by Emmy Ellis
Henry stood and held his arms out. “Give us a hug then.”
She cuddled him like she always did, feeling safe in his arms, cared for. He squeezed then let her go, moving out into the hallway. She followed, and he opened the door.
“See you soon,” he said.
“Okay. Bye for now.”
She walked down the path, and the door clicked closed at the same time she latched his gate. Needing to keep up the charade now she’d started it, suspecting Henry would be watching from the window, she crossed the street and strode up her old path, the gravel shifting beneath her weight, her feet almost going from under her.
Please don’t let him be back.
She slid her hand in her bag and foraged about for her keys, pulling Kane’s out the first time then found her own. Key in the lock, she turned it, all the while shitting bricks in case Jez was home. Surely he wouldn’t be, not at around tennish, the time she guessed it to be. Kane said he’d be interviewing him this morning, so she might get lucky.
Inside—what the fuck am I doing here?—she shut the door and, without looking up the stairs or in the living room, she bolted through the kitchen, unlocked and opened the back door, and stepped into the garden. Had it only been a few short hours ago she’d sat out here with Kane, spilling her guts?
You shouldn’t have done that.
She bit that pointing finger of a thought off at the second knuckle and forged ahead to the bottom of the garden. At the gate, she peered through a knothole into the street behind and, as no one was about, she left the garden and walked at a quick pace while digging in her bag for her phone. She dialled the same taxi firm, asking to be picked up at the end of the road, and waited there beneath a streetlight, the plastic casing broken, the hole in it resembling a gunshot through glass and revealing the bulb within. After five minutes of her anxiously tapping her foot, she released a sigh of relief as the cab swept up to her, and she got in, giving Kane’s address.
Someone tapped on the driver’s-side window, a man with a hipster beard like Jez’s. For a moment she thought it was him, but this bloke had a blond fade cut and a jacket and trousers on, and he was barely twenty if she was any judge. Jez wouldn’t wear clothes like that. For working in the garage, it was an orange boiler suit, and at night, for the pub, black jeans and white T-shirts, maybe his hoodie.
The cabbie opened the window. “Sorry, mate, just picked up a fare.”
“I’m in a rush. I need… My mum’s had a heart attack.”
Charlotte thought of her mum, who she hadn’t seen since she’d moved in with Jez, and how she’d feel if she got that sort of news. “It’s all right. Let him get in.”
The man peered into the back. “Thank you. You’re an absolute legend.” He ran around the front of the taxi and threw himself into the back seat beside her, knocking her bag into the spacious footwell. She moved to get it, but he got there first, his fingers brushing hers. She jolted, worried Jez would come leaping through the gate and spot her, thinking she was running off with someone else.
“I’ve got it,” he said.
She turned away, embarrassed by the blush heating her face and, while he put her bag on the seat between them, she gazed out of the side window and said to the cabbie, “Take him first. He needs to get home before me.”
The driver got there quickly, and after the man had thanked her again, he raced up a garden path and hammered on the door with the side of his fist. She hoped his mum would be okay.
I badly need to see mine, but reading her letter will have to do.
Kane only lived around the corner from here. Once at his, she rushed inside, hung his keys back in the cupboard, then went to her room to open the envelope she looked forward to every single week.
ELEVEN
English was boring. Debbie preferred maths or chemistry, something that taxed her brain more, something she could understand. The teacher reading Hamlet, her voice a monotonous drone, had Debbie’s eyelids drooping. She’d spent much of last night awake, thinking about her visit to his house that evening. She could hardly stand the tension, butterflies exploding in her tummy every time he popped into her head. God, he was gorgeous. Her friends would go eww and fake-vomit if they knew she fancied him, so she’d kept it to herself all this time. Why reveal who she had her eye on if all they’d do was take the piss out of her for it? Anyway, it was delicious keeping a secret. Made it all the more exciting. And she liked excitement, planned on having lots of it once she’d convinced him she belonged in his bed.
He wouldn’t say no, would he? Toss her offer back at her? No, she’d seen how he’d looked at her recently, when she’d walked by his house on her way to school and he’d been at the open door talking to some kid she vaguely remembered as being in year eleven when she’d been in seven. She’d wondered what he was doing there, the kid, until the man of her fantasies had given him a package and the kid had driven off.
A courier, that’s what he was.
“Pay attention, Deborah,” Miss Boring as Fuck said.
Debbie jolted, her eyes widening, the tiredness vanishing. Titters erupted, although Miss didn’t appear amused. She glared at Debbie, eyes massive behind her thick lenses, the black frames shaped like some woman’s specs from the forties. Young, about thirty or so, Miss loved Shakespeare more than she loved tending to her appearance. Clearly.
Flushing at her spiteful thought—and she’d bet Miss would think she was embarrassed at being caught half asleep—Debbie scanned the page to catch up to where Miss now carried on reading, wishing this lesson would end so she could skive biology—more about blood cells today, ugh—and sneak a crafty fag somewhere so she could think about what she’d wear later.
Mum and Dad wouldn’t bat an eye at her leaving the house in a short skirt or whatever. She’d opted for that sort of thing for a while now, hoping she’d catch his attention. Seemed she had if he wanted her over at his house. Her plan had worked, and she wanted to laugh at how everything was coming together, pleased at herself for using similar tactics she’d seen on some soap or other. Might have been Eastenders.
The bell clanged, and she scrabbled from her seat, gathering her book and bag then barging out of the room. Someone called her name, but she didn’t bother to turn to see who it was. She wanted out of there for the next fifty minutes, and she’d make out, if she was questioned as to where she’d been, that she’d got stuck on the loo with stomach trouble. She hadn’t used that excuse for a while, so it’d fly, she reckoned.
As she slipped through the hole in the wire fence at the bottom of the school field, she smiled at the thought of losing her virginity tonight. If she played this right, she’d be a woman come the morning, and he’d be her boyfriend and, if she continued to get lucky, her husband in a couple of years. She’d only live a few doors away from Mum and Dad then, and after they’d got over the shock of who she’d chosen to be with, they’d come round for Sunday dinner maybe, play with the grandkids.
Fucking excellent.
TWELVE
Jez was fucked off. Since he’d been spoken to by that bloody copper who’d taken Charlotte off last night, his stinky sidekick gassing up the room, Jez had been stuck in a cell. He’d found himself in one plenty of times before in his younger years— disorderly conduct, beating up blokes when he’d gulped back too much voddy, that kind of thing—so it wouldn’t usually bother him, but he had a meeting today with some young lad who’d said he could shift a shed load of weed and a few bags of coke inside a week. It was switch-over day, the dough for the product, and if he wasn’t out of here by three o’clock, getting to their agreed location by four, the deal could be well and truly buggered. He had to pick up that product beforehand, too. He wasn’t stupid enough to keep it at his own place, but the person holding it for him didn’t live a million miles away, so he wouldn’t fret about that.
His mind wandered.
Where was Charlotte? It pissed him off big time that he didn’t know. He couldn’t even check the app on his ph
one to snoop at her location. The sergeant on the desk had put it inside a clear bag with Jez’s Rolex and wallet last night. DI Barnett had another think coming if he thought Jez wouldn’t be able to work out where she’d gone. Jez had been tracking her whereabouts for a few years now, but the only thing with that app was it worked in real time, didn’t store previous locations. Last night, with the murder and everything, he’d forgotten to log in to see if she was at the shop like Cobbings had said.
Jez knew enough about the law to know he’d be allowed out soon, asked not to leave town or the country—blah blah effing blah—while they processed the blood and the swabs from those scratches. He stewed about that, irritated he hadn’t cleaned himself up properly, but he hadn’t expected to find a copper in his house when he’d got home, had he.
And as for Charlotte getting a threatening letter. That was just bollocks.
Anyway, he wasn’t going to think about that side of things anymore, so he stretched out on the narrow bench with a plastic-covered pad the depth of a Tesco’s triple sandwich on it and tucked his hands behind his head. Might as well get a bit of shut-eye while he could. He’d been awake all night, some drunk bastard hollering then puking all over the shop, going by the sound of the splash, so now it was quiet, he stood a better chance of getting some kip.
He breathed deeply through his nose then released it out of his mouth. Good technique, that, for calming the old nerves. Just as he was nodding off, he remembered that Kane Barnett, the wanker, hadn’t sent anyone to let Jez out for a fag break—unless he wasn’t allowed his smoker’s rights anymore—and rage seared through him all over again.
Once he’d sorted the drug deal, he’d have to find something to take his anger out on, because it wasn’t like Charlotte was home to bear the brunt, was it?
Fucking bitch.
THIRTEEN
The inside of the warehouse on the ground floor wasn’t too bad in terms of litter, but every room on the second floor except the one the body was in appeared as if someone had come in with black bags from their kitchen bin and dumped it all out. Surprised no rats scuttled around in search of food—or maybe they’d run off owing to the human activity—Kane went back into the only room with a door, his inspection of the others complete. He didn’t envy the guys having to take all that rubbish away to sift through later.
Gilbert was packing up his bag, his face drawn, as though he hadn’t had much sleep last night. Richard stood in the corner to the right, smoking a goddamn cigarette.
“Put that out,” Kane snapped. Jesus Christ, what was the bloody matter with the man? “Downstairs, not in this building.”
Richard moseyed forward, sighing, an inch-long cylinder of ash dropping off his fag and landing by Kane’s foot, thankfully still intact so Kane could scoop it into a baggie so it didn’t contaminate the scene.
With Richard gone, Kane said to Gilbert, voice low so the SOCOs in the room didn’t hear, “Do you know what’s up with him?”
Gilbert zipped his bag closed. “No idea, mate. Ask him, why don’t you? But something’s not right, I’ll give you that. He’s been behaving weirder than usual lately. Not with it, like he’s got something on his mind.”
“Probably whisky,” Kane muttered.
Gilbert laughed. “Yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me. He stinks like a distillery, that one. From the amount he smokes and drinks, I can guarantee his lungs and liver aren’t pretty. Pity the poor sod who does his postmortem. Let’s hope it isn’t me, eh?”
“It might well be,” Kane said. “He’ll drink himself to death before long. And I agree—he looks like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders, like something’s troubling him.”
“The only thing that would trouble Richard is if Sainsbury’s runs out of Johnnie Walker and Lambert and Butler.” Gilbert sighed. “Right, back to work matters. From her temperature”—he pointed at the victim—“we’re talking death occurring late last night, before midnight. She’s not in rigor, so that corroborates my estimate—she’s been stiff and limped out again. She was suffocated. See the hand print there? The finger marks on her cheek, the thumb just below her jaw?”
“Suffocated with a hand? Fuck me…” Kane swallowed. What possessed these people?
“Probably a disgruntled punter.” Gilbert shrugged. “She’s had her ear chewed on and all, poor cow.”
Kane shook his head.
“You’ve got to hope the DNA from her having sex brings back results of people already in the database.” Gilbert smiled. “Otherwise, you’re fucked.”
“Thanks for that.”
Gilbert chortled. “Right. I’m just about to get her down to my little sanctuary for the dead, so if you want to have a shufti at her, do it now. And don’t be too long about it. I’m hangry—great word that, don’t you think? Didn’t have a chance to eat breakfast before I was called out.”
Kane moved closer to the woman, and something blue and plastic caught his attention beside her hand. “Pick that up for me, will you?”
Gilbert tsked. “I asked you to do that a while back, Simon.”
Simon, a SOCO, came over, pointed at the item, and Kane nodded. Simon used large tweezers to lift the piece and held it in front of Kane’s face. A dolphin, cheap-looking, something you’d find on a bits-and-bobs stall at a market, nestled in a basket, lost among all the other under-a-quid crap in there. It had a circle on the curve of the dorsal fin, a ring doughnut type thing, where it had once hung on a necklace, a keyring, something like that. Could it have been in the room beforehand? He was inclined to think not—this room was too clean of anything bar a lump of concrete, the floor swept, and why was that when all the others were so filthy? If a tramp had cleaned it up to live here, some form of human life would be visible, wouldn’t it? A crushed pop can, a sandwich wrapper, whatever. All right, the homeless tended to cart all their belongings with them, so he could understand why a sleeping bag or blanket wasn’t rolled up in the corner, but…
Kane thanked Simon, who bagged the dolphin then continued with what he’d been doing prior to Kane interrupting him—on his hands and knees searching for evidence he wasn’t likely to find.
Crouching, Kane peered at the victim’s neck for signs of a necklace having been there, for evidence of it being ripped off, but the only thing on her throat was a dark brown mole the diameter of a thumbtack. He frowned.
“If you’re looking for where that dolphin came from,” Gilbert said, “try looking at her right wrist. Bracelet, I imagine. Got a few scratch marks.”
Kane studied it. Gilbert was usually right, so Kane had no reason to doubt him. So she’d had a bracelet on—well, where was it? “Did you check beneath her yet?”
“Err, yes. What do you take me for, Barnett?” Gilbert came to stand beside him, grinning. “She had no ID on her, by the way, so you’re fucked again.”
“You have one hell of a warped sense of humour,” Kane said. He sighed. He’d have to send two of his team out, the women would be better, to have a chat with the local sex workers to see if anyone recognised her description. Not that he could tell what she’d looked like in life. Her face was a wreck, puffy, a split lip, her nose skewed to one side, skin a terrible purple, a pre-storm colour, the bellies of heavy clouds laden with rain.
“Finished?” Gilbert asked. “Or are you going to stand there and wait for her to reanimate and tell you who did it?” He laughed—hard and from the depths of his belly—and wiped a tear from below his eye. “Should have been a stand-up comic, me.”
Kane shook his head. “Seriously, mate, don’t give up your day job. See you later.” He walked out, leaving Gilbert and company to the task of dealing with that poor woman’s body.
Down the stairs, across the open space of the ground floor swarming with SOCOs, then outside to remove his white suit and gloves, Kane loosed an unsteady breath. He bundled the clothing up and walked to his car, dumping it on the back seat. Richard’s familiar aroma wafted out, and Kane gritted his teeth. He couldn’t go o
n working with him. He was next to useless, continually struggling through a hangover from being three sheets to the sodding wind the night before.
Kane got in the car, one foot in, one out, and stared across at Richard. A hip flask, wedged between Richard’s inner thighs, the lid off, sent Kane to that place where he tended to say things he’d regret later.
“You,” he said, snatching the flask then tossing it out of his open door, “need to sort yourself out. Nine times out of ten you’re still pissed when you roll up at work, and when you’re at work, you’re not much good to anyone, in a daze, not listening, lounging about in the corner of crime scenes smoking. What the hell were you doing, you useless piece of shit?”
Richard didn’t face him, vacantly staring through the windshield instead. His cheeks, red as usual, flared darker, and his eyes, glassy, gave Kane the sense the lights were on but nobody was home.
“Richard?”
“What?” he snapped. “Get off my back, will you? I’ve got an important thing going on later, and I need to get myself in the right frame of mind. You up my arsehole isn’t helping. When you’re in this sort of mood, you’d argue with a signpost. Now shut your bloody mouth and leave me alone.”
Kane wanted to lay him out, but he wouldn’t. He drew his leg inside the car, slammed the door, then sped away, curving sharply round corners—that’d teach the man to drink on the job, but if he was sick in Kane’s car…
He headed for the station, foregoing visiting Old Bill in the hospital—someone else could do that. Kane doubted he’d get anything useful out of him anyway. Bill was usually half cut like Richard, using donations from his begging sessions to buy copious amounts of cheap beer from the off-license.
The journey made in silence, apart from the occasional belch from Richard, meant for a tense few minutes. At the station, Kane parked and waited for Richard to vacate. Then he took the Febreze from his glove box, spraying liberal amounts until the smell of Richard had gone.