Chapter 6
In the kitchen, she was met with the detritus of a party strewn around on every surface. While the rest of the house was clean and ordered, here was where the last vestiges of a normal life remained.
Glasses. A few empty wine bottles. Discarded soft drink bottles.
Plates containing pizza crusts and shrivelled cocktail sausages.
Sandwiches with crusts curling at the edges.
Jugs of juice. A post-party kitchen. Disarray.
Unlike the meticulous arrangement of the bodies upstairs, which she assumed were mother and daughter.
It was likely the man in the sitting room was the husband and father.
Jane Dore, the state pathologist, would establish the order in which the deaths had occurred, so Lottie could not rush to conclusions yet.
That didn’t stop her feeling that the man in the sitting room was the last to die.
The others by his hand? With a cursory glance she could not see a note.
Still, the evidence would lead the investigation.
She gazed out the window towards the back garden, and her heart careened down her chest. A deflated bouncy castle took up most of the lawn, and an arch of balloons looked ready to take flight from its moorings.
This had definitely been a party for a child.
For the little girl upstairs. A celebration that had turned dark.
Lottie hadn’t noticed any cards or gifts, but she hadn’t been in all the rooms. She decided to leave it to SOCOs. She’d seen enough.
‘It’s so heartbreaking. That little girl…
truly shocking,’ she said to Kirby once she had divested herself of the protective clothing.
Beads of sweat rolled down her back, though the weather was damp and cold.
‘You need to interview the first responders. I want to know what everything was like when they arrived. Find out what they touched or disturbed. You know the drill. First, though, tell me your views on what could have happened in there.’
‘Familicide is my number-one thought.’
‘Yes, it looks that way. A man takes out his family, and his narcissism is usually compounded by him explaining that he had no choice or some such bullshit. They usually leave a note, but the thing is, I couldn’t see one.’
‘It might be found later,’ Kirby offered.
‘Possibly.’ Lottie shook out a shiver from between her shoulder blades. ‘It’s just… I’m not convinced. There’s no overkill. No angry passion. It’s a bit too contained.’
‘What do you mean?’
She sighed. ‘Not sure. Let’s keep an open mind.
Do our job. There’s evidence of a kids’ party in the kitchen and the back garden.
Find out who was here and when they left, and if anything significant occurred.
And we need buccal swabs for DNA analysis from whoever was here yesterday and this morning. Have relatives been informed?’
‘McKeown’s looking into that. So far he’s had no luck.’
‘Establish where the couple worked. Talk to the neighbours. That should give us some information. We need to do this right. We owe it to that poor mother and daughter. To the husband too, because we have to presume innocence until the evidence tells us otherwise.’
A white-sided technical van pulled up outside the cordon. The driver was directed towards the driveway. SOCOs had arrived. She needed the state pathologist on site soon too. Only then would she know the order in which the deaths had occurred. That would be her starting point.