I stood by the front door of the house that was now a fully fledged murder scene. A troop of paper suited clad clones strode past me, their directives, to find clues and remove all evidence pertinent to the case.
"I'll be in touch once I have finished my report," said Jenny. "We have got his computer, so the first thing we will do is take a good look at the hard drive and find out if he was in touch with anybody. I'm afraid we have been unable to find a mobile phone."
Nodding my head I thanked Jenny and headed back to my car which was parked just down the road.
I looked back to see Jenny talking to Tommy. As they parted she touched his shoulder affectionately. I felt a sharp pang of jealousy which took me completely by surprise. As Jenny walked back into the grisly house Tommy looked my way, waved and then jogged towards me.
"What did she want with you?" I asked, trying to make my question sound as innocent as possible.
Tommy turned back to where he had just come from.
"Who? Jenny?" He said. "She asked me out for a drink funnily enough."
"Is that professional?"
Was it my imagination or did my voice sound a little sharp just then. I tried to regain my composure.
"I bet you get asked out by loads of women?"
Where had that question come from? That sounded positively stalkerish.
Tommy looked at me strangely, just for a second, and then laughed.
"Actually, no," he said looking back at the house. "It's been quite a while since I've been on a date."
He looked down at the floor and then back at me. Once again his blue eyes were twinkling brightly. Any hint of sadness that had dwelled there for an instant was now put away for another time.
"So Lisa. What now?"
I brushed away the length of curly auburn hair that had fallen in front of my eye to one side.
"We've got absolutely nothing to go on at the moment," I said. "Get some uniforms to do house to house calls in the immediate area. See if any of the neighbours saw anything suspicious."
"Sounds like a plan," he said nodding.
I watched him walk towards the group of uniformed police officers standing next to the three police cars that were parked outside the house. There was an exchange of words, a few nods and pointing gestures and then movement as the police officers moved towards the surrounding houses. Tommy turned back towards me and gave me a thumbs up.
My wave back to him was rudely interrupted by the default Nokia tone.
I fumbled in my jacket pocket and pulled out my mobile phone, clicking the green accept button in one swift movement.
"DC Stewart," I said.
"I know who you are Detective Constable Stewart," said the tinny voice from my phone. "The question is, will you find out who I am?"
It was hard to identify the sex of the caller. Male? Female?
"What? Who is this?"
"You know who this is Detective Constable Stewart. You know exactly who this is."
My breathing stopped. The beating of my heart was now amplified by a hundred fold. It was so loud I was sure the voice within my phone would hear it.
"You might as well know that it is indeed James Taunton that lies smeared all over his own kitchen floor. God how I enjoyed doing that."
I looked desperately towards Tommy but he still had his back to me. I wanted so much to turn the phone off and run to him, but I needed to be strong. I took soft steps towards the police cars, hoping, no praying that somebody would come to me and help me out.
"I've got another present for you Detective Constable Stewart."
Another?
"What do you mean, another?" I asked.
"43 Acacia Avenue."
I could sense the caller's breathing quicken.
"God, I really enjoyed that one."
"Listen," I said. "We can help you."
It was the classic response to a killer's call. Give yourself up. We can help you. We'll listen to your problems and make it all better.
The voice in my phone laughed.
Male? Female? I still couldn't tell.
I was now just ten yards from Tommy who still had his back to me.
"You look so lovely Detective Constable Stewart."
"What?"
I felt thrown by that comment.
Tommy turned round and looked at me as I drew nearer.
"You have such lovely red, curly hair. I love the way it moves in the wind."
I mouthed the words 'it's the killer' to Tommy and his eyes bulged with disbelief.
"I suppose you will be telling the handsome young man standing in front of you all about me now."
I froze.
"The killer's here!" I screamed. "The killer can see me right now!"
Highly trained and coordinated pandemonium broke out straight away. Uniformed police ran towards every building, every nook and cranny that had a line of sight on where I was standing.
Tommy sprang into action, barking orders to every available officer in the area. Radios crackled into life as backup was called in.
Time stood still for me. I held my phone at arms length in disgust. I couldn't stop staring at it.
The killer knew me. The killer had been watching us all along.
DS Rioch's huge frame appeared at my side. With a gentleness that defied his size and social grace, he removed the phone from my hand.
I snapped out of my trance and back into the job.
"43 Acacia Avenue," I said to DS Rioch.
"Oh fuck," he snarled. "That's not far from here. My car."
He handed my phone to a nearby WPC as we sprinted towards the car.
"Get that to somebody who can get an ID on the last call made to that phone," he said, "and get some back up over to 43 Acacia Avenue."
DS Rioch huffed and puffed as he clambered into the driver's seat of his Ford Mondeo. I clipped my seat belt into place as he gunned the engine.
"Male or female?" Asked DS Rioch.
"I couldn't tell Sarge," I said with a sigh. "He or she must have been using some kind of voice distorter."
DS Rioch cursed.
Straight through a red light.
"Fuckin' technology," he muttered. "Gimme the old days any day when you used to be able to put the fear of God into a villain without violating his fuckin' human rights."
Hard right turn, wheels squealing, desperately trying to find some grip on the leaf strewn road.
"Trying to find a caller ID on my phone is going to be a waste of time you know," I said.
Brake, overtake a red Honda Civic, horn blaring to move traffic out of the way.
"I know Stewart, but we've got to be seen going through the fuckin' motions."
Left turn. Hard on the accelerator. Acacia Avenue.
"There it is!" I shouted as flashing blue lights appeared from the other end of the road.
DS Rioch stopped the car and we got out. Now that we were here neither of us really wanted to enter the house. We already knew that we would be walking into a scene of gore. There would be no adrenalin pumped breaking down of doors today. The two uniformed officers got out of the car and DS Rioch motioned to them to go round the back of the property.
"Another nice neighbourhood," I said as we walked up to the front door of 43 Acacia Avenue.
It was open.
"Ladies first," joked DS Rioch,
I looked at him and we both entered the property together.
"Hallway clear," I said looking around the huge entrance hall as DS Rioch walked straight through the door ahead and into the kitchen.
"Kitchen not so fuckin' clear," he said.
I walked into the kitchen and felt myself retch. There was the stench of vomit in the air.
We both stared at the same area on the floor.
It was a human skeleton. Bare white bones almost glistened beneath the halogen kitchen lights.
"Can you smell vomit?" I asked.
"Fuckin' yeah," said DS Rioch crouching down by the skeleton. "Smells like a Saturday morning to me."
There were flecks of vomit all over the skeleton and on the kitchen floor beneath it.
Glistening bones.
"What's that stuff on the bones?"
DS Rioch looked closer.
"Couldn't say," he said. "But what the fuck are these tiny footprints that lead from the skeleton to the back door?"
And there they were.
Tiny orange footprints.