by Rob Ashman
I down a cup of strong coffee and stand watch at the bay window. The street is empty and quiet. The rubbish bins stand like sentries by the side of the road awaiting the arrival of the council lorry to take away the filth.
How can one household discard so much?
Take the people at number nineteen. They must have the cleanest hair in the UK, I once counted three bottles of shampoo in one week. What is that about? And the couple at fifty-one binge so much on ready meals they should each be the size of a house. Who the hell eats that much Moussaka in seven days? And the two new guys in the bungalow must be intent on shagging themselves into an early grave. Their bin is always crammed with more condoms and empty lube containers than the back of an Ann Summers shop.
I think about sex all the time, and for me it’s a solitary practice to be enjoyed while something is dying. Nothing else comes close, excuse the pun.
I have never understood the pubescent riot that ensues over a torn copy of Readers’ Wives or the adrenaline thrill of a late-night bar pickup. The prospect of the walk of shame has never entered my head and a furtive glance that says, ‘fuck yes’ has never darkened my face.
Whether it was blundering my way through my formative years only to drown in a sea of raging hormones, or careering through my catastrophic teenage development and into adulthood, I have never wanted any of it.
I class myself as sexually normal but not in the same way that normal people do. Give me my mother’s clothes and something helpless, and I will give you a happy ending every time. I tell myself this every morning as I stare up the street, waiting for my ride.
‘Train station please,’ I direct, as I enter the taxi.
The driver nods. I don’t know why I have to tell him. He’s been to my house more times than I’ve sneaked into other people’s.
After a coma-inducing one hundred minutes I enter a steel and glass building in Salford Quays and present my faded pass to the turnstile. My slender frame eases through the gap as it opens with a beep. The man standing duty in the ill-fitting uniform and fake leather shoes nods in my direction. With a yard of material bunching at his ankles and his hands disappearing into his sleeves, he looks like someone who’s shrunk in the wash.
He has no idea who I am.
It’s the same guy most days and I swear he looks at me every morning with all the recognition of a person seeing me for the very first time. I enter the lift and wait for the doors to release me. I step out into the frantic bustle of the corridor, it smells of make-up and hairspray.
My job is to make unattractive people look pretty. They turn up in their shit clothes, with their shit hair and their shit morning breath, and my role is to put them in front of the camera so they don’t scare the nation. Some are nice, most are not.
The blokes are the worst. All happy plastic teeth and witty banter when the red light is on. Caffeine craving, nicotine smoking idiots when it’s not. The women chirp their early morning chorus to their latest luvvies, as I scrape and sculpt their faces into something decent.
They seldom acknowledge I’m there, apart from the occasional call of ‘more cheek bones, more cheek bones’. I simply nod and wish them dead.
As soon as my final brush stroke glances their now flawless skin, I’m ushered out of the way to make room for the hair people. They are from a higher cast, always welcomed with the latest gossip, titbits of celebrity life not yet in the papers. Every morning I feel sick.
Still, soon they’ll be gossiping about me.
Chapter 6
As predicted, on the stroke of 7am, Kray was keeping a seat warm in the smoking shed outside in the station car park. She puffed away on her second fag of the day and watched the uniformed bobbies hustle in and out of the modern four-storey building. She envied them, with their daily work orders, central control unit and strength in numbers. She drew hard on the dregs of her cigarette wondering what the hell the day had in store. Beside her sat a Costa coffee and a paper bag containing a cinnamon swirl. She had vowed before going to bed to eat a healthy breakfast when she woke in the morning – a cinnamon swirl was the best she could manage. Anyway, she’d only taken one bite out of it, so in her head that was technically healthy. She flicked the fag end onto the floor and, as she picked up her breakfast, her phone buzzed in her pocket.
‘Hi, Mum,’ she said.
‘Hi, love, I just wanted to give you a quick call before your day started.’
‘Oh that’s nice, how are you?’ Kray tried to deflect what she knew was coming.
‘Never mind me, are you eating ok?’
‘Yes, Mum, I’m eating ok.’
‘Three meals a day is what you were told.’
‘Yeah, Mum, it’s three meals a day.’ She looked down at the bag. Well that’s one down, two to go.
‘And how’s work, have you settled in? It must be a month now.’
‘Yes, Mum it’s been about a month. Everyone is being really nice.’ She lied.
‘And everything in the house is ok? I could send your father round if things need fixing, you know that.’
‘Yes, Mum, I know that.’
‘And you’ve cut down on the booze and fags haven’t you?’
‘Yes, Mum,’ Kray said, stomping on the glowing fag end on the floor.
‘And—’
‘Hey look, Mum, I have to dash, I’ve got work to do. You know how it is.’
‘Oh yes love that’s fine. Well, it’s been lovely talking to you. Your father says hi.’
‘Say hi from me. Bye, Mum.’
She pressed the red button on her mobile. It was the same conversation every time, the same questions and the same answers. It was as though her mum felt obligated to call every few days, and every time they went through the same routine. Her mother meant well but it wasn’t helping. Her solution to everything was three square meals a day, plenty of sleep and live like a nun. Sage advice that came from watching too much day time TV, and while Kray appreciated her mother’s concern, that was never going to happen.
Kray climbed the stairs to the office and elbowed the door open. The place was empty. She settled at her desk and logged onto the system. She could see somebody had made a half-hearted attempt at an incident board with a few photographs from the flat pinned to a cork board along with a couple of names she recognised. Her email box pinged at her.
‘Fuck,’ she said under her breath. ‘You gotta be kidding.’
Her phone vibrated again, probably one last question from her mum. It was Brownlow.
‘Hi, where are you?’ she asked.
‘On our way to Merseyside.’ She cursed under her breath as Brownlow confirmed the content of the email.
‘Have you all gone?’
‘No just me and William. We are presenting at this National Police Chiefs’ Council event, sorry forgot to tell you.’
‘What about the others?’
And since when were you two promoted to the rank of Police Chief?
‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. They will be working on the other cases so if you can pick up where they left off, get hold of the witness statements and make a start on the house-to-house that would be great.’
‘I started the house-to-house yesterday and left a partial report on your desk. What’s the priorities for today? What came out of interviewing the work colleagues? Are there any leads to follow up from what they told us?’ The line was silent. ‘Colin are you there?’
‘Err yes I’m here, the line is bad.’
‘I can hear you fine. What are the priorities for today?’
‘Continue with the witness statements, they should be on the system. If not, there’s a list on Rebecca’s desk.’
‘Colin do we have anything from the post-mortem? There has to be a ton of leads to follow up on there?’
‘Erm, not sure, maybe you could have a chat with them too.’
Kray lifted her eyes to the ceiling and ground her teeth together.
‘So basically—’
; Brownlow interrupted. ‘I’m losing you, Roz and we are almost here anyway. Give me a call if you need to chat anything through, I will check my messages in the breaks. Gotta go.’
Kray shook her head in disbelief. Who the fuck is Rebecca?
Her worst fears materialised when she found there were no statements on the system and no update from the post-mortem. It was clear that Brownlow’s strategy for running this case was to drag anyone in who could spare the time and give them a job to do. This had the dramatic downside of no one knowing what the hell was going on and no one had an overall picture. Kray surmised that was Brownlow’s job to pull together, but how much of the ‘overall picture’ he was going to get by shining the arse of his suit trousers in a conference was beyond her.
She managed to find Rebecca’s desk and sure enough there was a file with a list of names. Kray decided to start at the top but before she did there was somewhere she had to be.
Chapter 7
The young officer at the door, who seemed to be a permanent fixture, acknowledged Kray with a ‘ma’am’ and opened the door to flat seventeen. She donned her protective gear and glanced up at the distribution box, secure in the knowledge she would have the use of an electric light. She ground to a halt halfway down the hallway.
The fetid stench of rotting flesh erupted at the back of her throat and she gagged. It was just a memory, but the physical reaction was real enough. Kray gazed at the picture postcard views hanging on the wall, each one depicting a different time in the short life of Madeline Eve. Photos of her school friends, her family holidays, her time at university and nights out in Blackpool were lovingly arranged in chronological order. Kray touched the handle of the door at the end of the hallway and the sound of buzzing filled her head. It wasn’t soft and melodic like the night she discovered the body, it was harsh and aggressive, demanding attention. It grated in her mind.
The place was exactly as she had left it. The crockery lay untouched in the sink, the cups continued to grow mouldy cultures at the bottom and the curtains were closed. She moved onto the bedroom touching items as she went. The buzzing in her head grew in intensity as she entered the room, stroking one hand across the duvet cover while fanning the fingers of her other through the folds of the drapes. The dark stain on the floor drew her like a magnet. She could see the dissolving corpse of Madeline Eve stretched out under a cocoon of insects and pupae larvae. She knelt at the side and placed both hands onto the carpet, her finger tips dug into the fibres. Her flesh crawled with the feeling of flies landing on her face. The insects moved, pricking at her skin.
What did you do?
Kray could feel the killer making his preparations for Madeline to arrive.
What did you bring?
He brought items with him, items to make it special.
Why are they special?
The items enabled him to—
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, wrenching her away from her thoughts.
‘Hello.’ Kray felt breathless and disorientated. ‘Okay I’ll be there in thirty minutes.’
Kray rocked back on her heels and forced herself to stand up. Her head felt woozy.
Shit!
She so nearly had it. That gnawing sensation at the back of her head was telling her something wasn’t right. She had so nearly grasped it, but now she had to conduct an interview. The moment had gone. So had the fly.
Forty-five minutes later Kray was instructed to go to the fifth floor of Hounslow and Partners by a charming woman in reception. She was sat in a cramped-but-functional office with a great view of Pleasure Beach. A well-groomed young woman wearing a dark pencil skirt, high heels and enough make-up to keep L’Oréal in till receipts for a week, tapped on the door.
‘Please come in and take a seat. Thank you for agreeing to see me at short notice,’ Kray said wondering how the hell this woman walked around all day on those things. The woman perched herself on the edge of the chair and eyed Kray with an air of sartorial pity. ‘My colleagues spoke to a number of staff yesterday, but you were missed off the list. Were you away?’
‘No, I was here. A few people who knew Madeline were interviewed but your guys said they had run out of time.’ Although her accent was bordering on eastern European, she spoke in perfect English. Her lanyard read ‘Ania Sobotta’.
‘What do you do here, Ania?’
‘I’m accounts manager for our tier-two clients and have responsibility for our eastern European channels to market.’
That explains the accent.
‘Did you know Madeline?’
‘Not well, I have only been here six weeks. We worked together on a couple of proposals and had a few nights out with clients, but that was all. I cannot believe what’s happened to her, no one can. She was so bright and lovely, and now she’s gone. It is terrible, we are all in a state of shock.’
‘Did she talk about a boyfriend or girlfriend?’
‘No, no one. She kept her private life and work life separate. She talked about having lots of friends of both sexes but never spoke of anyone special. I think she was a very sociable person, she often spoke about going out at the weekends. She loved live music and went away with activity clubs.’
‘Did she have any disagreements with people? Or did anyone show up at the office asking for her?’
‘No, she was lovely, everyone liked her. I cannot believe I was only talking to her at lunch on Thursday last week and she was telling me about—’
Kray interrupted. ‘You were talking to her when?’
‘Last Thursday, she was saying that—’
‘Where were you talking to her? Was it here?’
‘Yes it was here, where else would it be?’
‘She was in work?’
‘Yes.’
Kray nearly dropped through the floor.
Chapter 8
‘Come on, come on,’ Kray barked into her mobile. This was her third call since the revelation at the advertising agency. Brownlow was on answerphone, as was Jackson. She even tried to get a message to them via the Merseyside control room but was left frustrated. As soon as she mentioned that they were both at the NPCC conference the enthusiasm to track them down melted away to nothing.
She sat in her car drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. The phone continued to ring at the other end. It clicked through to voicemail and the monotone voice of DI Brownlow asked her to leave a message.
‘Colin, can you get back to me asap. I’m sat outside Madeline Eve’s place of work about to go back in. It’s urgent.’
She banged her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes. The buzzing noise of a million flies ebbed and flowed in her ears. That annoying sound, pitched at the note of G and produced by the circular rotation of two sets of wings at two hundred cycles per second, resonated deep inside her.
In her mind, she roamed through the rooms of flat seventeen, Dennison Heights, recalling the stench of Madeline’s insect ridden body and the feel of the stained carpet. Her fingers moved involuntarily as she remembered the touch and feel of the objects in the bedroom, the cold of the lipstick tube as she weighed it in her palm, the starched fabric of the curtains as they ran through her hands. She held her breath, sensing the tingling sensation of a fly as it landed on her face.
She fidgeted with the gold ring on her left hand, spinning it one way then the other.
Her mind raced, she felt the insect move across her cheek.
What the hell did you do?
The itching, scratching, tickling sensation of six tiny feet gripped onto her skin. She flinched.
What the hell did you do?
Then the answer went off in her head like a grenade.
Fuck, it’s been staring me in the face all along. How could I have been so blind?
Kray snapped out of it when she heard the sound of her mobile buzzing on the dashboard.
‘Hello, Roz.’ It was Brownlow.
‘Hey, Colin did you get my messages?’
‘Err, no we’
ve been in and out of workshops all day. Is there a problem?’
‘Yes, I can’t get hold of anyone who interviewed Madeline’s co-workers yesterday and the notes are not on the system. I need to cross reference a vital piece of information. There are holes all over the place in this investigation.’
‘Wow, now slow down. The rest of the team are out working the other cases. Have you called them?’
‘Yes, but all I get is their voicemails. They missed something yesterday, something important. No one is pulling the information together.’
‘They’ll get back to you I’m sure.’
‘Did they say anything to you about Madeline being in work last Thursday?’
There was a pause on the line.
‘No nothing.’
‘Do you know if anyone has checked her mobile phone records?’
‘I think Derek was picking that one up.’
‘Derek, Derek who?’
‘Derek Croft.’
‘Fine I’ll talk to him.’
‘I think he’s off today. But he’s due back in tomorrow.’
‘Is Jackson there?’
‘Err, yes but why do you want to speak to him?’
‘Put him on the phone.’
‘No I can’t, we’re being called back in.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Colin, we have inconsistencies everywhere in this investigation and I’m flying blind here. Can’t you get back to the station?’
‘Let’s talk in the morning, Roz, we can iron things out then.’
‘Colin, put Jackson on the ph—’
The line went dead.
‘Shit!’ Kray slapped both hands against the wheel.
After taking a minute to collect herself, she swung open the car door and headed back to the fifth floor of Hounslow and Partners to sit in a cramped office with a great view of Pleasure Beach, hoping that her swearing would stop by the time she reached the charming woman in reception.