Chapter 47
Kaiden Longley’s spilled blood had been washed away by the morning rain.
Ramouter crouched down next to his body.
Rat bites and small, ravaged cuts left behind by foxes searching for food were visible on his arms and calves.
His twisted and broken body resembled an action figure that a child had taken apart limb by limb and put back together back to front.
‘How long has he been here?’ Ramouter asked Dr Linh Choi who was standing nearby writing notes.
‘Give or take. I’ll get a better estimate when I take the liver temperature.’
‘Who found him?’ Ramouter asked.
Henley turned around and pointed to a low wall about fifty metres away which separated the car park from the recycling and rubbish area. A young couple were with a uniformed officer, the woman occasionally pacing and shaking her head as though trying to get rid of the images inside her head.
‘According to the officer they’re with, they were bringing down rubbish to the bins,’ Henley said. ‘The woman, Juniper, said she saw the body and thought it was a crackhead who had fallen asleep. She said it wasn’t the first time, but then she got closer and realised he was dead.’
‘Who called the police?’ Ramouter asked.
‘Her brother. I just can’t believe he’s been lying here all night and all day. I mean look around you. Look how busy this estate is,’ Henley said, shaking her head.
The presence of not just the police but a forensic service van had garnered a lot of attention. Heads could be seen poking out of the windows above while groups of people stood on the large grassy mound that faced the rubbish area.
‘The people around here either really didn’t notice a dead man on the ground or they ignored it,’ she said.
‘Wouldn’t be the first time,’ Linh said. ‘Especially if it’s the norm to find passed out drug users next to the bins.’
‘That doesn’t excuse it,’ Henley said bitterly.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ Linh said.
‘Can you say if it was the fall that killed him?’ asked Ramouter.
‘For now, all of his visible injuries, the positioning of his limbs are consistent with a fall, a great fall,’ Linh said, looking up towards the upper floors of the block of flats. But you know the rules, youngling.’
Ramouter rolled his eyes. ‘Nothing conclusive until you open them up,’ he said.
‘Exactly. You’re learning,’ Linh said.
‘Do we know that it’s definitely him, Kaiden Longley? His face is a mess,’ Ramouter asked Henley.
Henley held out the small plastic evidence bag, containing a blue Barclays debit card and the familiar pink colours of a UK driving licence. She turned the bag around and showed Ramouter the side of the licence that contained the photograph and personal details of the man who was dead on the floor.
‘I’ve got a couple of officers stationed outside his flat,’ said Henley. ‘Tenth floor and word of warning, the lift is broken.’
‘Why are the lifts always out? I used to be the fastest 1,500 metre runner in my school. Ran for the county and now look at me,’ Ramouter said. He placed his hands on his thighs and tried to catch his breath.
‘The better question is why are the council estates always in a state of disrepair?’ Henley replied.
She leaned against the wall, her view of London slightly obscured by the green anti-bird netting that stretched from the balcony wall to the ceiling.
A policewoman stood outside flat 85, shifting from foot to foot as she spoke to a CSI officer, adjusting his camera.
‘It’s quite a view,’ said Ramouter as his breathing steadied. ‘London keeps on surprising me.’
‘And it won’t stop,’ said Henley. ‘Right now, unless there’s an eyewitness or there’s evidence inside to tell us otherwise, we’re working on the premise that he’s a victim.’
‘Thrown and didn’t fall,’ Ramouter said with a nod as they walked towards the flat. ‘I noticed that the communal door lock is broken.’
‘There’s no cameras around the communal area, on any of the floors and I didn’t notice any at the rear of the building where the body was found,’ said Henley as the officer recorded both of their names in the logbook.
‘It’s a maisonette,’ Ramouter observed as he pointed at the narrow staircase.
‘Must be two bedrooms minimum,’ said Henley as she turned back and checked the front door. ‘No signs of damage to the lock.’
‘It hardly looks lived in. It reminds me of my place before I moved in,’ said Ramouter as he entered the living room which was minimally furnished with a single armchair and a small circular dining table.
Henley’s eyes tracked the clumps of damp soil and moss to a giant monstera plant that was on its side, roots exposed.
A spattering of broken plaster and a screw still attached to a red wall plug was next to the empty bottle of beer near Henley’s feet.
She looked up above the door that led to the balcony.
The first hook on the curtain rail had pulled away from the wall causing the curtains that framed the door to unevenly drag on the floor. The room told a story of struggle.
Ramouter pointed at the carpet close to his feet. ‘He resisted,’ he said. Soil had been ground into two heel shaped marks slightly wider than hip distance apart which merged into two thick drag marks leading to the balcony.
‘We’ve got blood on the back of the armchair and on the door frame,’ said Anthony who was standing on the opposite side of the room writing a note on his chart. ‘It’s not a lot of blood but it’s enough.’
‘So, he’s attacked in here and dragged out to the balcony,’ said Henley. She turned and faced the open door that led into the hallway. ‘But there’s no damage to the front door, so he must have let them in,’ she mused.
‘My wife used to leave the door on the latch for me all the time back in the day,’ said Anthony. ‘But I only do it when I’m putting the bins out.’
‘We’re assuming that it was our victim who left the door on the latch?
’ Ramouter said as he stepped out onto the balcony followed by Henley.
The balcony was chaos. Soil and broken pieces of ceramic plant pot were scattered on the ground.
A second beer bottle was in pieces next to an upended teal coloured bistro table and chairs.
‘All of the struggle takes place right here,’ said Henley as she looked over the balcony, the view of Kaiden’s body now obstructed by a white forensic tent.
The crowd below had thinned out. Henley straightened up.
She had the feeling that she was being watched.
To her left, the occupants of number 83 were on their balcony straining to see their neighbour’s flat.
‘This time last night, Kaiden was dragged kicking and screaming and thrown to his death,’ said Henley. ‘I’m finding it difficult to believe that no one heard a thing.’
Ramouter blew out his cheeks. ‘Maybe they did and just ignored it. Just another day on the block.’
‘Any signs of a disturbance upstairs?’ Henley asked Anthony.
‘No,’ Anthony said. ‘But there’s more stuff up there than there is down here.’
The first bedroom showed signs of living with an opened duffle bag filled with clothes, and a blue towel on top of the unmade bed.
Henley opened the door of the second bedroom. ‘Oh wow,’ she said.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Ramouter, following Henley into the room. ‘Ezra would pass out if he saw this.’
The bedroom had been converted into a computer room.
Two large monitors sat on a desk. A black PC base unit, with a violent neon light glowing through a transparent side panel was on the side.
An opened laptop also sat on the desk next to an expensive digital camera.
However, the computer equipment wasn’t what held Henley’s attention.
On the third wall was a noticeboard covered with a map and photographs of the victims on the SCU’s murder board, but it was the photograph on the top of the board that had caused a tightness in Henley’s chest. The image was crystal clear, picking up every leaf on the trees that the council had neglected to prune.
In the distance was a little girl, her back turned, as she faced the woman in front of her.
Even if Henley hadn’t been sure of the identity of the second woman in the photo, wearing a trench coat and a baseball cap, she was 100 per cent sure of two things: that was her street and the little girl in the photo was her daughter.
‘Boss, is everything all right?’ asked Ramouter.
‘This photograph was taken outside my house. The day that Sian Fox-Carnell turned up,’ said Henley.
‘Are you sure?’
‘That’s my street and that’s Emma,’ she said, pointing at the photo as she shook with anger.
She did everything she could to protect her family, but it never seemed to be enough.
There was always an unseen danger at her doorstep.
She wanted to tear the photograph in two, to remove the shame and fear, but she couldn’t. The photograph was evidence.
‘But she wasn’t watching you. He was clearly following Fox-Carnell.’
‘Doesn’t make it any better though.’
‘No, I wouldn’t think that it would,’ said Ramouter as he rubbed his right ear. ‘But look at her. Look at your daughter. She knows that she’s safe with you and don’t forget that I’ve got your back. I’m your eyes and ears too. It’s my job to see the stuff that you can’t.’
Henley fought back the tears. Ramouter’s dedication to not only her but her family was a testament to how far they’d come since first meeting.
She looked at Emma in the photograph and was immediately taken back to the moment when she’d asked Stanford to be her godfather.
The tears burned again. She trusted Stanford to take care of her daughter if anything happened to her but yet she hadn’t entrusted him with her discovery that Rhimes had been murdered.
Henley turned her back to the noticeboard, wiped her eyes and took a breath, grounding herself and mentally locking her emotions away.
She looked around the room, her eyes stopping on the tight purple buds of the orchid plant on the windowsill; flowers that Kaiden Longley would never see bloom.
‘Why kill him?’ Henley asked as she and Ramouter walked back towards her car. ‘Someone he knew killed him but why?’
‘There’s only one answer,’ said Ramouter. ‘Iron Shadow, well what’s left of them, discovered he was talking to us. If they were able to track Fox-Carnell it’s more than possible they were keeping an eye on him.’
‘But Kaiden Longley didn’t talk to us. He talked to Ezra. If the remaining members of Iron Shadow were following Kaiden and saw the two of them together, they’ll be asking themselves: what did Kaiden tell Ezra. How much does Ezra know?’
‘Do you think we need to ask the guvnor to do more than just pick Ezra up in the morning?’
‘Most definitely,’ said Henley. ‘It’s clear that these people have an agenda. They wanted to frame Kaiden Longley,’ said Henley as she got into her car and started the engine. ‘You saw that flat. They left everything upstairs, all the photographs. Implicating Kaiden Longley and only him.’
‘That doesn’t mean they’re going to stop though,’ said Ramouter as the black body bag containing Kaiden Longley was wheeled towards the open doors of the private ambulance.
‘These are people who didn’t even stop when half of their crazy group was put in prison and for whatever reason they moved to a different city. ’
‘No, you’re right,’ said Henley as she did a U-turn and drove through the estate. ‘Whether they find someone new to take Kaiden’s place or they just stick with who they’ve got. They’re not going to stop.’