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He takes a step forward, closer. He can see hair now. Blonde hair, sprayed out on the pillow. Another step. Her head, partially covered by the duvet.
She’s lying on her back, face up. Her eyes are closed. She looks like she’s sleeping but the position is unnatural. Pippa never slept on her back. She curled up, like a kitten, her arm propped under her head.
Jamie slowly walks around to Pippa’s side of the bed. His breaths come sharp and shallow; his head is starting to spin. He knows something is desperately, horribly wrong. He is close now, and he slowly reaches out with his hand and pulls the duvet back so her whole face is revealed.
A sob erupts from his body and he falls to his knees. His wife is lying there, her head resting on the pillow, her hands folded up, crossed on her chest. Her hair is combed and neat. Her eyes are closed.
He reaches out, frantically clutching at one of her hands, then drops it from shock. Her skin is ice cold. Gray.
His wife is here, tucked up in bed. As if she’d been cared for, loved, looked after. But she is dead. And completely leached of blood.
CHAPTER
36
IT DOESN’T TAKE long for Adam to get there. Even before Jamie answered his phone, Adam was running out of the incident room, calling for a patrol car. He put out an alert for someone to go to Jamie. Anyone. Because that VW Transporter had been heading to 9 Robertson Avenue. Jamie’s home.
He waits for the answering call. For a uniform to confirm they’ve got there, and his friend is safe. But the reply isn’t the one he’s expecting.
“House all clear, no trace of suspect.” The voice is low, quiet. He pauses. “But she’s here, Boss. Pippa Hoxton. She’s here.”
And he knows it isn’t good news.
The uniform lets him into the house, and he runs up the stairs, two at a time, to the bedroom, all thoughts of preserving the scene completely out of his head. In the doorway, Adam stops. The bedside light is on, illuminating the room in a cozy, warm glow.
Jamie is crouched by the side of the bed, his head in his hands. Adam walks over, his gaze locked on the body, and lowers himself to his knees, placing a hand on Jamie’s back.
As he waits for his friend to acknowledge him, Adam comes to terms with what he’s seeing. Pippa has been laid out in their bed. Carefully tucked in, the body positioned deliberately. The van hadn’t been there to lie in wait for Jamie; the killer had been taking Pippa home. He reaches across and moves the duvet to get a better view. She’s wearing an old-fashioned white nightgown. It looks crisp and ironed. Her body is clean, her hair slightly damp.
But her skin. It’s dove gray. Her lips are white. One hand has fallen by her side, the other crossed over her chest. Her nails are broken, one missing. And there are two red, raw puncture wounds in her arms.
Adam wrenches his gaze away and turns his attention to Jamie.
“Is she dead? Is she dead, Adam?” Jamie’s eyes are desperate, pleading.
“I’m sorry, Jamie. Yes, she is.”
He starts crying, and Adam swallows down tears of his own as an ache grows in the back of his throat. Sadness mixed with guilt and anger and regret.
He hears footsteps in the doorway, muttered words.
“Ah, shit.”
Adam looks up and Ross is standing there, already dressed in the white suit of the crime scene.
“Jamie, I’m sorry. But you need to go.”
“I don’t want to leave her. I can’t …” He starts sobbing again, this huge man, curled up in a ball on the floor, his shoulders heaving. Nobody moves; the whole room waits. The SOCOs, Dr. Ross, Adam. Everyone drowned in this man’s grief.
Adam puts an arm around Jamie’s shoulders. “She’s in good hands,” he says softly. “We’ll look after her. And you can see her again, I promise.”
Jamie nods slowly, then allows Adam to haul him to his feet. He reaches out to his dead wife, then pulls back, putting his hands over his face again. The family liaison officer comes into the room and leads Jamie out.
Adam turns to Ross, who points wordlessly to the protective suit being passed his way. Adam puts it on. Ross slowly pulls back the duvet to reveal the whole body.
Pippa is clothed only in the nightdress. Her feet are bare, clean like the rest of her.
“He washed her,” Adam says. “And tidied the house. Creating a stage? Returning her as a … sort of gift?”
