The Dying Place. Luca Veste

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      ‘Same name posting a few times. Gets more and more angry. Paul Cooper. Dean owed him money by the looks of it.’ Murphy made a note of the name.

      Murphy’s phone rang before Rossi had a chance to reply. ‘Sally Hughes has finally confirmed it’s Dean,’ he said once he’d finished the call from Dr Houghton’s assistant. ‘Post-mortem starts in an hour.’

      ‘We’d best get over there then.’

      Naked, stark light shone above the body as Dr Houghton began his work. Murphy had begun to find the whole process quite boring. Once you’d winced and felt your stomach turn over the first ten or twenty times you attended a post-mortem, it became more methodical.

      ‘I count sixty-three different contusions and marks. Some inflicted close to death, some occurring days or weeks before. The worst of those are concentrated on the torso and arms,’ Dr Houghton said, speaking into a digital recorder as well as for the benefit of Murphy and Rossi. ‘Healing contusion to the eye area, around a week old, I’d suggest. Bruising to the neck area, asphyxiation a possible cause of death.’ He pressed the stop button on his recorder before turning towards Murphy. ‘He was beaten severely and then strangled by a thin ligature. It’s pretty obvious.’

      ‘Rule out suicide then?’ Rossi said.

      ‘Unless he’s worked out a way of hanging himself whilst lying down, then yes. He was on the ground when he died.’

      ‘What was used to beat him?’ Murphy asked, before Rossi had a chance to swear at the doctor in her mother tongue.

      ‘There are three different distinctive markings,’ Dr Houghton said, turning the body over with a sigh, before his assistant moved quickly to lend a hand. ‘On the back here is a marking from some kind of heavy object, a bat or plank of wood maybe. On the front, something thin like a whip or something similar. And then here,’ Dr Houghton pointed to the left-hand-side rib area, ‘half a boot print. He was stamped on so hard I’d guess there are a few broken ribs in that area.’

      Murphy tried and failed to keep the grimace off his face. The memory of the injuries he’d sustained a year earlier – broken arm and ribs after being pushed down concrete steps which led into the darkness of a basement – was still fresh. The breathlessness of having your ribs broken in more than one place. The look on the doctor’s face in the Royal Hospital – only a few floors above from where he was standing now – as he’d explained to Murphy that they had to heal on their own. It was a couple of weeks before he could even stand walking any kind of distance.

      Still, the sick pay was nice. Plus, he’d suddenly became more accepted around the station again, which made things much easier than they’d been previously. The snide remarks and sideways glances, just waiting for him to screw up, had pretty much ended that day. Injured in the line of duty had that kind of effect on petty differences.

      Murphy absent-mindedly rubbed at his right-hand side as he replied, ‘Think you can get a print off that?’

      ‘I imagine so,’ Dr Houghton replied, sounding amused by the question. Hiding a grin behind his mask, Murphy assumed. ‘Wonders of modern science. We have scrapings underneath the fingernails as well, which I imagine are from the back of the hands of the person who was strangling him to death.’

      ‘Good. Full report?’

      Dr Houghton sighed. ‘In the morning at the latest.’

      Murphy kicked at a stone in the hospital car park, watching as it jumped up and hit the side of someone’s Ford Focus. He didn’t move slowly enough to check if he’d chipped the paintwork as he continued to trot towards his car.

      ‘Who interviewed the kids who found him?’ Murphy said, turning to Rossi who was, as ever, struggling to keep up.

      ‘Harris and some other DC I can’t remember the name of. They’re basically interchangeable at this point.’

      Murphy smirked, knowing exactly what she meant. Local cuts to the police service meant that constables in CID were being sent all over Liverpool to fill in where and when needed. It meant there was no kind of consistency on who was working at St Anne Street from one week to the next. Once you got used to one face, they were sent over to the other side of the city to fill in on some other case. Murphy didn’t even want to consider the mind who had thought up this gloriously stupid way of working.

      ‘I’m guessing nothing came of it, otherwise you would have told me?’

      Rossi shook her head. ‘Just found him and ran. Didn’t see anyone at all. Nothing from door to doors either really. Other than a neighbour who thought she heard an argument near Castlesite Road. Wasn’t sure of the time because she was half asleep. Could have been dreaming, for all we know.’

      ‘CCTV any good?’ Murphy said, pressing the button on his keys to activate the central locking.

      ‘Not sure yet,’ Rossi replied, opening the passenger door and getting into the car. ‘I know there’s a few cameras around the cross near the Sefton Arms pub, but not the other side. Depends which way they came in. It’s not like we could tell if he was killed anywhere else in the area, unless there’s blood.’

      ‘Doesn’t mean we don’t look,’ Murphy said, turning the ignition. ‘We need to organise a bit of a search, I think.’

      ‘Seems like a lot of effort. Probably going to turn out to be an argument got out of hand.’

      Murphy drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited for traffic to pass so he could pull out onto the main road. ‘I’d usually agree, Laura, but there’s a few things wrong here. The fact he’s been missing over six months. The placing of the body at the church …’

      ‘Like an unwanted baby,’ Rossi murmured.

      ‘Sorry?’

      ‘When you hear about these abandoned babies, you know, where the mother is too young or whatever, they leave them outside churches, don’t they?’

      ‘I’m not seeing your point.’

      Rossi sighed, pressing the button to half open her window. ‘It could be that Dean Hughes was left at the church because they thought he’d be looked after there.’

      ‘Possibly. I think the damage was already done though, don’t you?’

      Rossi shrugged and turned to look out the window. Murphy stared ahead, trying to get the cogs within turning.

      Concentrating hard to stop the demons coming back in.

       The Farm

       Five Months Ago

      Goldie had become used to life there pretty quick. It was the same all the time, really. Days spent in the quiet, waiting for the evening, when the ‘fun’ would begin. Three meals a day. Anything they wanted to read.

      Okay, there was no TV, PlayStation, or even Xbox. No iPhone, Samsung … fuck, he’d take a Nokia at some points, СКАЧАТЬ