Page 52 of One Left Alive
‘What about Wendy?’
‘If you find anything up there, we’ll ask her to come out and take over.’
She rushed to get the bags. When she got back Ben was taking an assortment of photos and videoing the cupboard on his work phone. She held the bags open, and he stuffed the duvet inside one. She opened another, he bent down and tugged the small carpet square from the floor, dropping it inside.
‘Ladder?’
‘There’s one in the garage.’
Morgan went to retrieve the stepladder and carried it back. She was out of breath. The paper suit she was wearing was like a mini sauna and she could feel her blouse sticking to her back.
Ben positioned it, handed her a torch and said: ‘You’re on, there’s no way I’ll fit through that hole.’
She began to climb the ladder, her palms slick with perspiration and her heart beating too fast. She needed to stop watching ghost-hunting programmes if they were turning her into a nervous wreck. Trying not to let Ben see how scared she was, she forced herself to continue until she reached the hatch.
‘Can you see any prints on it?’
‘Nothing obvious.’
Her throat was dry, so she nodded. Then pushed the hatch. It swung upwards and landed with a loud bang on the attic floorboards. The space up there was blacker than she’d expected. Pressing the button on the torch, she stepped onto the final rung of the ladder, putting her head and shoulders through the opening. Lifting an arm, she shone the torch around and let out her breath. There was no homicidal maniac waiting with a sledgehammer to bash her brains in.
‘Boxes, it’s just cardboard boxes.’ She said this to herself, calming her nerves.
‘Take a good look around. Can you get up there? Is the floor boarded? If it’s not, don’t put yourself at risk.’
Pulling herself up, she clambered inside. The floor was boarded and felt pretty secure. It was a big space. Her heart was still racing but she took a step inside. Shining the torch around, the beam landed on a wooden baseball bat propped in the far corner, leaning against the side of the roof. As she lowered the beam she realised the end of it was dark brown; stepping closer she saw strands of hair stuck in the brown stuff and realised it was blood.
Rushing back to the hatch, she shouted down to Ben.
‘I’ve found it; I think I’ve found the Potters’ murder weapon.’
‘Bloody hell, well done. I’ll phone Wendy now; I need you to retrace your steps and get out of there without disturbing anything.’
Morgan didn’t need to be told twice. Lowering herself back onto the ladder, she began to climb down as fast as she could. Ben grabbed her waist, lifting her off the bottom. She turned around and he high fived her.
‘Well done, we’ll make a detective out of you yet.’
Smiling, she didn’t say anything. She couldn’t tell him how scared she’d been up there in the dark on her own. She left him standing outside the cupboard on the phone to the CSI department and went outside. She needed fresh air. She felt as if she was suffocating in this paper suit which was now drenched with fear-filled sweat.
Stepping out of the door, she tugged off the hood, unzipped the top and pulled it off. Her hair was stuck to her head and her blouse was damp.
The huge oak tree where Olivia, and now Harrison, had hanged themselves from was the first thing her eyes fell on. Above her head was the CCTV camera and she looked up at it; there was a loose wire coming from it. There was the answer why no footage recorded the day of the murders. She found herself walking towards the oak tree. How had they both managed to get up there with no ladder? Unless someone removed it after they’d jumped. She dashed back towards the house, up to Ben.
‘The ladder, we need to check that for prints. If someone killed Olivia and tried to kill Harrison, they’d have used it to hang their bodies from the tree and the external camera, it looks as if it’s been tampered with.’
Ben nodded. Ending his phone call, he looked at her. ‘At this rate you’re going to be putting me out of a job and running my department. Good call, Brookes, we’ll get it taken to the lab along with the other samples.’
‘Worth a shot.’
‘Always. Keep the ideas coming; with a bit of luck you’ll have this mess solved by teatime and we can go back to chasing burglars and drug dealers.’
She went back downstairs. Even though she didn’t think either of them had climbed the tree unaided, she was going to give it a go. She’d rather be outside in the fresh air than cooped up in that house. Just knowing so many people had died such violent deaths in there scared her more than she’d ever admit.
Scaling the tree was more difficult than she’d anticipated, but she did manage to get up to the branch that seemed to be the strongest and from where both Olivia and Harrison had tied their nooses. She looked across the rest of the garden and saw a thin trail of black smoke rising into the air above the trees that bordered the edge of the property. Someone was out there and had lit a fire.
Clambering back down, she headed in that direction, her interest piqued.
Thirty-Five
