Tooth for a Tooth (Di Gilchrist 3)

What had happened? But more troubling was the question that kept resurfacing in his mind.
    Where had Jack been when Kelly was battered to death?
    At that question, a shiver as cold as an Arctic wind ran the length of his spine. The thought was almost inconceivable. But Gilchrist knew anything was possible. The cigarette lighter, Kelly’s disappearance, Jack’s emotional crash, his out-of-character mood swings and vocal ragings in the weeks before his hit-and-run accident – were all of these connected, somehow? Gilchrist had always believed that Jack had been pining for his lost American girlfriend. Now more crippling thoughts wormed to the fore. Had Jack killed Kelly? If he had, could he have lived with the burden of what he had done? Had Jack committed suicide by stepping in front of a speeding—
    ‘Sir?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘I was asking if you remembered which way the bed faced.’
    Gilchrist pointed to the wall opposite the door. If anyone rushed through that door and projectile-vomited, the bed would be the unlucky recipient. ‘This way,’ he said.
    ‘So the pillows would be at this end? About here?’
    Gilchrist nodded. ‘Give or take. Does it matter?’
    ‘Just a thought, sir. But if the mattress was turned this way, and her head was on the pillows, then the bloodiest stain would be closest to the wall.’ He kneeled on the floor and fingered the wallpaper where it overlapped the skirting board. ‘See here, sir?’
    Gilchrist kneeled beside him.
    ‘Several layers of wallpaper. See? No one does a proper wallpapering job any more. My old man used to strip the walls back to the plaster before papering. Then he’d rub them down and fill the cracks before sizing the walls. Nowadays, they just plaster new paper over old, which got me thinking, just how many layers could have been put up in thirty-five years?’
    He gripped the edge of the paper between thumb and forefinger, eased it from the skirting board, pulled it back to reveal a white layer underneath. He continued to scrape until he loosened another layer. Then he grunted. ‘Looks like there’s three layers. Could be one more. Maybe multiple coats of emulsion in between, depending on the damage left by the students. What do you think?’
    Gilchrist nodded. ‘It’s worth a try.’ He stepped back as the other two SOCOs brought the bed frame back into the room, laid the mattress on top and adjusted it as if readying to make the bed.
    Colin removed a pencil from his pocket and drew a rectangle on the wall, from just beyond the head of the bed to about three feet along its length, and four feet above the level of the mattress. Then he manhandled the bed away from the wall, pushing it into the middle of the room.
    ‘Right, Joe,’ he ordered. ‘Set it up.’
    One of the SOCOs spent the next two minutes setting up the camera on a tripod, and once done, pressed the shutter. The room flashed.
    ‘OK, here we go.’ Colin sprayed Luminol within the rectangle on the wall.
    Gilchrist counted a full minute before Colin clicked on the black light.
    Nothing.
    ‘Keep going,’ Colin said.
    The other SOCO stepped up to the wall with a pail of warm water, and painted over the rectangle with a pasting brush. Another minute passed before he looked at Colin for his nod of approval, ran the sharp edge of the scraper along the pencilled lines and eased the wallpaper back.
    ‘One layer at a time,’ Colin said.
    Gilchrist watched the top layer peel back to reveal white woodchip. Strips of the first layer remained, half-peeled slivers as drab as pith.
    ‘Joe?’
    The camera flashed once, twice.
    Colin pointed his arm to the wall and sprayed the woodchip with Luminol.
    After another minute, the black light revealed nothing.
    Silent, Gilchrist watched them peel back two more layers, until a series of luminescent spots glowed.
    ‘Well, well, well,’ Colin said, peering closer. ‘What have we here?’
    The room flashed as the camera clicked, then Joe unscrewed it from the tripod and moved closer, capturing the spatter pattern on the wall. In his mind’s eye, Gilchrist watched Kelly lying in bed facing the wall, defenceless, as the killer struck down at her, crushing the right side of her skull, spattering blood and brain matter on to the wall. And no matter how he tried, in his mind’s eye flickered an image of Jack in a rage.
    ‘Let’s try for some DNA,’ Colin said.
    ‘We should cut the lot out,’ Joe said, ‘and take it back to the lab.’
    ‘Let’s do