Friday
Geoff ‘the milk’ Driscoll turned his float into Lingfield Road and drove past the place where he had found two bodies within twenty-four hours of each other. His eye was drawn to that stretch of pavement with horrific fascination and each time he had past it he could not stop himself from looking at it. He reached the end of Lingfield Road, efficiently placing milk on appropriate steps as he did so. It was Friday, collection day, but at 5.30 a.m. it was still too early to start knocking on doors. From Lingfield Road he turned into Southside Road, and then he saw the body.
It was a youth. A young man lying face up on the pavement, the knife still sticking out of his chest.
Driscoll wondered whether it had been a good move after all? On the sink estate, the Clifton Towers round, he had to deal with folk who didn’t pay their milk bill, folk who stole milk from his float when his back was turned. He often came across signs of violence, smashed windows, burnt-out cars, but he had never come across a dead body. But here, in leafy, civilized Wimbledon, he’d found not one, not two, but three.
All in the space of five days.
Denial of Murder Page 21