The Trawlerman, стр. 13
Alex felt as if she were coming down with something. The world seemed to be becoming untethered from the reality she understood. ‘What did it actually look like? What you saw on Wednesday night.’
‘It was like a line of silver, shooting upwards. All over in a second.’
‘A beam of light maybe?’
‘No. See . . . it’s not like that. More like the bodies were floating upwards, but fast, like.’
Alex nodded. ‘What time was that?’
‘About ten.’
‘About?’
‘Hold on.’ He pulled out his phone, opened his messages and flicked up. ‘Must have been seven minutes past.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I told my wife about it. We were on the phone.’ He held up the screen to show her his call log.
Alex shivered, peered at it. ‘Where were you standing?’
‘At the back. There’s, like, a smoking area.’
Alex looked at the man still holding up his phone, defying her to disbelieve him. ‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘Go now, Mum,’ said Zoë sternly.
She took the route back past the Romney Hotel, stopped in front of it, thinking. It was a long, old, cream-painted building, fifteenth-century, just back from a narrow pavement. The bar was still closed at this time in the morning, but there was a bell for hotel enquiries.
A man in his sixties with long grey sideboards opened the door. ‘I just want to check something,’ Alex said.
‘Beg your pardon?’
‘I’m a police officer,’ she found herself saying.
‘Is this to do with the murders?’ the man asked.
She said, ‘I just need to see your smokers’ area. I’ll only be a minute.’
He led her through the lounge bar, unlocked a door and pushed it open. ‘Why? What’s going on?’
She stood under the electric space heaters among the mess of unemptied ashtrays and looked to the north-west, the direction of the Younises’ house. ‘Anything in particular?’ asked the man.
‘That’s the house over there, isn’t it?’
‘Bloody awful thing,’ said the man. ‘Everyone’s on edge, round here. Just had a waitress pull out of all her shifts on account of she doesn’t like coming this way now. Not that that’s important,’ he added quietly, ashamed of the selfishness of what he’d just said.
The murder house’s roofline was hidden behind the willows and poplars that fringed a local sports field, but the land between the pub garden and the house was flat. One would be able to see a soul rising up from the rooftop of the murder house; if such a thing were even possible.
She thanked the landlord and left him as bemused by her visit as she was.
Turning off the main road, she drove up to the house, where police cars still cluttered the driveway, parked on the grass verge, then looked back over the hedge towards the pub.
Her phone rang. ‘I can see you.’ Jill’s voice, barely heard because the line was breaking up.
‘Can you?’
‘Your car, anyway. What are you doing lurking here, Alex?’
‘I was just dropping Zoë at the Wildlife Centre.’
‘Yeah. Right.’
‘I was,’ Alex said, but the call had dropped.
Ten seconds later, her phone rang again. ‘Funny way to drive home. You actually cannot leave it alone, can you?’
‘You’re still in there, then?’
She could hear Jill’s sigh. ‘I’m taking a break. Meet you—’ But the call had dropped again. A few seconds later a message from her:
Fk my phone. Wait there. Don’t talk to NO ONE. Something vv strange.
Ten
Alex’s desire to see inside the house, to see the details of the violence, how the bodies had fallen and the blood on the mirror, surprised even her.
It was understandable. Normally Alex would have been inside, or would have access to photos and videos of the scene. She was on the outside now.
Instead, she waited a little way from the murder house until she saw, in her rear-view mirror, Jill emerging from the front gate, half running as she got closer, clutching a pack of cigarettes in one hand.
‘Can we go somewhere for a bloody coffee?’ Jill blurted, opening the door. ‘That place is absolutely doing my head in.’
‘Round here? You’ve got to be joking.’
‘Even my phone doesn’t work in there. It’s spooked.’
The place Alex drove them to was the best she could do. A pub in Littlestone, ten minutes away, that advertised free football on the TV. A tattered England flag sagged on a flagpole over the small paved area at the front where they could sit, but it was open.
Alex fetched two coffees from the bar and joined Jill on the terrace among the Saturday morning drinkers.
‘It’s not healthy,’ said Jill. ‘You are not supposed to be thinking about this stuff. It’s this stuff that’s caused you to . . .’
‘Lose it?’
‘I wouldn’t say you’ve lost it, not exactly,’ said Jill.
‘Thanks.’
‘Mind if I . . . ?’ Jill had already pulled out a cigarette. ‘I’m losing it. Not surprised if everyone on this investigation is. When it comes to things like this, maybe they don’t make any sense.’ There were dark patches under Jill’s eyes.
A teenager sped past on a motorbike, driving well over the limit. They both watched him disappear up the road but said nothing.
‘Well. What’s so odd?’
‘For starters, we have absolutely nothing,’ Jill said eventually. ‘It’s the weirdest thing. The house is clean. Evidence-wise, it’s like a black hole. That’s what forensics are telling us. No fingerprints that don’t match the victims. No footprints, ditto. No tyre tracks. No DNA yet. Yet no sign of it being cleaned either. No wipe marks, no traces of recent cleaning fluid. When does that ever happen?’
‘It does happen. Some people just don’t seem to leave prints, or bits of skin. It’s a phenomenon, but sometimes it happens.’
‘Not when two people are dead in some kind of psychotic attack. Tell me. What kind of killer doesn’t leave a single trace at a murder scene? It’s like someone flew in and out of there.’
Alex said, ‘Ghosts, maybe.’
‘Very funny. I was thinking, what if it was some kind of ultra-professional killer who pretended to be psycho just to cover up.’
‘Around here?’
‘Why not?’ Jill picked up