Chapter 8

The quiet suburban calm of Summertown had been shattered by a sudden influx of several patrol cars all with flashing neon blue lights lighting up the darkness. Uniformed officers were scurrying around like dark ants knocking on doors and waking irate neighbours from sleep to take down statements that in all likelihood would provide little to no useful information.

Hathaway and Lewis stood like an island in the eye of a storm, observing for a long moment all that was going on around them, until a young PC, still fresh enough out of training to be exuberant about being out in the cold in the middle of the night bounded up to them, scene suits in hand.

They entered the property and spent an undignified couple of minutes trying to struggle into the all in one suits, with as much grace as they could muster. The suits were a definite case of "one size fitting no-one" and while a reasonable amount of material bunched around Lewis' wrists and ankles, Hathaway was left with a ridiculous amount of suit arm and leg sticking out of the suit cuffs.

Rolling their eyes at each other they made their way back into the property's kitchen which is where they found Laura Hobson crouched by a body slumped haphazardly over the kitchen table that was coated in an ominous layer of blood, so dark it almost appeared black. It was unmistakably the young woman they had questioned earlier and Hathaway bowed his head for a moment respectfully, until a sudden thought occurred to him and his head jerked up to pin the nearest constable with a sharp stare.

"Her children aren't here are they?" he asked, a hard edge to his normally mellow voice.

"No sir," she replied promptly, "they're staying with their father. He's been informed."

He nodded, but was cut off from any reply by Hobson, who had been alerted to their arrival by the sound of his familiar voice.

"Evening, gents," she greeted with a smile that belied the grumpiness in her tone, "or should that be morning?"

"It should be bed time, I can tell you that for nothing," Lewis replied sourly.

She shook her head in admonishment and beckoned him over.

"Now, this was reported by the neighbour a little while ago. She'd arranged to pop round and collect a parcel on the way back from a party. Got no reply on knocking so came round to try the back door and saw Ms Blackwall through the window, knife on the table, lots of blood."

"So are we talking suicide?" Lewis asked, hoping that he hadn't been called out of bed for nothing, "there's potential cause, she was implicated in a fatal hit and run and questioned this afternoon."

Hobson was already shaking her head.

"No, afraid not," she straightened and shifted to allow then both an unrestricted view of the woman's wounds, "see here," she pointed at the cuts, "at first glance they appear self inflicted, but then," she turned the hands over carefully, revealing bruise marks over the back of both wrists, "this sort of marking is consistent with being restrained. There's also evidence that she's being gagged, and," she lifted up the woman's thick brown curls to reveal a bruise under the hair, "she's been knocked over the head, if I had to guess I'd say probably not enough to keep her unconscious for any length of time but certainly enough to leave her dazed. Which is probably when the assailant had time to tie her up."

She looked from one detective to the other, assessing how well they had followed her explanation. The both nodded, though Hathaway, as she expected, had more questions.

"Were the cuts inflicted by this knife?" he asked, indicating the one on the table.

"No reason to suspect not, it's certainly consistent with the wounds but I'll be able to be more certain after the PM tomorrow." He nodded.

"Would..." he paused, looking a little sickened by his own question, "Would it have taken long to die like that?"

She shook her head, smiling gentle, comforting smile at him. Sometimes with his solid presence at a scene it was easy to forget that Hathaway was still young. She had become hardened to the violence she saw day in and day out, but his eyes still swum with compassion for every victim; mind you so did Robert Lewis', no doubt that was why they ran themselves into the ground trying to solve cases so many other teams would have labelled unsolvable.

"No. Almost certainly not, the cuts have been made vertically rather than horizontally, and probably between two and four hours ago. "

He was looking down now, staring unnaturally hard at the floor.

"Are you alright sergeant?" she asked worriedly, he had looked a bit pale but she'd put that down the late night.

"Yeah," he murmured, distractedly, "I'm fine. Sir, there's a bit of a boot print in the blood by your foot."

Lewis looked down, sure enough, the distinct printing of a boot toe was clearly visible in the pool of tacky, almost dried blood. He measured it against the size of his own shoe, it was clearly bigger, more the size of Hathaway's flipper like feet.

"Probably a man," he surmised, "which rules out half the population."

"Fifty five percent," corrected Hathaway, "or so you told me once."

Lewis had dim recollections of the conversation but as it had been a good few years ago now he couldn't swear to it. He looked the tall man up and down.

"Where do you store all this stuff, Hathaway? Your brain's like a bloody sponge."

Hathaway shrugged, and resumed instructed a Crime Scene Investigator to photograph the partial imprint. Lewis turned to the pathologist who had turned back to her own examination of the crime scene.

"Laura, if God forbid, anything ever happens to Sergeant Hathaway can you do me a favour and have a look inside – see where it is that he hides all this random trivia?"

She nodded, without even looking up.

"See if you can get him to donate his brain to medical science," she quipped, "then I can have a good old poke around, get all the expensive toys out."

Hathaway said nothing, just shook his head tolerantly and went on with his work.

An hour later the crime scene had revealed precious little further information. Miss Sand, who had discovered the body had seen nothing and could think of no one who would wish Sarah any harm. The only thing she had been concerned about, she had reported, was the Police investigation into the hit and run.

"Could it have been a revenge killing?" asked Hathaway, thoughtfully.

Lewis sighed deeply as he considered the possibility.

"Could be," he surmised, "But we've not released any details to anyone, certainly not any names. I know the Super knows the family but she's not going to just blurt out accusations willy nilly. No," he paused, "there's something more here. Something, tying all this mess together somehow."

"Maybe it'll make more sense in the morning," Hathaway suggested, "We're going to need to talk to the ex-husband but we can't do that now."

"No," Lewis agreed, "Not fair on the kids, come on then. Let's see if the morning sheds any light on it all."

He led the way out to the car, and waved cheerily to Hobson who was speedily returning her equipment to the back of her silver hatchback.

"See you tomorrow," she called softly, so as not to disturb the sleeping street. He nodded and settled himself in the passenger car, grateful in his sleepy state that it was Hathaway who would negotiate the dark, icy streets.