Impression (DI Gardener 4)

“You get much of that?” Reilly asked.

“Not really. Couple of times over the last thirty years. Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“So that’s when you found this fella?”

“Aye.”

“And you recognize him as Barry Morrison?” Gardener asked.

“Aye.”

“How do you know him?”

“Lives in the flat above the shop,” replied Wrigglesworth.

“Pardon?”

“I said he lives in the flat above the shop.”

Gardener glanced at his partner. Reilly’s expression said he was equally as confused. On the drive over, he’d explained everything Beryl Potts had told him.

So, thought Gardener, the house in Hume Crescent had Barry Morrison as the registered owner, yet here they had a butcher with a flat above his shop that Morrison was supposedly renting and living in. How did that work? What was going on?

“How long has he lived in the flat?”

“At least five years.”

Gardener turned his attention to Morrison’s corpse. The body was half reclining on the door, half lying on the doorstep. He was naked apart from a pair of trousers and a hat. A jacket and a vest were lying beside him.

Gardener glanced at Wrigglesworth. “This is exactly how you found him? You haven’t touched anything?”

“No. I haven’t touched him or anything else, not even the bloody door. Had my key in my hand but never managed to get it in the lock.”

“John!”

The butcher turned around and Gardener followed his line of vision. Colin Sharp was remonstrating with a woman at the end of the block.

“It’s my wife,” said Wrigglesworth. “Can I go and see her?”

“Not at the moment, I’m afraid.”

A number of squad cars pulled up, and Gardener saw more members of his team jump out, including DCs Paul Benson and Dave Rawson. They had with them a number of operational support officers. Each man stopped and waited on the path for further instructions.

Gardener turned his attention back to Morrison. His hands were crossed over his chest, and his wrists were tightly tied together with a piece of cord. The head, neck, chest, and other parts of the body were swollen. His feet were also tied with the same type of cord. The man was grossly overweight, with a double chin, large eyes, a bulbous nose, and thick lips. He had silver hair cut in a short back and sides, as Beryl Potts had described. To say he’d been propped and left in the doorway wasn’t true. He’d been positioned. Someone had taken time, had wanted to make the right impression. Though what that was, he had no idea.

“What do you think, Sean?”

“Hard to say. Part of me thinks gangland execution, but that’s only because of how he’s been tied up.”

“Gangland executions are usually more brutal. They’d either have cut his throat or been equally as savage somewhere else on his torso.”

“And probably left him alive so he could sing soprano for the rest of his life.”

“But there’s nothing, is there?” said Gardener. “His body’s swollen, but that could be from any number of things.”

Gardener produced a pair of gloves from his pocket before reaching down for the jacket next to Morrison. As he picked it up, he noticed splashes of blood covering the fabric. He passed it to Reilly and asked him to hold it up for him.

The SIO studied the jacket, struggling to imagine the pattern of blood spatter he’d seen back at the house where Nicola Stapleton had been found. It was impossible to tell if they matched. He decided he was clutching at straws, perhaps hoping to find something where there wasn’t anything.