Bloodstream: A gripping, unpredictable and shocking thriller

Murphy checked his phone again and, deciding three missed calls during a murder case constituted urgent, thumbed the call button to ring Rossi.

‘We think we’ve got another couple,’ Rossi said, without saying hello. ‘If reports we’re getting are right, it’s pretty much the exact same scene. Two people, found dead in their own home . . .’

‘Where?’ Murphy replied, fiddling with his car keys, cradling the phone on his shoulder and attempting to put on his seat belt at the same time.

‘Osborne Road in Tuebrook.’

‘Whereabouts is that?’

‘Off the West Derby Road. Just before St John’s if you’re coming from town.’

‘Got it,’ Murphy said, giving up on the seat belt and settling for starting the car. ‘I’ll meet you there. What number is it?’

Rossi gave him the house number then ended the call.

Murphy cursed the fact he wasn’t in a pool car, but he picked up speed anyway. He made it through a pedestrian crossing only a second or two late.

‘Probably not the best time to be meeting someone about a completely different case, dickhead,’ Murphy murmured to himself, as he beat another set of lights.

It didn’t take him long to reach the new murder scene. The amount of traffic on nearby streets was building up as gawkers slowed down to look at the closed-off road, their attention caught by the blue flashing lights of marked cars entering and exiting the cordoned-off area. Murphy was surprised to see the crowd of onlookers was currently limited to the usual concerned neighbours and a few other waifs and strays. It wouldn’t be long before some loudmouth let it slip to the press that there was a possible link to their favourite story of the week, and a thousand and one journalists and TV personalities descended on the quiet street.

Small mercies and all that.

He parked his car and walked up the street, taking in the number of uniforms and tech officers already in the area.

Murphy stopped outside the house, watching as forensic teams walked in and out, passing each other without much greeting or camaraderie. He looked towards the roof covered in old slate and at the dark-brown brick facade then noted the modern double-glazed windows – an old house, being forced into a new century. It was in a block of four detached houses, but the gaps between them were barely worth it.

Rossi spotted him. She raised a hand and, breaking off from the conversation she was having, walked over. Murphy looked across the road to the surrounding houses and back to the scene once more.

‘It’s a mess in there,’ Rossi said as she reached him. ‘Looks like he cut the throat this time, rather than strangulation. Pretty bloody scene.’

‘Female victim untouched again, except for a needle mark?’

Rossi smirked and slowly shook her head. ‘Not this time. The other way round.’

Murphy frowned, scratched at his beard and began to walk towards the forensic tent which had been erected around the entrance to the house. ‘Interesting. You have names and that?’

‘Greg Bowlby and Hannah Flynn. They lived here together. Bought the property a year or so ago. They have a daughter, almost two years old . . .’

‘Don’t tell me . . .’

‘No, no,’ Rossi said, her voice rising up a pitch. ‘She was with a grandparent at the time.’

‘Who found them?’ Murphy said, breathing a sigh of relief that there wasn’t an even worse scene than the one he was already imagining.

‘The same grandparent. Hannah’s mother, Emily Flynn. Hannah was supposed to pick up her daughter early this morning, but didn’t show up. Emily was having her overnight as she does every week, but the kid is usually picked up around half seven in the morning by either parent. She left it quarter of an hour before trying to ring. Thought maybe they’d overslept so decided to drop the child off herself around nine a.m. Both of the victims’ cars were parked outside but she got no answer when she knocked on the door. Let herself in with a key she had. Only took one step into the room before bolting back out.’

‘Before the kid saw anything?’

‘That’s what she’s saying. Not that we can get much sense out of her at the moment. Poor woman has gone almost catatonic with shock.’

Murphy grabbed a forensic suit and began putting it on. ‘You been inside yet?’

‘No,’ Rossi said, pulling on her own suit. ‘But someone took a picture and showed me, just to make sure we’re dealing with a similar set-up. It’s not good.’

Murphy nodded. He cleared their entrance to the scene with the head of the forensics team before stepping inside. The smell of blood assailed him as he walked through the hallway – old coins and bitterness – the odour becoming more apparent as they approached the living room.

The doorway opened into the middle of a through lounge. One side looked like a normal living room – two sofas, a large TV, a small, pine-coloured coffee table and some pictures adorning the walls.

The other side was very different.

What little furniture existed, in what Murphy assumed was normally a dining area, was pushed back against one wall. In the centre of the room, two chairs sat facing each other, but they weren’t what his attention was drawn to.

It was the two people strapped to them.

‘Christ . . .’ Murphy said, the words escaping on a breath, barely audible.

‘Looks worse in reality.’

Various techs and SOCOs faded into the background, giving them a proper look at what had been left behind. The male victim had his back to them. His head had slumped forward onto his chest, so the nape of his neck was on show.

‘Must have happened pretty much when he got back from work,’ Rossi said, taking a couple of steps forward. ‘Still got a shirt and tie on.’

Murphy murmured an agreement, taking a closer look at the victim’s now crumpled shirt and loosened tie. ‘Stained as well,’ he said as he moved closer.

‘Sweat or something? Can’t smell petrol or anything like that.’

‘God forbid.’

‘She came off much worse,’ Rossi said, turning her back on the male and looking at Hannah Flynn.

Murphy took a breath and turned with her, the bloodstained tableau of the woman’s death almost too much to take in with one look.

‘Lot of blood here.’

Murphy didn’t respond, just stared at the jagged pattern of flesh and blood on the right side of the female victim’s bare neck. The injuries continued underneath her chin, but were masked from view by the position of her head. Blood had dripped down her shirt, pooling around the bottom of the chair.

‘This isn’t good.’ Dr Houghton’s voice broke the silence from behind them. ‘Although, if it’s the same guy, he’s made my job a bit easier.’

‘I’m sure that was his intention,’ Murphy said, unable to take his eyes off Hannah Flynn’s broken body, strapped to the chair.

‘A minor convenience, I’m sure,’ Houghton replied, moving towards Murphy and Rossi. He looked over the bodies, humming and whistling as he did so. ‘Won’t be able to tell you much here. We’ll know more when we get them back to the hospital. They haven’t been moved from this place, that much is sure. Not been here longer than twelve hours, I would guess.’

‘That would fit with what we know so far.’

‘Not sure you’re going to get much more from these two at the moment. Think they’re telling you everything they have for now.’

Murphy stood a little longer before turning away and walking towards the kitchen which ran off the back of the dining room. More SOCOs worked away, but nothing of interest leaped out at him. He headed back past a waiting Rossi and stepped into the hallway.

‘People upstairs?’ Murphy said, pulling his mask down.

‘Yeah,’ Rossi said, making an attempt to write in her notebook whilst wearing oversized gloves. ‘Think they’ve found something similar to the other two scenes in one of the rooms up there.’

‘Let’s go look.’

Murphy took the stairs two at a time, looking in two bedrooms and a bathroom before finding two officers in the smallest room, taking pictures of the wall.

‘Another collage,’ Murphy said, shifting his bulk round the working officers and taking in what was on the wall.

‘What’s it say?’ Rossi replied from outside the room.

Murphy stepped aside so Rossi could look past him.

NEVER HIS – NEVER HERS TO KEEP SECRET

‘What the hell does that mean?’

Murphy looked at the array of photographs on the wall. ‘What’s the Italian for I have no bloody idea?’

‘Tricky one. We usually just say boh. Covers you for the most part.’

‘Well this is all very boh. There are the words and then pictures of just the two of them together and then pictures of them with the daughter. Not sure what it means.’

‘Got me,’ Rossi said, bouncing from one foot to the other in the doorway. ‘Why is it always the smallest room?’

‘I’m going with our new Italian word for the day. I think these pictures have just been collected from round the house.’ Murphy searched the room, spotting what he thought he would find in a corner of the box room. ‘Picture frames in here on the floor.’

‘He’s removed the pictures, stuck them to the wall, and left his message. Why?’

Murphy slipped past the SOCO lifting fingerprints off the wall and walked back out onto the landing, Rossi stepping backwards to allow him past. ‘He wants to explain what he’s doing? Usually the case, isn’t it?’

‘For some, yes. I’ve read a bit more about serial killers in the last few years. You know, since they started turning up more often in our fair city.’

‘A little light reading before bedtime, Laura? I bet that was fun.’

Rossi headed into the main bedroom, standing at the foot of the bed as Murphy followed her in. ‘It was, actually. The American ones are really interesting, as it happens. The various methods, motives, psychopathology– ’

‘I believe you,’ Murphy said, interrupting her. ‘I think I’ll stick to just catching them for now.’

‘Doesn’t seem to be anything in here,’ Rossi said, opening the bedside drawers. ‘Not even a sex toy to make us giggle.’

Murphy looked around the room. ‘A couple of photographs will have come from here. I’ll get them to sweep the whole place. He must have left something behind this time, surely?’

‘Beginning to think that’s what we’re going to need.’

‘A mistake?’

Rossi stood up and faced Murphy. ‘Isn’t that usually the way we catch these people?’

Murphy hesitated, then closed his mouth.

He didn’t want anyone to hear him agreeing with her.

Violence

He tried to be as still as he possibly could. Standing on the stripped floorboards, flakes of wood poking into the soles of his bare feet. When he stood like that, breathing slow and steady, he could almost be somewhere else.

When he spoke, he did so in almost a whisper. Loud enough for Number Four to hear, giving himself the comfort of knowing there was someone to listen to him speak.

‘Some people think there’s no reason for anger to play any role in a loving relationship. Those people have never been part of something real. I know different. I’ve seen it. You only have to walk the streets on a Friday or Saturday night in town to see that. The anger caused by love. Spilled tears, spilled blood. The guy who becomes so incensed by another bloke daring to look at his missus for longer than a split second that he decides to do something about it – the endless tales of deaths occurring from a single punch not acting as a deterrent. The alpha male showing his dominance. The women fighting each other over perceived slights, over men who will forget their names by the next morning. The couples who scream and shout at each other in the middle of town, walking past Primark and Burton, where they’d shopped with smiles on their faces only hours earlier. Wearing the outfits they’d bought as they tear into each other. Saying words they can never take back. Insults and viciousness spewing forth with every syllable.’

His breathing rate increased. He tried to slow it before he spoke again.

‘And no one cares about the people who see them do this. About the strangers silently judging them as they pass them by at three in the morning. Couples who are on their way for the night bus, both wordlessly thanking their lucky stars that it isn’t their turn to be the ones stared at.’

He crouched down, his weight shifting to the balls of his feet. He rubbed his hands together, generating some warmth in them. Number Four was already shivering in the coolness of the room, as spring refused to bring with it any warm weather.

He could see her, reflected in the remnants of a broken mirror propped against the wall. The ghost of wallpaper surrounding it. Peeling and coming away.

There was a story he told when he was in ‘normal’ mode. When discussions at work or somewhere else became political or such like. It was well rehearsed, one he felt comfortable telling.

He had been driving down Scottie Road, just as it turned off and became Stanley Road and faded off into the distance towards Everton. Keeping to the speed limit, watching for police with nothing better to do on a Thursday night at one a.m. than pull him over for doing a few miles an hour over thirty. The roads were almost dead – a couple of other cars dotted around here and there as town was left behind him, but the streets otherwise quiet. It had been a warm summer evening, and he’d had the windows down in his car, rather than wasting petrol on air conditioning. A warm breeze entered the car, cooling him as he drove.

Over the low voice of Pete Price’s radio show, he’d heard the shouting before he saw the people doing it. He had begun to search out where the noise was coming from as the lights ahead turned to amber too soon for him to speed up and through them.

The couple were young. That had been his first thought. The girl possibly not even eighteen – her shaven-headed companion had the look of someone who had left school early and recently.

He’d watched with bemusement for a few seconds, not really paying them much attention as their words drifted around him. Mostly coarse and uneducated. Both of them unable to profess their anger in any other way than to scream and swear. He had been unable to work out what they had been arguing about, but the lad had been the angrier of the pair, so he’d begun to concoct a story in his head: infidelity or a slight on his character.

When the smack came, it took a moment or two to realise what had happened. The lad reeled back as the girl had gone for another slap. Then the lad raised a hand and punched her on the side of her head. Only a low wall had stopped her from falling. The lad was in her face by the time she’d stumbled, his words lost as he raised his fist and smacked it into her head again and again. She wasn’t on her feet long before she slid down the wall onto the floor.

He remembered the feeling as his stomach flipped, watching as conflict had turned to violence in front of him. He’d got out of his car on instinct, leaving it idling as he approached the pair.

By the time he’d got to them, the girl was lying on the ground – the lad about to volley her in the legs for a second time, his face a blank mask, droplets of sweat cascading down it as he prepared to inflict even more damage. The girl was crying, sobbing, curled into the foetal position.

He remembered the feeling of disgust at the sight.

As the lad had drawn back his foot, he had tackled him to the ground. Pinned the lad’s arms behind his back before he’d had a chance to react, pushing his face into the concrete. Used his whole weight on him, forcing him further and further down. The lad tried to kick out, but was outmatched and didn’t have the strength he possessed. He’d given the lad a swift dig to the kidneys and side of the head to stop him struggling.

It had been almost too easy.

He had turned to see if the girl was able to get up, his mind working away as he prepared to tell her to ring the police, to get help. Get this lad who was underneath him away from her.

As he’d turned, he’d felt a stinging blow to the back of his head which sent him dizzy. His head turned to fog for a few seconds, causing him to relax his grip on the lad underneath him.

He’d staggered a little, looking to see where the blow had come from.

‘Get off him, get off him.’

The girl was on him, hands on his shoulders as his head cleared, pulling at him and making his balance fail more. He’d ended up on his side looking confusedly back at the girl, as she helped the lad to his feet.

‘I was trying to help you.’

‘You’ve hurt him, you fucking prick. Look what you’ve done.’

He’d stood up, feeling the back of his head as he stared at the girl who by now had the lad on his feet, a dazed look on his zit-scarred face.

‘Fuck off now, or we’ll call the bizzies. His family will fucking do you.’

He’d walked back to his car, which was still standing alone at the lights, got in and driven away, passing the couple as they limped home arm in arm.

When he told the story, it was always greeted with the same shocked expressions and shaking of heads and the silent agreement that there was nothing you could do for someone in that situation. That she loved him more than she loved herself. Endless platitudes excusing the violence the lad had displayed, or the bleeding hearts of defence for the girl and her reaction to the man trying to help her.

He told the story again, the endless shadows listening along, as the well-rehearsed story came forth from him. Number Four closed her eyes as she listened, holding on to the radiator for a warmth that wasn’t there.

‘That was their relationship. That was the way they showed love for each other. There’s no other explanation for it. Love is just too close to anger and conflict. Why can’t we change this? What can I do to make this different? Better?’

Love and anger go hand in hand.

Violence was just the outcome.

‘Everyone uses violence now. It’s everywhere. It surrounds me. Surrounds everyone. We live in violence, so it’s only right that it has become a part of the most intimate aspect of our lives. Love. We consume anger and conflict, and violence is the result. Cruelty and sadism are used as a form of entertainment. War and terror are beamed into our living rooms, to be commented on and devoured.’

His words didn’t comfort him. Spoken into the darkness, louder than a whisper now, they echoed back at him.

He was sick of it all. Wanted to make it stop, but didn’t know how.

‘That’s my mission now. I have to stop it all. I have to use violence against them, when there is nothing else that can be done. I want it to end. I have to make you see that violence can be a force for good.’

He made her watch the video he had produced. Turned her face towards the screen, so she could see what his love for her had created.

‘It’s easy,’ he said, wiping away the tears which fell down her cheek, onto her jawline. ‘A dummy email account, a dummy Twitter account. Fake details, a fake persona. That’s what all those trolls do, isn’t it? Hiding behind anonymity. I’m just using the same process.’

He closed the lid on his computer and put it to one side. Tiredness swept over him, his eyes threatening to close of their own accord. Return him to normality.

He walked back into the other room, lay down on the mattress there and slept. Waiting for tomorrow to come, when he could be someone else instead for a few hours.

Whilst the world around him changed.

*     *     *

She waited for him to leave before she began to breathe normally. The smell of him, it stuck at the back of her throat. The sickly sweet smell of his fading aftershave disgusted her.

She couldn’t move that much, could sleep upright only in short bursts, the pain in her arms when she awoke worse than ever. Pins and needles, needles and pins. Everything hurt. Everything felt wrong.

The duct tape across her mouth would need replacing soon. He hadn’t let her drink since that morning and now there was pain in her stomach from hunger and thirst.

Her thoughts no longer made much sense. She knew why she was there, what he wanted. He wanted her. She just didn’t understand why she was being shown videos of people being murdered. Why he would rant at her about love, as if it would make a difference.

She hated him.

He had never called her by her name. She wasn’t even sure he knew what it was. She recognized him, of course: a regular from the shop where she’d worked. Someone she had thought of as normal.

How wrong you can be.

Now, she was just a number to him. Number Four. She knew Numbers One and Two were still alive, as he couldn’t find them. She knew Number Three had been dead at least two weeks or three.

It could be days . . . she had no idea any more.

She was waiting for him to kill her now. Number Four. Then, there’d be a Number Five, a Number Six. Because no one could give him what he wanted.

She wasn’t a number. That’s what she held on to. She was a real person, with real feelings and thoughts.

She couldn’t be reduced to a single digit. She wasn’t a number.

She was Amy Maguire.