For Reasons Unknown. Michael Wood
was a fresh murder scene, and, judging by the gossip that had been doing the rounds at the station yesterday, Matilda was in no fit state to lead one. This would be his. All his. And, fingers crossed, so would every other suspicious death that happened within the South Yorkshire boundary.
Matilda woke with a vodka-induced headache and had to force herself out of bed. It was only her second day back at work but it felt like she’d never been away, and not in a good way. As she dragged herself to the shower she wished she had never gone back.
The force of the hot water stung her aching body. She was tender and every muscle seemed to be screaming out in pain. She ignored the cries to return to bed and allowed the water to cascade down her body. To continue the torture she quickly turned the temperature from hot to as cold as it could go and the needles became sharper. She soon woke up and once again her brain was alert and ready.
Like yesterday she had to force down her breakfast of an extremely strong coffee and a slice of toast before dressing and leaving the house. She had sent a text to DC Fleming the night before, saying she would pick him up and they would go straight to the Harkness house in Whirlow to watch the demolition. It was pointless going into the station first. Or did she just want to avoid seeing her replacement, Acting DCI Ben Hales?
When she reached Rory’s terraced house in Woodseats she pulled up and beeped for him. Within a minute the front door was pulled open and he bounded out of the house like a puppy going for his morning walk. She heard him shout a cheerful goodbye behind him and head towards the car. He had a silly grin on his face. She tried to remember a time when she was as happy about her job as he seemed to be, but the memory didn’t appear to exist.
‘You’re looking chirpy this morning,’ she said, indicating she was about to pull out into traffic, before Rory had secured his seatbelt.
‘Well for the first time in I can’t remember how long I had an early finish yesterday. I cooked a lovely meal, then we curled up on the sofa and watched a DVD together.’
She glanced at him and noticed his smile was even wider. She could guess the lovely evening had continued into the bedroom. She would also bet they didn’t get to the end of the DVD.
Underneath his Jonathan Creek duffel coat Rory was dressed smartly in a navy blue suit, white shirt, and light blue tie. Matilda was wearing the same navy suit as yesterday; the trousers were creased, and there was a stain on a lapel she couldn’t remember getting. Compared to her subordinate she felt like a bag lady.
‘Another cold one this morning,’ Rory said, making conversation after a silence of a couple of minutes. ‘Forecast said there could be some snow by the weekend.’
Matilda didn’t reply. She didn’t feel as if she had anything to add to the pointless dialogue.
‘What’s the plan for today then, after the demolition I mean?’
‘Well I thought we’d track down Jonathan Harkness. He’s the only relative living in the area. We’ll tell him we’re having another look at the case and see what he has to tell us.’
‘And if he doesn’t have anything new to tell us?’
‘Then we work the file. There has to be something in there that someone’s missed.’
‘Do you think he’ll remember something new twenty years down the line?’
‘I’ve absolutely no idea. The brain is a complicated organ. It can block things out to protect a person from whatever horrors they’ve experienced or it can torture them by repeating it over and over.’
‘Fingers crossed for the last option then. Let’s just hope it hasn’t screwed him up too much.’
‘Well I’m expecting him to be a complete basket case. Anything different will be a bonus.’
By the time they arrived at the scene in Whirlow a huge hydraulic excavator was being slowly driven off a low-loader. There was a team of more than a dozen workers in HI-Vis safety gear milling about preparing to begin.
The house had been surrounded by large plywood sheets to stop potential thieves or squatters gaining access and this was now being taken down. Two members of the team donned hard hats and entered the property via the back door. They were to give the house a final sweep just to make sure a homeless person wasn’t taking shelter, before the house was pulled down.
Matilda pulled up a few hundred yards away from the house. From the back seat she lifted a pile of papers: the reports she had taken home and Charlie Johnson’s book, which she was almost halfway through, and began flicking through them.
‘I was talking to my fiancée about the Harkness case last night and she had a look on the Internet about it while I was in the shower. She thinks Matthew may have a part to play in the murders.’
‘Does she?’ Matilda replied, not paying much attention.
‘It makes sense if you think about it. He wasn’t in the house at the time and he went missing soon afterwards. It was days before he was found and he had no alibi.’
‘He had no motive either.’
‘All kids have a motive for killing their parents, no matter how tenuous.’
She wondered whether that was his opinion or that of his fiancée’s. She didn’t say anything.
‘Maybe they’d had an argument; maybe he was jealous of the attention his parents paid towards his younger brother.’
‘The attack was frenzied. Whoever killed them had nothing but hatred for them. It would have had to have been a pretty big argument for him to do that. Besides, if he was jealous of his brother, why not kill him too?’
Rory shrugged.
‘Read chapter ten,’ Matilda said, handing Rory the paperback. ‘Apparently, Jonathan was an accident. His parents rarely had time for him. There was no reason for Matthew to be jealous.’
Extract from A Christmas Killing by Charlie Johnson.
CHAPTER THREE: WHERE’S MATTHEW?
The police arrived quickly on the scene and Jonathan was escorted off the premises under the cover of a large blanket to shield him from the horror of seeing his parents in such a state. He was taken to Sheffield’s Children’s Hospital where he was assessed for injuries. At this point, he had not spoken a single word to anyone and police believed him to be in shock.
There was someone missing from this scene though; fifteen-year-old Matthew Harkness. He had not returned home from school but gone straight to the home of best friend, Philip Clayton, to play a computer game. He left later than usual and used Philip’s mountain bike to cycle home. The journey should have only taken ten minutes but he didn’t make it, and there was no sign of a bike. After interviewing neighbours, police launched a manhunt to locate Matthew. Nobody had seen Matthew since he left for school earlier that day. The back gardens of all the houses in the road, along with nearby parks, were searched immediately. However, it was dark and little could be seen. A full-scale search was to begin the following morning as soon as it was light enough. Fears were growing among police that Matthew could have been kidnapped by the killer(s), though this was never made public. A sharp frost overnight and freezing temperatures hampered the search for Matthew. Police turned out to search back gardens once again and the local community helped out however they could. Police spent the whole day searching the dense Ecclesall Woods before moving on to Ran Woods. Nothing was found. The search then moved to nearby parks including Abbeydale Park, Millhouses Park and Abbeydale Golf Course. Again, there was no sign of the missing teenager, or the red and black mountain bike belonging to his friend. By the time darkness fell on the first full day of the investigation Matthew was still listed as a missing person and no ransom demands had been made. All day the temperature had not risen above