Tooth for a Tooth (Di Gilchrist 3)

carpet and underfelt rolled up and all of it carted through to the living room.
    Even after thirty-five years, the shadow of where the oriental rug used to lay still showed on the floorboards as a fresher stain. The floor had been varnished at some time in its past, not long before the rug had been placed, Gilchrist thought, but the flooring beneath the rug had retained some of its polished sheen.
    The SOCOs hung a thick sheet over the window. The room fell into darkness. They sprayed the floor with Luminol, a chemical that reacts with iron found in blood haemoglobin. It would not matter how old the blood was. If any blood was present, Luminol would glow in the dark.
    Gilchrist watched them work around the area of the invisible rug, all the while toying with the thought that they were looking in the wrong place. When the black light clicked on, nothing showed up.
    ‘Would it help if someone told you where the bed used to be?’ Gilchrist asked.
    Colin, the lead SOCO, looked at him. ‘You’ve been in this room?’
    ‘My brother used to rent it.’
    Colin seemed to liven. ‘Can you tell me where the bed was, exactly?’
    ‘Over there. By that wall.’ Which was closer to the door, and an image of Rita’s boyfriend bursting into the room and vomiting all over it burst into Gilchrist’s mind. Why else would the sheets be stripped? As he stared at where the bed once lay, an image of the murder weapon shimmered into view; Jack’s bedside lamp, an ugly metal thing that stood erect like a ship’s decanter, its base wide and round and blunt, perfect for crushing skulls—
    ‘And you think that whatever happened took place on the bed?’
    ‘That’s my first thought,’ he agreed.
    Silent, Gilchrist watched the SOCOs continue their search, spraying the floorboards where the bed used to sit, extending their investigation from one end of the room to the other.
    Again, the black light. Again, nothing.
    The room was spotless . . . like she’d scrubbed it clean
.
    Back in the late sixties, forensic science was still in its relative infancy. Whoever tried to destroy evidence could never have known of the advances that would be made in the coming years. Or could they? Geoffrey Pennycuick with his knowledge of medicine jumped to the forefront.
    ‘Here’s something, sir.’
    Gilchrist kneeled on the floor. Colin pointed a gloved finger at a few smudged spots, glowing luminescent green on the wooden flooring.
    ‘It’s not a lot, sir.’
    ‘What do you think?’ Gilchrist tried.
    Colin shook his head. ‘Could have come from a cut foot. Maybe a nosebleed. How did you say she was killed?’
    ‘A blow to the side of the head, powerful enough to crush her skull.’
    ‘That would suggest more bleeding than this.’
    Gilchrist stood. He felt helpless, disappointed, so let down by his instincts that he wondered why he had even thought of performing such an investigation.
    ‘Could it be the same bed, sir?’
    ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘I’m thinking of the mattress we moved. Could it be the same one?’
    Gilchrist felt a surge of annoyance. He had not asked Donnie. Was it possible, after all these years, that this was the same bed Jack and Kelly had slept in? Despite being a single bed, students made do with what they were given.
    ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ was all he could say.
    ‘We’ve nothing to lose, so let’s try it, shall we?’
    Rather than hang another sheet over the large window in the living room, the SOCOs carried the mattress back through to the darkness of the bedroom and rested it against the wall. When they sprayed Luminol over it, the black light picked up a mass of spots and stains. But Gilchrist could tell from their location that most were due to menstruation leaks, or breaking maidenheads. Nothing showed up at either end of the mattress, where he would have expected to find Kelly’s blood. Again, doubts seared his mind like shame.
    ‘Right,’ said Colin, ‘let’s try the other side.’ With a combined heave, they flipped the mattress over. Again, the middle of the mattress was an overwhelming mass of stains, but with none that would suggest anything more than a menstruation accident.
    Gilchrist felt deflated.
    As he watched the SOCOs manhandle the mattress and photograph the stains, he felt a lump swell in his throat. Had this old house, this bedroom, been the place where Kelly’s life had been taken, ended by a blow that had crushed her skull and spilled her lifeblood? Why had she been killed?