Page 106 of No Safe Place
Then both of their phones buzzed, and itwasthe go-ahead.
‘Let’s go,’ Field said, opening the car door and stepping out.
In under a minute, the small house was surrounded.
Field and Wilson hung back, thumbs looped into their vests, as the inspector gave the signal, and the door was smashed in on the first try with an enforcer.
Shouts of“Police”ripped through the night.
Faces appeared at windows up and down the street. A few doors opened.
Field tapped her foot, waiting for the inspector to reappear – either dragging Andrew Levey along in cuffs, or totally deflated.
The radio crackled constantly.
Living room clear.
Kitchen clear.
Bedroom clear.
The front door was still hanging on by one hinge when Field entered the small house. It sagged into the hallway at a drunken angle.
Field was surprised by the décor. She’d been expecting to step back in time, into an old person’s house with flockedwallpaper and a musty body-odour smell. But the hall was painted white, with thick cream carpet.
A white sideboard, probably from IKEA, was the only piece of furniture downstairs. There was nothing on the top. Field opened the first drawer. Inside were a few framed photos and a trinket dish, which presumably had stood on top of the sideboard at some point.
Field picked up one of the photographs. It was of Andrew in his mid-twenties. He obviously didn’t like having his photo taken. His shoulders were high about his ears, and the shadow of the camera had fallen across one half of his face. His closed-mouth smile looked like a grimace.
He probably wasn’t a bad-looking lad, in person. Mothers did tend to love terrible photos of their children. But, if they did need to circulate a photo of him to the press, Field knew it would get picked up. In the case of two brutal stabbings, Andrew’s face just fit.
The first room they checked was the kitchen, but there were no kitchen knives. In fact, there was no anything. The cupboards were empty – her second empty house of the day.
The living room was bare, with a TV-sized patch of brighter wallpaper on the chimney breast.
The PolSA team were on the way, but Field couldn’t wait for them to get here.
Field, Wilson and Bellamy went room to room. Upstairs was tidy, sparsely furnished, and free of clutter. The master bedroom was empty, and had been stripped of wallpaper, scarred walls waiting to be finished.
Bellamy called to them from the second bedroom. It was blue and had a single bed rather than a double – probably Andrew’s childhood bedroom.
Bellamy pointed to two cardboard boxes stacked on the bed. ‘Stuff he was planning to save, maybe?’
Field pushed her sleeves up. ‘Let’s take a box each.’
‘What’re we looking for?’ Wilson asked, heaving the first one down, and lifting the lid. It was stacked with books.
‘Anything that might give us a location,’ Field said. ‘Or an idea of where he might go.’
Bellamy carefully removed bubble-wrapped figurines from his box.
Wilson rummaged through the books. ‘He doesn’t have any other family, does he?’
‘Not that we know of.’ Field pulled a red photo album from her box and started to flick through it. ‘It must’ve been hard for him. Losing her.’
Lily didn’t speak to her family. Field wasn’t sure where Callum’s parents were, and he’d lost his nan a decade ago. Andy was alone now, too. But Sam and Paige had both been part of loving families, so there was no pattern there.
‘Grief makes people do all sorts,’ Wilson said.
