by Heide Goody
She gripped the door handle. The door slid aside and a wall of warm, misty air rolled out. Sam coughed at the heat and the sudden stink.
It was like entering a kitchen feverishly engaged in a beef chilli cook-off competition. It was like plunging one’s head into a casserole oven. It was a weirdly manly smell: sweaty, farty, meaty. If a dozen unwashed men had gone into a sweat lodge to eat bacon sandwiches, it still wouldn’t smell as bad as this. The most perversely disgusting thing about the smell was that despite the weird elements, the off tang, the flatulent aspects, it was an enticing stink, full of umami richness.
There was a swimming pool, not a big one. Only ten metres long, but ten metres longer than any pool Sam had owned. At the far end, in a pine-panelled alcove, was a hot tub. Its surface bubbled.
“Greg,” she called.
There was an untidy pile of clothes on her side of the swimming pool. There were grass stains on the trousers. Sam felt a knot in her stomach.
“Greg, are you here?”
She walked the length of the pool. No drowned Greg at the bottom.
There was a thick white froth on the surface of the hot tub. The meaty smell, fading as fresher air circulated through the outer door, was stronger here. It was also half-drowned by a heavier, almost sewage smell. Nausea brewed inside Sam, more from expectation than the smell itself.
The bubbling foam had a shiny, greasy quality, like rendered fat.
“Greg,” she whispered. Not because she believed he would answer, but because the air needed to escape her lungs and her mouth was on autopilot.
There was a control panel set into the rim of the hot tub. She edged closer. With an outstretched arm she pressed the power button. The button was slick and oily.
The bubbles stopped. The foam settled in a white-brown web of fatty strings. Now, the stilling surface water cleared, she could see other things in the golden depths. Large flecks of material hung in the water, brown and pink and black, stringy strands of cooked meat. Here and there she saw clumps of hair, held together at the roots by fragments of flesh.
She didn’t want to look anymore, but it was irresistible. There was a window-cleaning squeegee blade by the base of the hot tub. She picked it up and carefully stirred the surface. For some reason – for no good reason – her curiosity demanded more. More evidence, more confirmation. She drew the foam aside and glimpsed a larger, dark shape just below the surface. It was a ball of boiled flesh. Across one ragged section a pale skull was visible beneath. Her brain released her. It was enough.
Sam stepped back, took a moment to think, and threw up.
She had the self-control to push herself away from the hot tub, stagger to the edge of the swimming pool and vomit there. She coughed, stared, vomited again, then walked outside into the garden and the clear cold air.
She was dialling 999 before she knew it.
“Emergency service operator, what service do you require?”
She blinked, devoid of thought. “Ambulance? I found a body.”
“Did you say you found a body? Have you checked if the person is still breathing?”
“No. It’s Greg Mandyke. Derby Avenue…” For the life of her, she couldn’t remember the house number.
“Where is the person?”
Person? The word sounded so stupid in the circumstances. The man was soup.
“The neighbour said she could smell him cooking,” Sam heard herself say.
40
Hilde watched Hermod and Gunnolf cutting through branches with their chainsaws. After about twenty minutes’ of slicing away the heaviest boughs the truck bounced free and landed back on its wheels. The bodywork was severely damaged, but they ascertained it was driveable by doing some small circuits. They seemed crestfallen when Ragnar indicated they were to prepare the tree for transportation back to the Odinson compound. This was possibly the first time they had understood quite how much work would be involved.
“They never think, do they?” she said to herself.
* * *
Polly and Strawb located the stable block. Polly wasn’t sure it was routinely open, but the jolly Christmas crew from the coach had taken it over. Wooden benches and tables were laden with food and drink.
Christmas funster Janine waved Polly over to come sit with them. “Ooh, Polly’s come to join us! Get yourself some food, love.”
There were several large wine boxes laid out on the benches, along with cans of beer. It seemed likely the party had been in full swing for a while now. Polly helped herself to a cup and filled it with wine from one of the boxes. She grabbed a ham and piccalilli sandwich as a tray went past.
She looked over at some of the purchases the women had made. “Good craft fayre?”
Janine proudly placed an object on the table. It looked like a paper doily with an old-fashion clothes peg shoved through the centre. It was a paper doily with an old-fashion clothes peg shoved through the centre. “It’s a Christmas angel,” said Janine. “It’s got a face.”
Someone had drawn a wonky smiley face on it in felt tip.
“So it has,” said Polly politely.
“Tat,” said the next woman along, who Polly thought might have been a Clare. “I bought some genuine craftsmanship.” She put a wide wooden ladle thing on the table.
“That’s very…” began Polly.
“It’s a spoon rest. You put your spoons in it.”
“A spoon rest,” echoed Polly. “And do spoons need somewhere to rest?”
“Course they don’t,” said Janine dismissively. “Spoons have been resting by themselves for centuries without needing somewhere special.”
“It’s a Christmas spoon rest,” argued Clare, pointing at the pokerwork snowflake burned into its bowl.
“Ideal for Christmas spoons,” said Polly brightly.
“And I bought another for Alison, which I’m sure she’d like.”
Polly looked round. “She not here today?”
“No, on account of that Huntley character being given the job. How could she? How could he? Should be in prison.”
Polly shook her head to express her confusion. At that moment there was a loud “Ho ho ho!” and Father Christmas walked in. Or, to be precise, Bernard walked into the stables in a cheap Santa suit, with a bulging sack on his back. He remembered to flick his cigarette stub out of the door just as he entered.
“Oh, look!” hollered Strawb. “If it ain’t Saint facking Nick, in the flesh!”
Santa Bernard sat on a chair which Polly realised had been put out for the occasion. “Who’s going to be the first to sit on my knee, eh?”
It was hardly an enticing prospect, but Janine almost physically propelled Polly towards him. “And make sure you tell Santa whether you’ve been naughty or nice, love!”
This was met with much raucous laughter.
Polly refused to sit on Bernard’s knee. Nonetheless he reached into his sack and brought out a present.
“Ho, ho, ho, young lady!” he said. “Here’s a little something for you!”
Polly smiled at the idea of her being a young lady and returned to her seat, nibbling on a small pork pie as she went. She pulled the wrapping paper off her present and found it was a colouring book and some pens. A strange present for an older person. These things had been a bit of a fad in recent years, hadn’t they? She shrugged inwardly and decided it would be something for the children to do, if ever they paid a visit.
Clare sitting next to her gave her a small nudge. “Look properly,” she whispered.
Polly opened the book and looked at the first picture. It was a group scene, although the group was engaged in some sort of sport or perhaps...
“Good grief!” Polly breathed. Now she understood. It was a colouring book most definitely for adults. All of the pictures showed increasingly outrageous sex scenes.
She looked up. “Am I the only one who got a rude colouring book?”
There was a ripple of laughter as dozens of hands lifted copies of the same book.
“Santa’s always watching!” said Bernard, tapping the side of his nose. “But this year it seems as though he’s decided you’re all naughty and nice, so you’ve got presents to suit.”
“Cheers!”
* * *
As her relatives trimmed and prepared the oak, Hilde ran through a few calculations in her notebook. They took into account what she had learned of longship construction, the approximate height of the felled tree, the density and weight of oak wood, and the carrying capacity of a Super Duty truck.
Hilde re-checked the calculations.
Hermod gave a shout and waved. The load was ready to go.
Hilde went down the slope, among the piles of chopped oak they could not fit on the truck or trailer, and climbed into the already cramped cab with her male relatives. With a corkscrew jiggle, she wedged her backside between her dad’s and her farfar’s.
The truck rumbled into life. Gunnolf revved the engine. For a moment it seemed the weighed down truck was not going anywhere. Then it managed to get some traction and pulled slowly away.
Hilde opened her notebook and touched a pencil tip to her notes. “So…” she said.
“Yes?” said Ragnar suspiciously.
“It used to take the average Viking village nine months to build a long ship.”
“Aye?”
“Nine months.”
“Aye, but they didn’t have chainsaws and nail guns.”
“And they used up to fourteen oak trees in its construction.”
Ragnar frowned. “But none as big as that’un, right?”
“Maybe. Although you’ve left most of it behind.”
“We’ll come back for it.”
Up front Hermod and Gunnolf grumbled at the notion of putting their truck through further tortures.
“However you do it,” said Hilde, “given the carrying capacity of this vehicle…”
“Yes? Spit it out, lass.”
She put the pencil back in the book and closed it. “Twelve more trips. At least.”
Every man in the truck groaned loudly at that.
“Yeah, but at least there’ll be no more dancing, right?” said Yngve. “Right?”
Ragnar didn’t answer. As the bickering erupted, Hilde set to working out how big a space they’d need to season the oak while it matured. It was quite probable a new shed would need to be built.
* * *
After an indulgent lunch and a distinctly half-hearted attempt to potter round the rose gardens (which were dead and empty in winter), the Otterside folk returned to their coach. Polly couldn’t help but stare at the driver, Huntley, as she got on, though she had no idea what his crime was.
Loud Christmas carols accompanied them as they pulled away. This time it seemed as though everyone on board was joining in, even Polly. She looked out of the window and was astounded to see Ragnar’s truck coming over the grass towards the entrance.
“Hey, someone’s been in the wars!” shouted a voice from the front. They all looked out at the truck, which looked very much as if it had suffered a crushing blow from above. Polly wasn’t sure how it could still be functioning, but somehow it pulled a trailer behind it. Both truck and trailer were laden with enormous chunks of oak.
“He’s a mad bugger that one,” said Strawb, dropping into the seat next to her.
In a gap in the singing, after an excruciating whole-coach attempt at I’m Walking in the Air, Polly had to ask Strawb.
“The driver…”
“Yes…?” Strawb said darkly.
“What did he do? To Alison.”
“Killed her daughter,” he said simply.
Polly pictured round-faced, yoga-loving Alison and tried to picture her with a daughter, with a family. “Really?”
“Really,” said Strawb.
Polly shook her head. Alison seemed so pleasant, well-balanced. Maybe it had been decades ago, maybe not, but even so… “God,” Polly whispered.
“He’s got nothing to do with it.”
She was still shaking her head, couldn’t stop. “How do you move on from something like that?”
Strawb chuckled, but it was a humourless and dry thing. “Alison? She didn’t. Not a day goes by when she doesn’t wish he was dead.” He held up a fist. “You and I were talking about people who deserve to be removed from this world. Imagine if I gave you a magical button, one that if you pressed it made that man—”
Polly slapped the button that was Strawb’s fist. “In an instant,” she said. “No hesitation.”
“Interesting,” said Strawb.
41
The police were the first on the scene, beating the ambulance crew by thirty seconds. Sergeant Cesar Hackett got out of the car, saw it was Sam waiting for them on the driveway, and scowled as though everything was her fault. “What did you do?”
Sam bit down on a sharp reply. There was a horrible taste in her mouth and it wasn’t just the vomit. Part of her wanted to never talk again. She wondered if she was going into some kind of shock.
She pointed at the gate. “Round the back. In the pool house.”
The sirens gave a tiny whoop as the ambulance drew to a halt.
Cesar went to the gate. “It’s locked.”
“I climbed.”
Cesar considered the gate, perhaps weighing it up against his own considerable bulk and meagre athleticism.
The neighbour woman appeared at her front door and stared at Sam. “What did you do?” she said.
“Now, now, madam,” said Cesar, making calming motions with his hands that would annoy any normal person. “We don’t know what she did yet. We’re just looking into it.”
“Greg is dead,” Sam told her simply.
“Nothing is ruled in or ruled out yet,” said Cesar.
“The man’s casserole,” Sam muttered.
Two ambulance paramedics approached. One of them, seemingly built from joints of ham, looked at the small padlock holding the gate, took off his coat to cushion his shoulder and, with two sharp shoulder barges, snapped the lock and forced his way through.
“In the pool house,” Sam called after them, but there was little need. They’d find Greg in their own time. He was kind of hard to miss.
* * *
“How do you know it was Mr Mandyke?” Detective Constable Camara asked Sam fifteen minutes later.
“Sorry?” said Sam.
The detective constable was a tall, gangly man, with thick black hair that gave him several more inches of height. His long coat and scarf hung shapelessly on his frame, giving Sam the peculiar impression that he looked like a hallway coat stand.
“The individual you found in the tub. Do you know that it was Mr Mandyke?”
Sam stared across the driveway at the meagre flower borders of Greg’s front garden. “I … assumed. I was looking for him. I saw his shoes in the hallway and when I went round to the back I saw his clothes in a pile and—”
“Through the locked gate,” said DC Camara.
“Over,” she said. “I went over.”
“Keen to find him.”
“I needed to check some paperwork had been filed.” She reached into her pocket to get her DefCon4 ID to show him, realising she had already done so.
“And you last saw him…?”
“November. Weeks ago.” She couldn’t remember the exact date so checked her phone. Images of discarded shoes and grass-stained clothes popped into her mind. “You don’t think…?”
“They don’t encourage it in the modern police force,” said Camara drily.
“Do you think he’s been in there since the day I last saw him? In there, you know … cooking.”
Camara shook his head, slowly and honestly. “Something like this. I don’t know how we’ll ever work out cause of death, let alone time of death.”
Sam nodded. She felt numb.
“What you found was horrible, but he probably didn’t suffer. Maybe it was a heart attack or something of that ilk. Something sudden.”
“You don’t suspect foul play?” she said automatically.
Camara looked surprised, like he truly hadn’t considered it. “Do you know of anyone who would have wished Mr Mandyke harm?”
Sam found herself unable to know where to start. The man had been serving a community payback order. Bullying. Threats of assault. She always had the impression he’d been an unscrupulous builder and a ruthless businessman.
“It could be a long list,” she said.
“Oh?”
Sam laughed. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t a laughing situation. Maybe it was the absurdity of the circumstances of Greg’s death, maybe it was just her stunned emotions seeking an outlet. Maybe it was the realisation that he had been stewing away in his own juices all the time and the neighbour had simply put the stench down to cooking food.
“I tell you what,” she said. “If he has been in there all that time, no one – no friends or loved ones or even workmates – came round and found him. No one reported him missing. That’s got to tell you something.”
DC Camara paused with pen in police notepad. “That’s a depressing thought.”
A silence hung between them for a second.
“I’ll need to take a full statement from you at some point,” the detective said.
“Down the station?”
“Can be. Or I we can do it somewhere convenient for you. It’s just to get some details down.”
She nodded. “You’ve got my number. I’m just round the corner at my dad’s place. I’m going to go home and tell him what happened.”
“Did he know Mr Mandyke?”
“Not at all,” said Sam. “I’m going to tell him so that when I burst into tears and down four strong cocktails in a row, he’ll know why.”
“Not a terrible plan.” Camara closed his notebook and went off to chat with the forensics officers who’d just appeared at the scene.
42
Hermod banged the roof of the truck and pointed ahead as they bounced and rattled down the uneven track of the Elysian Fields caravan park.