The Man on the Middle Floor

by Elizabeth S. Moore

  ‘Sorry, mate, I haven’t seen anyone and I don’t know her. Two other people live in the house – who was she visiting?’

  ‘She cleans houses, she came about job.’

  The young man took out the folded postcard from the newsagent’s window and showed it to Tam. You weren’t actually supposed to remove the cards, he had paid ten quid to have that there for a week, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to point that out right now. Tam nodded and attempted a smile, which was not returned. He took the postcard back, on which the friendly Warsaw supporter had written Alexsy and then his mobile number.

  ‘Oh, yeah. She rang me last night. I was out, and we said we’d speak later. She didn’t come here. I told her I was in a pub.’

  ‘Fucking slut girl. She always disappearing. She showed me card to let her leave. If she come here you tell me, if she come for job. Better she stay in Poland. London not good place for girls.’

  Muttering to himself in Polish, the unwelcome visitor wandered off down the path and Tam rubbed his head. He plinked two Alka-Seltzers into a glass and sat down at the computer idly googling the attack in the park. Still no leads. He walked into the kitchen, opened the freezer and picked up the bin bag. Disappearing cleaners, dead cats, bags of clothes in the bin – he was either in denial and missed being a policeman, or he was overtired. He looked at his watch – ten o’clock Thursday morning. The week had disappeared again. He stripped off his lounging trousers and T-shirt. It was hot in the flat and it smelt like hell; he needed to chuck out the rubbish from the bin he’d rescued the day before. It was all too much, and the flat was like an oven. Tam lay back down and pulled the covers over his head. Things would look clearer after a bit more sleep.

  When Tam woke up next he couldn’t work out if he had been asleep for another twelve hours or twelve minutes. There was a sweet smell in the air mixing with the sweat and strawberries and he pulled back the curtain to look outside. It was dark.

  He needed to pull himself together. Self-indulgence was fine, but enough was enough and it had all stopped feeling even close to fun. He unstuck himself from the sheets and sat naked on the edge of the bed. Looking down, he tried to assess the source of a dull pain in his cock. There seemed to be a series of burns on it, but he couldn’t be sure, then he remembered the teeth. Even his ass hurt, and the pain reminded him that she had jammed some very long nails up there too. He’d been too pissed to feel much since; sobering up was not all it was cracked up to be. He walked gingerly to the bathroom and wished he had a bath to lie in. He was getting too old for this shit.

  Tam sat on the loo and peeing turned out to be an act of bravery; what didn’t sting ached, and he could hear himself half panting, half yelping as the different areas of damage were bathed in uric acid. Through the closed door he heard two bangs at the side of the house, and then silence. He got up, went back into the bedroom and peered out into the gloom. All he could see was a broom on its side – probably the foxes after rubbish again. He sat on the edge of his bed and picked up his phone. It was seven o’clock. He clicked on to his Hungry Horse app and ordered some cheap, carb-filled dinner.

  He scanned his phone looking for a message from Karen, a free pass out of the self-constructed quagmire he’d wandered into, but there was nothing from her. Tam thought he’d give it one more try. He walked up the stairs to the top floor and knocked. Nothing. He hadn’t heard much movement in the house since he’d been back, just the door above him closing quietly when he had got rid of the Polish guy earlier. Now, silence. He leant against the landing wall for a few minutes. The landing was warm too, and the smell was worse up here. Maybe there were pigeons or squirrels in the roof – did that smell? He thought about investigating, then decided it was probably a job for when he was feeling stronger. All he needed was to find the maggoty body of some urban creature tonight.

  The pizza arrived and Tam opened the can of ginger beer that had come with it and turned on the telly. There was a game of women’s football on; he watched it, numbed out, with one hand down the front of his tracksuit trousers, gently cupping his wounds. Old-fashioned comfort. The evening passed in a haze where advert breaks allowed him to think. What was he doing with his life?

  Tam woke up on Friday to the same sickly-sweet smell as the day before. It seemed to be all through the house, which was still as quiet as a tomb when he went out to get his post. He turned out of habit to the table in the hall, but it was empty and the letters were scattered all over the mat. No one had picked up their mail for a couple of days by the look of it, so maybe he had scared Karen off permanently when he had reappeared yesterday morning. He hadn’t looked great, he had to admit. Fuck her, she had messed him around from the beginning, and it was up to him what he did with his days, and his nights. He tried to push down the worry that something had happened to her; he couldn’t remember her ever going away before. It was time to draw a line under the whole messy relationship with Karen and move on. He stood up and headed for the shower.

  Tam opened the bathroom cabinet and took out a bar of Pears coal tar soap. He unwrapped it and the smell of school nights, and his father, and cold winter mornings, hit him. He’d used it all the way through Police Academy, and this morning it felt more appropriate than shower gel. He stood under the jets of the shower and lathered his body from top to bottom. It stung the wounds from his encounter with Molly on Wednesday night, but he enjoyed the penance. He even washed his face and hair with it, and it drove the strange odour of the flat from his nostrils.

  Two bowls of cornflakes later, Tam was feeling good. It was early afternoon. Fresh air was needed, and a fresh start. He tidied the bed, and gave the bathroom a once-over. The news featured another appeal by the parents of the poor guy killed in the park, and Tam instinctively picked up his phone to see if Danny had any news. There were three emails, to his new personal, non-work account. Tam had only set it up a couple of days ago, and had given that email address to Danny. He felt excited for the first time since he had parted from the commissioner the week before.

  Danny had never been one to waste words, and the first one just said, Tam, call me, it’s urgent, Danny. Then, Tam, I am not taking the fall for this, we need to talk, and finally, The DNA has come back as a match, and I am not going to be responsible for some murdering bastard walking the streets while I sit on information. Get in here, you are going to have to take the rap for this.

  Tam realised that he felt better. The long hours of rest and relaxation with pizza and bad TV had left him ready to face the world, and he was excited about seeing Danny before the weekend. Tam had to think for a minute before he decided it was Friday, and called Danny’s number. As usual it went to voicemail.

  ‘Mate, it’s Tam. I’m on my way in. Meet me outside the building at 4.30, and we’ll sort everything out. Not sure what’s happened but I’m on it.’

  Tam hadn’t expected to be making the journey back to work any time soon, but there was something reassuring about being on the Tube, looking clean and only slightly rough around the edges. He felt as if he was rejoining the human race.

  Danny was waiting outside the building for him. ‘Mate, you look rough.’

  ‘I thought I’d pulled myself together rather well, although I’m walking a bit carefully. Two blow jobs in one night will do that. We need to find a new pub; I can’t face that barmaid again.’

  ‘You jammy bastard, my heart bleeds for you. I was up Wednesday night and last night three times with the baby. I haven’t even got tits but apparently it’s more politically correct if I pick the kid up and carry it into the bedroom. Fuck it, more important things to worry about. That little favour I did you has thrown up a massive issue. The blood on that clothing’s a match to the couple in the park. Not just one of them, both of them. I did it on the side for you, so what the hell do I do now? It’s not like the old days: someone’s going to notice. Sorry, but I have a wife and a kid depending on this job and I’m not getting any younger. I’m shitting myself. You’re going to have
to sort this the fuck out. As for this, get it out of here.’

  Danny held a bag out to Tam, which looked like shopping, from Iceland judging by the logo. Tam opened the top and looked in. The frozen cat. This wasn’t turning out to be a great day. ‘Is the boss in?’ he asked. ‘I’ll come in and give him a story. What about I made you do it? No… I stole your access card in the pub and then put it back after I’d been in and given the clothes to forensics? I don’t care, I’m happy to take the fall on this one. At least I can start again with a clean sheet.’

  ‘Yes, he’s in. He’s in specially to see me; probably wants to give me the sack. Just come in, see him and yeah, good idea, say you nicked my access card. I didn’t notice because you put it back in my wallet, and you tagged the bag and it flagged up a match. You might even get away with it when they find out you solved their biggest crime. Just don’t throw me under the bus – I’ve only got eight years till I’m eligible for early retirement and a pension big enough to pay for alimony and a twenty-year-old Russian bird.’

  Tam walked towards the lift. The cat was defrosting and there was a steady drip of yellowish water coming from the bottom of the bag. He dumped it in the foyer bin and pressed the lift button. He wasn’t taking the stairs again, and he didn’t have to warn Lucas now that Danny had buzzed him in. He swallowed hard and tried to focus. What would his dad have done? Probably had the guts to admit how much he missed the force, eaten humble pie, but kept his dignity. Tam decided to give it a try.

  The lift doors opened on to the reception area of the top floor, where all his principles seemed to end up shattered on the marble tiles along with the remnants of what had once been a career. But he was here, with something to offer, even if his methods had been a bit unorthodox. Time to sort out his mess. Tam managed to negotiate Lucas and the door without tripping over his own wounded pride, and five minutes later he’d delivered his apology and waited to hear his fate.

  ‘You did what? Are you seriously telling me that you stole a serving police officer’s access badge, let yourself into the lab, labelled a fucking great pile of something you thought might be evidence and then let yourself out again? You’ve really done it this time. I’m tempted to have you arrested. It’s a crime impersonating an officer, but of course you know that, you were one, or perhaps you think you still are one, except I have your resignation letter, it came in the post, very quaint. What the hell were you thinking, Tam?’

  ‘Sir, if you’d just give me a second to explain. I had a hunch. My neighbour was acting oddly, he had blood on his clothes and dumped them in our bin, he killed a cat, he put it in the bin too, and I took the bags out and put them in the freezer. I know I went about this in completely the wrong way, but I was in a bad place and I think trying to solve this was my way of proving—’

  ‘The only thing you’ve proved is what a fucking idiot you are. What am I supposed to do from here? We’ve known each other thirty years, Tam, and you’ve compromised one of my best lab techs, and a friend, by your actions. You’ve put me in an untenable position and presumably you realise that if I act on this I am going to be the one with egg on my face and out of a fucking job.’

  Tam wiped away the sweat that was trickling down his neck from his hair. He was feeling worse by the minute but he could sense the atmosphere in the room changing. The commissioner hadn’t got where he was today by being an idiot.

  ‘Alright, mate, let’s try and sort this mess out. You’ve struck lucky here. This match that’s flagged up – is this your neighbour? Tell me about him: where he is, where he works. We need to contain this situation quickly, pick him up and try and sort the rest out once we have him in custody. You never know, we might even get a confession and then the chain of custody won’t be such a bloody nightmare.’

  The commissioner called in a couple of senior officers and the three of them debriefed Tam, from the day he realised that his neighbour was OCD, the letter-tidying, the bins, the clothes and right up to the present day.

  ‘So, where is he now, have you had eyes on him?’

  Tam thought back to this morning; he hadn’t heard anything from above, but he hadn’t heard Nick go out either. ‘Sir, I think he’s at work, at the hospital morgue, although I’m not sure of his days or hours and I can’t say for sure. The last time I was aware of him moving around was last night, but the heating’s on in his flat and… ’

  He paused.

  ‘What is it, Tam?’

  Tam had seen the sneaking admiration on his old friend’s face as he had talked about hunches and gathering clues and observing someone he had a bad feeling about. It was textbook community policing and now Tam had another, nastier hunch. He stood up, and said, ‘No, nothing, sir, just thinking.’

  ‘Right, we’ll sort this from here. Just don’t do anything else to fuck it up. I’ll send some uniforms down to the hospital morgue and try and catch him unawares. You just go and check into a cheap hotel and keep out of this. Don’t go back to the house, that’s an order. I’ll be in touch once this is all wrapped up and I’ll do my best to make sure you come out of it looking like a good guy. Just never do anything like this again, or I’m going to have to take action.’

  Tam thought for a minute. How likely was it that his ex-boss would give him one bit of credit for this once he had Nick in custody? He needed to get something sorted now.

  ‘Sir, don’t you think this proves to some extent that old-fashioned policing has a place on the force? I really think I could be useful to you, that I fill a gap in the politically correct approach to stopping crime. I can help, sir, honestly.’

  That was that, and the next few seconds were filled with handshaking, and even a clap on the back. Tam heard something about being in touch, and consultancy, and future plans, but his energy had drained away and he found himself out in the reception area again, staring straight ahead and waiting for the lift down. Danny was waiting for him in the lobby, and Tam gave him a brief summary of what had happened.

  ‘Well done, mate – so they’re going to get him? Bloody hell. Do you think I’m off the hook?’

  Tam grinned, patted him on the back and said, ‘I think we might both be off the hook, although you might want to get the cat out of that bin and stick it back in the freezer… they might be looking for it.’

  Tam buzzed himself out, and laughed at Danny’s repeated expletives as he tried to carry the leaking bag to the lift. As the door closed Tam heard him shout, ‘You owe me a drink, a large one. That’s a night of passion and a job back I’ve sorted for you in one week. Ungrateful sod.’

  Tam walked as fast as he could to the Tube. The one thing that political correctness in the force had provided was time. It would take a little while for the operation to be sanctioned, and the officers put in place and mobilised. He needed to get to the house before they did. He had a horrible feeling that there was more than a pigeon rotting in the house, and he wanted to be the one to find out what was going on. By the time he walked up the path to his front door, he was formulating a plan. Perhaps he could offer Nick a cup of coffee – that had worked out brilliantly with Karen.

  Just as he put his key in the door, he heard someone running on the floor above his head, and the sound of breaking glass followed by a girl’s scream.

  A jolt of adrenaline kicked Tam out of his exhaustion and he looked up to see Sarah’s terrified face framed in the window of the middle flat. Tam took the stairs two at a time and waited for a moment on the landing outside Nick’s flat. He braced himself against the doorframe and put his shoulder to the door.

  The smell hit him properly now and he retched before he realised what he was looking at. Karen’s daughter stood flattened against the wall with Nick in front of her, arms stretched out towards her. The bed was to their left, and a sheet covered it but did little to disguise the shape of a woman beneath. Brown stains covered the white linen and marked out her nose and mouth like a Hammer Horror remake of the Turin shroud. Tam took a deep breath and the sweetness in the air
settled on his tongue and in his throat.

  14 | Nick

  ‘Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.’

  — Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

  Friday, late afternoon

  I slammed my flat door behind me, stayed very still on the landing and closed my eyes. Tight. The steps got nearer and I could hear my heart beating in my chest. I was worried about my blood pressure now. I could be having a heart attack and I couldn’t think clearly. It was Friday, Marta was still here and I had no plan. I had to make a plan. I had cancelled Grandpa on Wednesday because of my work, but he was coming to see me with Mother because she had missed her visit too and I would have to explain what had happened at the morgue, and that the cat had gone, and I couldn’t stand it. I could feel the pain in my hands where my nails were digging in and I could hear screaming and crying and then I tried to find where they were coming from, and then I realised they were coming from in me, and I knew that if I opened my eyes someone was there, and my flat had a dead cleaner in it, and I felt like my brain might explode. It felt as if a little crack had started, a week ago, and the drip drip drip of everything was pushing on my head and any minute now I would just break and everything would gush out like through the wall of an aquarium.

  I tried to think through the panic. It could be a policeman, but they would probably have broken the door down. It could be my mother, but I could usually smell her perfume. It could be my grandpa but I knew his smell too, it made me feel sick. I began to think that it was Karen back from work, or the policeman from downstairs, but I still couldn’t open my eyes. I started to breathe very fast and suddenly I heard a girl’s voice that I didn’t even know saying, ‘Sshhhh, it’s alright. Do you know that the thing you are doing with your arms, waving them around, is called stimming? My brother does it, and he twists his fingers round themselves until his knuckles hurt. Come on, it’s fine, just breathe. You remind me so much of my brother. I’m going upstairs to see if he’s here with my mum. Do you want to come and help me?’