Almost a Whisper by Priscilla Masters

Author:Priscilla Masters [Masters, Priscilla]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2021-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-EIGHT

The upstairs was as lavishly furnished as the ground floor. They moved from room to room. Bedrooms with four poster beds, bathrooms all with stylish showers and sinks. They found Stevie’s bedroom, all Fisher-Price toys and Winnie the Pooh wallpaper, and the bathroom he shared with Bethany, who had a suite of rooms all to herself. In here there were the first signs that all was not well. They had left in haste. Her bed was unmade, the duvet flung back, the wardrobe door hanging open. In Stevie’s room the door to his wardrobe was also open and in their bathroom a tap was dripping.

Finally they reached the master bedroom and a door which was locked from the outside. Joanna turned the key and opened the door inwards. And now her worst nightmare had a form and a scent. Putrefaction is unmistakable.

The whole house was a film set, but a horror film in this room. He was in the bath, slumped forwards, almost doubled up, wounds in his back and Joanna knew he’d been here all this time. All the time the girl had been sitting with her mouth clamped shut she must have known he was here decomposing, his body degrading into this. As the bathroom had been fitted out as a wet room the smell had been effectively sealed and not permeated through the rest of the house. But the moment they’d opened the door they smelt the stink as well as hearing the buzzing of the inevitable flies who told their own story. Joanna had seen decomposed bodies before. The stench is unmistakeable and never quite leaves you. It stays in your memory, reawakening any time you smell even a hint of it again.

The bath was in an alcove at the side of the room, mirrors at its back, so she glimpsed her own pale face. As she swept her eyes around the room, absorbing every detail, she feared she would disgrace herself by being sick.

‘You all right there, Joanna?’

That was what stopped her. She couldn’t – wouldn’t – puke up in front of DC Alan King, who looked a bit green around the gills himself.

‘Call it in,’ she managed.

Mr Newton (presumably) had been taking a bath. He was naked, his back to the doorway. She reached out a hand. His hair was still damp to the touch. The knife was still sticking out of one of his wounds. She counted six. Blood had dripped into the water, which was stained pink, in static swirls. A navy towelling dressing gown had been dropped over a chair. There was still a faint underlying scent of soap and bath oils. It was the nightmare scene Joanna had been recreating in many shapes and forms for the last two weeks. But even her imagination had not pictured such a starkly cruel image.

She could hear King speaking over the phone, his voice urgent but far away.

Well, she thought, starting to find clear thoughts again. It was undoubtedly a murder scene. Newton hadn’t stuck the knife in his own back.

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