Then She Was Gone (15 page)

‘You’ll get used to it,’ Murphy said, risking another sip of coffee and then swearing under his breath at making the same mistake again. ‘Looks like we’ve got
something here to keep you out the house for a bit anyway.’

‘Not wrong there,’ Rossi said, taking another fistful of fries. ‘Why do you think they cut him up? Usually means they’re going to dispose of the body in a different way.
They’ve cut him up and stuck him in the boot of a car and left him to be found on purpose.’

‘Ever tried lifting a dead weight? My guess is this is someone working alone, couldn’t lift him and needed to get him out to the car. Easier in a few parts.’

‘I do so love my job,’ Rossi replied, staring out the window as the houses flashed by. ‘Where else could you have a conversation like this?’

‘I can’t think of anything worse to do to someone after they’re dead. Cutting them up and that.’

‘Never heard of necrophilia?’

Murphy raised his eyebrows at Rossi and waited for the lights to change. ‘OK, you win. That’s much worse. For that, you can finish off the fries. Lost my appetite all of
sudden.’

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ Rossi said, grabbing the box and chomping down the rest. Murphy shook his head and continued driving.

They were back at the station within fifteen minutes, despite having to negotiate the ever-increasing traffic near the city centre. Murphy sat in the car a few seconds after Rossi had got out,
closing his eyes and breathing a little.

Steeling himself.

Walking into the incident room, he was glad of the quiet moment he’d taken. DCI Stephens was standing at her office door, arms folded and waiting.

‘David, please,’ she said as he made his way in. Murphy beckoned towards Rossi who was further into the room than he was, but DCI Stephens put up her hand. ‘Just you for
now.’

Rossi made as if to say something, then turned away, keeping quiet. Murphy was still a little further behind, so it took him longer to work out what she’d seen.

‘Just back from the scene?’ DCI Stephens said as he approached. ‘Not spoken to anyone else yet?’

‘Was just going to check in with you first, before we go see the parents,’ Murphy said, making it to the door finally. He saw what had made Rossi turn away and quietly accept the
non-invitation.

‘Sir,’ Murphy said, stopping at the door and waiting for DCI Stephens to make her way behind her desk. ‘Wasn’t expecting you here.’

Detective Superintendent Gareth Butler didn’t stand up, settling for smoothing out a crease on his immaculate black trousers instead. He was aging well, a hint of silver at his temples,
which only served to make him look more distinguished. ‘David. Good to see you,’ DSI Butler said, almost sounding sincere. His accent showed no trace of Liverpudlian, which had set
Murphy on edge from the first meeting they’d had years earlier. ‘How is the family?’

Murphy ignored the comment, knowing DSI Butler cared little for an answer. ‘It’s him,’ Murphy said, making sure they knew from the start. ‘Or, if it’s not, someone
has gone to far too much trouble to make us believe it is.’

‘Do we know any specifics yet?’

‘Just that he’s been found, someone was witnessed leaving the scene, and that we hope he was dead before being cut up.’

‘Quite . . .’ DSI Butler said, swallowing and pursing his lips. ‘That bit was true then. I was hoping that wasn’t a confirmed situation.
Ghastly.’

‘He’s being removed from the scene as we speak,’ Murphy continued, still facing DCI Stephens. ‘Post-mortem will be carried out later today. I’ve made sure of
that.’

‘Good, good,’ DSI Butler said, Murphy turning to him finally. ‘This will be a very delicate case, David. I think we need to treat it as such. His family are well respected
within the community, so any salacious details will need to be cleared through me before being released.’

‘I have a feeling there may be one or two of those already. We have already discovered certain things about his personal life we didn’t know before.’

‘I trust you have been working with the utmost care and respect for his privacy,’ DSI Butler said, fixing Murphy with an unblinking stare. ‘We don’t want this getting out
of hand with the media and the whole thing turning into a circus.’

Murphy returned the stare. ‘My team will work as they always do. We’ll find whoever has done this and stop them. That’s our job.’

The two men looked at each other, DSI Butler breaking first and looking over to DCI Stephens.

‘I assure you, you’ll have all the resources you require,’ DSI Butler said, leaning forwards in his chair. ‘The MCU has our full support in this matter.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ DCI Stephens replied, propping her elbows up on her desk and steepling her fingers together. ‘I can assure you that we’ll do all we can for the Byrne
family.’

‘I have already informed them of developments,’ DSI Butler said, leaning back and looking out towards the window. ‘I imagine you’ll want to speak to them yourself, David,
which is fine and correct. I would just impress upon you the importance of remembering that this will be a difficult time for them. Please treat them with the respect they deserve.’

Murphy bit down on his lower lip. ‘Of course, sir,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘Wouldn’t work any other way.’

DSI Butler continued looking out of the window, nodding his head slowly. Eventually, he turned and faced the room again, standing up from his chair. ‘Excellent. I’m sure we’ll
be speaking again soon.’

Murphy stood and shook DSI Butler’s hand, he waited for DCI Stephens to show the senior officer out then sat back down, gripping the sides of his chair tightly before realising he was
squeezing a bit too hard and crossing his arms instead.

‘Politics,’ DCI Stephens said, once she’d closed the door and moved back to her side of her desk. ‘Always the bane of my life.’

‘Never been interested, boss,’ Murphy replied, stretching his legs out and crossing one ankle over the other. ‘There’s something iffy about the whole thing, though. I
hope we’re not going to be hampered. This is going to be a difficult enough case as it is, without being messed about with.’

‘Let me deal with that, if or when it happens. Just get on with your work and let me know if you have any difficulties.’

‘Will do,’ Murphy said, straightening up and resting his hands on his knees. ‘Anything else before I brief them lot out there?’

DCI Stephens shook her head, lifting her phone before Murphy had even left the room.

Murphy crossed the incident room, reaching his desk in a few long strides. Rossi looked up, raising her eyebrows at him.

‘Well, what’s the damage?’ Rossi said when Murphy didn’t speak.

‘Nothing too bad. Just top brass bullshit. We’re just going to have to brace ourselves for a shit-storm if we don’t clear this up quickly and with little fanfare.’

‘Not sure that’s going to be possible given that flat he kept quiet. I’ve made sure the two scenes are now linked. Are we thinking the flat might be the original kill
site?’

‘Hope so,’ Murphy replied, moving an old file from on top of his desk to a drawer. ‘Would make things easier.’

‘Forensics should be back on that soon enough. Might be overworked now, of course. If it’s his blood on the walls and around the room, we at least know where square one
was.’

‘Can you grab whoever is here and ask them to head for the briefing room. We need to get things moving as quickly as possible.’

Rossi nodded and was up gathering people within a few seconds. Murphy took out his phone and fired off a quick text to Sarah.

New case. Body near the Rocket. Will be late in. xx

He turned back to an emptying incident room. He lifted himself out of his chair and headed to the briefing room.

‘Just a quick update,’ Murphy said, when the final person was sitting down. A number of faces looked back at him, not as many as there would be the next morning, he thought.
‘We’ve got several officers already out there, so this is for you lot in here. A missing person has now become a probable murder victim. Victim is tentatively identified as Sam
Byrne.’

He tapped a pen against his thigh as he waited for the whispered voices to die down. ‘He was found at approximately midday, in the boot of a car which was parked near the Rocket, on the
corner of Edge Lane and Talbotville Road. Possible witness is downstairs now. Kirkham and Hale can take an official statement from him. He called us, but also opened the car boot up and apparently
took pictures of the body inside.’

‘Fucking weirdo,’ a voice said from the other side of the room.

‘It’s possible he also saw someone leaving the scene, so make sure you get as good a description as possible, lads,’ Murphy said, ignoring the interruption. ‘He gave
Laura and me a brief description at the scene, but it wasn’t enough to go on.’

Murphy waited for Kirkham and Hale to acknowledge his request then he turned to DC Harris. ‘Graham, I need all CCTV pulling from the area. I want the whole route tracked. We need to know
where he travelled from before parking the car, what time he arrived at the scene, where he went afterwards, the usual.’

DC Harris wrote down the info and nodded to himself. ‘Think we’re well covered around that area. Shouldn’t be too difficult.’

Murphy turned to Rossi, who stepped forwards and spoke. ‘We’ve got uniforms in the area now, doing the door to doors and that. There’s another crime scene being investigated at
the moment, as most of you will be aware. We’re waiting for forensic results on that and more info will be given as soon as.’

Murphy wrapped up the meeting and waited for the room to empty, leaving Rossi and him alone in the briefing room.

‘We need more angles on this and fast,’ Murphy said, perching himself on the desk at the front of the room. ‘Have to be ahead of things this time.’

‘You mean we’re not doing the usual “question everyone and hope one of them confesses”?’

Murphy returned the smile and silently hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Murphy had decided long ago there was no dignity in death. No ‘
she went peacefully in her sleep’
or ‘
he
wouldn’t have felt a thing’
changed the reality of things. It didn’t matter how you went, there was still no dignity once you were gone.

In the job he did, he had experienced each facet of death, all of them coming down to single factor. Once your body had become just an empty vessel, once life had disappeared, it didn’t
matter what was done to it. Dignity wasn’t a high priority. Finding out what had happened was more important.

Still, looking at the dismembered corpse of Sam Byrne as it lay on a post-mortem gurney, Murphy was rocked a little. He’d seen shocking things in the past, but dismemberment was something
which always seemed the worst imaginable. There was no dignity here.

‘Clean enough cuts.’ Dr Houghton’s voice boomed through the silence. ‘Almost definitely a mechanical implement.’

‘I had money on a circular saw.’

‘You’ll probably win that bet,’ Houghton replied. ‘Although I do detest the idea of betting on this sort of thing, David.’

‘You don’t like betting on anything to do with death? We won’t include you in the death pool any more then, if you like?’

‘You’re joking, aren’t you? I have good money on one of those boyband members being an early casualty.’

Murphy chuckled softly, ignoring Rossi rolling her eyes beside him. ‘Any idea how he died?’

‘Well, given his head is separated from the rest of his body, I’m not ruling out that having something to do with it.’

‘Fair enough,’ Murphy replied, taking his turn to roll his eyes. ‘Post-mortem dismemberment?’

‘Yes, I believe so,’ Houghton replied, moving around the body parts with a speed that belied a man of his size. ‘If you want to take a closer look I can explain
better.’

‘That’s OK,’ Rossi said, not looking up from her notepad. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

Murphy shook his head, trying not to be too vigorous about it. ‘Looks like he was beaten as well.’

‘Tortured, more like,’ Houghton said, measuring yet another mark on the torso. ‘Burn marks, whip marks, bruises, open wounds . . . he will have been in a great
deal of pain.’

‘Given that flat we found, are we sure it wasn’t welcomed?’

Murphy turned to Rossi and nodded slightly. ‘Might have a point.’

‘He was stabbed a number of times, in the upper chest and legs. No ligature marks around the neck. We’ll have to do further tests, but cause of death is looking likely to be related
to the blood loss he will have suffered.’

Murphy looked at Rossi and motioned towards the door with his head. He turned back to Dr Houghton. ‘Full report by the morning?’

‘Ever known me to take my time when it comes to these things?’

Murphy stared at the doctor with what he hoped was disdain. ‘You want me to answer that honestly?’

He left before the doctor had chance to reply, pushing through the doors and out into the hospital corridor. The basement always seemed colder to Murphy. Not just in temperature. It was as if
the air had been sucked out of the place. The life of the bustling corridors above them invisible.

‘What do you reckon then?’

Murphy turned to the waiting Rossi and tugged on his bottom lip with his teeth. ‘We need forensics back on that flat. It’s looking more likely that’s our kill site. The marks
on his body would fit with what we found in there.’

‘Still doesn’t get us much closer to finding out who did it.’

‘I think we’re a long way off that yet,’ Murphy replied, offering a piece of chewing gum to Rossi and taking one for himself. ‘We don’t know enough yet.’

‘Are we going to see the parents again?’ Rossi said, taking the gum and placing it in her mouth. ‘I know Butler has taken over in that regard, but we should probably still
speak to them.’

‘Of course we are,’ Murphy said, beginning to walk away. ‘There’s still a few unanswered questions there.’

‘Just a few?’

Murphy checked his watch as they walked back to the car park. ‘Already getting late. Bloody starving. Wonder if they’ve ordered food back at the station.’