foot-stamping onlookers on the other side of the street totalled twenty or more. Amongst them he noted George Shreeves of the Ravensby Evening Echo, camera dangled around neck, his voice recorder thrust hopefully outwards.
"What are we dealing with inspector? Domestic that got out of hand?"
Ducking himself beneath the tape, Kubič shot an irritated backward glower. "Give me a bloody chance George!"
Something like this, it wouldn't just be the Echo he'd be having to contend with. Come the following morning, they'd no doubt have a full-blown media circus rolling into town. Regional TV crews, maybe some national interest too. A town like Ravensby, a street like Churchill Avenue - oh yes, this was newsworthy enough to have even Fleet Street prick up its ears. The thought unnerved him a little, as if about to face an exam for which he hadn't studied. It was all so unanticipated, so finger-click sudden.
"Nasty bit of business sir."
The comment came from PC Naylor, the first face Kubič encountered upon crunching his shoes onto the gravel driveway.
"See if you can get one of the neighbours to whistle us up a round of teas eh lad. Nice and sugary. Long night ahead."
Once inside the house, the inspector paused for a moment in the living room doorway, surveyed his surroundings. Furnishings, though minimal, were of a modern, upmarket appearance. A folded copy of The Guardian lay on top of the glass coffee table next to a smartphone. Professional thirty-somethings, he assumed, recently married perhaps. That they were recently mortgaged was an almost certainty - apart from flat screen TV and nearby modern art canvas, the wall space was bare, waiting to be filled. There were no signs of any baby seats, discarded toys; the pregnancy was the couple's first, it seemed. This, perhaps, was some kind of blessing at least.
"Tell me what we know constable."
Larkinson had his back to him, his vacant gaze filtered through the venetian blinds at the window. The sound of the inspector's voice caused him to spin, his eyes wide, seemingly confused.
"Sir?"
Stepping over, Kubič placed a gentle on each skinny shoulder.
"I need you sharp on this one lad. Need you lucid. You hear me constable?"
There was a chastened nod, like a distracted pupil reprimanded by a teacher.
"The husband," Kubič pressed. "What do we know?"
Gulping down a dry swallow, the constable tried to collect himself. "Name's Adam Butterfield sir. Works at Epcott and Preston. Solicitor's on West Street."
Kubič nodded - yes, he knew the place, its coffers having some years ago been swelled by whatever ungodly amount it was they'd charged for overseeing his and Jenny's divorce proceedings.
"He found her there when he came back from work sir," Larkinson continued, glancing towards the kitchen door. Just visible behind was the lower part of a leg, pyjama bottoms scrunched upwards to apex of calf muscle. A skewed, bloodstained slipper lay nearby "This about half an hour ago now." Extracting smartphone from pocket, the young constable swiped through his notes. "Albert Preston, one of the partners. Joanne Brearly, secretary. Both confirm Butterfield spent the afternoon in his office. Secretary seems to remember him popping out for a coffee at some point but swears he was only gone ten minutes or so. Not enough time to have..." There was another glance towards the kitchen door. Another dry swallow. "You know..."
It was then that Kubič noticed it. The trail of bloodied shoe prints leading away from the kitchen door; faint, yes, but unmistakable nevertheless against the pale grey of the carpet.
"His sir," Larkinson informed him. "Must have... you know, must have held her for a while. Was all over his coat too."
"No other prints?"
"Nothing to the naked eye, no. Forensics are on their way down from County HQ as we speak. This time of the evening, roads all slippery, might take 'em a while though."
"And the victim?"
"Catherine, sir. From what we can gather from the neighbours, a doctor at Croxley Street clinic. Been on maternity leave for the last couple of months."
Kubič nodded grimly, attempted to absorb the information. A pregnant doctor. Why, for Christ's sake?
"Official statements, constable. The boss and secretary. Times as precise as possible. We need to be sure about this. Two hundred bloody per cent sure. In the meantime, let's get those officers outside moving eh. Divide up streets. Not a single door for half a mile left unknocked."
There was a backwards twist of the neck as the constable stepped dutifully away, his expression pitched somewhere between revulsion and incomprehension. "Warn you sir, not a pretty sight in there."
Kubič took a deep, preparatory breath, his footsteps slow and leaden as he moved towards the kitchen door. Not for the first time over the years, he found himself wishing he'd chosen an entirely different sort of career. Paper-pushing, something out of doors. Anything at all. He'd always been reasonable enough at woodwork back at school, he recalled. Why hadn't he done that, he thought? Become a cabinet maker or some damn thing.
A reluctant hand pushed open the door...
"Oh dear Christ."
The words escaped his mouth forcefully, involuntarily, like blood gushing from an open wound.
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