by James Oswald
‘Wasn’t he due to report in this week anyway?’
‘Not ’til tomorrow. I checked. Hearing’s still a couple of months away, too.’
‘So long? It’s almost as if someone doesn’t want this incident talked about at all.’ McLean knocked again, then tried the door handle. It clicked open. Unlocked.
‘Mr Smith?’ He pushed the door wide, stepped into the hallway, wrinkled his nose at the stench. Something he’d smelled before, all too often. He remembered the layout of the apartment from his previous visit and pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket as he stepped into the living room. The door was slightly ajar. Peering in, he saw a mess remarkably similar to how it had been before. The electronic control box for the tag sat on its table beside the phone, winking a gentle green light. There was no sign of Smith, though, and neither was he in the kitchen.
‘Oh Christ. Over here, sir.’ Ritchie stood across the hall by the door into the apartment’s single bedroom.
‘You don’t have to call me sir, remember. We’re the same rank.’ McLean crossed to where she was standing, got a good look over her shoulder and wished he hadn’t.
‘Sorry. Force of habit.’ Ritchie turned her back on the scene, pulling out her phone as she did so. ‘You going to call it in or should I?’
‘Probably best if you do.’ McLean finished pulling his gloves on, took one step into the bedroom the better to see. Not that he particularly wanted to, and breathing wasn’t easy either.
John Smith hung in the open doorway between the bedroom and its en-suite bathroom, held upright by what appeared to be a piece of lamp flex nailed to the door frame and tied around his neck. At first McLean thought he was wrapped in an old bin liner, but the more he looked the more he realised what he was seeing was actually some kind of latex body suit, rucked up over one leg to reveal the bulky electronic tag. Smith hadn’t been a fat man, but the suit bulged alarmingly where his body had begun to swell with the trapped gases of decomposition. His head was uncovered, but he wore something that looked a bit like a dog’s muzzle with a billiard ball in it, forcing his mouth open. Flecks of dried drool glittered on his chin and chest, dribbling down the smooth material to the party piece. Smith’s flaccid member, protruding from a hole in the suit no doubt cut for that very reason, put McLean in mind of Eric Parker, and the idea that the two deaths could be somehow linked left a cold sensation in the pit of his stomach.
‘Back-up’s on its way. I think we’d better leave this to forensics, don’t you?’ Ritchie put a hand on his shoulder, though whether to stop him going further into the room or simply to ease the tension he couldn’t tell. He turned his back on the sordid scene, nodded once, then followed her out of the apartment and on to the communal landing. Closing the door behind him, he took a deep breath of the fresher air.
‘I told you this wasn’t going to stay buried.’
‘Auto-erotic asphyxiation. What a way to go, eh?’
McLean was back in Smith’s bedroom, only this time he was dressed in the full Scene of Crime bunny suit and watching as Angus Cadwallader inspected the dead man.
‘You reckon he did this to himself?’
‘Well, there’s nothing that immediately shouts to me that he had help. And the fact that he’s dead suggests there wasn’t anyone with him when it happened. I’d have thought your experience working with the Sexual Crimes Unit would have broadened your mind a bit, Tony. This is the preferred embarrassing death of rock stars, actors and politicians, you know.’
McLean knew his old friend was teasing him, but it didn’t help much to be reminded of the SCU. It had taken the Scene of Crime team an hour to get there, Cadwallader a little longer, and McLean had spent the entire time trying to work out his justification for visiting Smith in the first place. It helped that Ritchie had come with him, but even so it wouldn’t be long before someone asked him just what the hell he’d been doing there.
‘So you reckon cause of death is strangulation, then?’
‘Ah, you always ask. Next you’ll be wanting to know when it happened. I can say probably, and at least four days. The rest will be revealed once we get him back to the examination theatre. Then this fellow will spill all his secrets. Provided we can get him down without him spilling them here.’
‘You done examining him, then?’
‘I think so, yes.’ Cadwallader straightened up from where he had been inspecting the late John Smith’s backside. ‘I’ll send some strong lads in to cut him down.’
McLean watched his old friend go, then looked around the bedroom, slowly taking everything in as the crime scene photographer’s flashgun popped away. It was a good-size room for a change; most of these modern apartments had bedrooms barely big enough to stretch in. The bed itself was unmade, black silk sheets confirming most of what he already knew about the dead man. It stood against the wall at right angles to the bathroom door, the opposite wall taken up mostly by an enormous flat-panel television screen. As someone who rarely saw his bed for more than a couple of hours a night, McLean had never quite understood the appeal of having a television in the bedroom.
Behind the bed, two mirrored doors slid open to reveal a large walk-in wardrobe. Smith clearly hadn’t been here long, as most of the drawers and hanging space were empty, just a bright yellow duffel bag on the floor. McLean crouched down, the gusset in the crotch of his bunny suit causing momentary anguish until he was able to adjust the waistband. The bag was unzipped, and opening it up revealed more latex gear, a couple of bottles of baby oil and a long black rod with wires coming out one end.
‘Careful with that, sir. Wouldn’t want to give yourself a shock.’
McLean turned and looked up into the face of the photographer. He recognised Amanda Parsons, the forensic scientist who more usually got all the shit jobs, or played around with cars. She smiled, pointed the camera at him and took a photograph. No doubt it would appear at Christmas in some humorous capacity or other. Detective Inspector McLean and his sex toys.
‘You know what it is, Miss Parsons?’
‘You don’t? I thought you worked Vice.’
McLean decided it was best not to answer that.
‘It’s an E-stim. You plug it into that box there, adjust the intensity and then stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. Very good for arthritis, I’m told. That and milking your prostate.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’ McLean stood back up again as a couple of white-suited officers came in, one carrying a rolled up body bag under his arm, the other with a small folded stepladder. It might have been a decent sized bedroom, but there were limits.
‘I’ll leave you lot to it then,’ he said and beat a hasty retreat.
Outside in the hallway, Acting Detective Inspector Ritchie was busy telling everyone what to do. She saw him approaching and made a strange motion with her arm. Too late McLean realised That she was trying to warn him.
‘What the fuck are you doing here, McLean?’
If it had been Spence, he could have just faced him down. Even Jo Dexter’s wrath would have been short-lived before she found something useful for him to do. But finding Detective Superintendent Brooks standing in the open front door was not something McLean had prepared for mentally.
‘Is there a problem with my being here, sir?’ Go for the innocent approach, it might work.
‘Too fucking right there is. This is an SCU matter and as far as I recall you were removed from the SCU precisely because you couldn’t keep your nose out of other officers’ business.’
It had gone very quiet in John Smith’s hallway, the collected police and forensics experts all staring at the two of them. There was no way McLean
was going to get out of this without at least a severe reprimand, but he was damned if anyone else was going to take the rap.
‘Were you aware that there was a dead man in the next room?’ He swivelled slightly, pointing back in the direction of the bedroom.
Brooks looked at him, a puzzled expression on his fat face that made him look like the kid at school everyone bullies. ‘What’s that got to do with anything? Of course I was aware.’
‘And were you aware that the circumstances of the man’s death are suspicious?’
Brooks started to redden about the rolls of flesh that made up his neck, swelling from the tight confines of his collar. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? What the fuck do you think?’
‘So perhaps you’re aware that the dead man is also central to an investigation I was SIO on. An investigation I signed off just a few days ago because we thought it was closed and done with.’
‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to say, McLean. This is an SCU matter. You’ve no business—’
‘I’ve every business, sir. This man was my responsibility and now he’s dead. It would be remiss of me to not be involved. Don’t you think?’
Brooks narrowed his eyes in suspicion, but McLean could see the doubt flickering across his face too. He looked around the hallway, noticing his audience for the first time.
‘Haven’t you lot got work to do?’ he bellowed, scowling at them all until they scurried back to their tasks. At the same moment the two white-suited technicians came out of the bedroom, struggling under the weight of the body in its black body bag until they managed to drop it down on to a waiting gurney. Something made a wet popping noise and a stench rolled out across the room like a wave of garbage.
‘Oh dear sweet hairy Jesus.’ Brooks covered his mouth and nose with a pudgy hand, backed out of the door on to the landing beyond. McLean went to follow him, but the detective superintendent waved him back.
‘No you don’t, McLean. Your responsibility, right? Well, get on with it. And I expect a full report for me and the DCC on my desk by tomorrow morning.’
Brooks stalked off towards the stairs and McLean turned back to Ritchie, who was staring at him open-mouthed despite the foul smell.
‘Well, I think that went better than expected.’
39
She’s not nosey, not really. No one could accuse her of not respecting the privacy of her house guests. It’s one of the cardinal rules of being a landlady; you don’t go into their rooms when they’re out, don’t pry. Unless they’re making too much noise, of course. Or coming and going at all hours when they know the front door’s meant to be locked at eleven. She’s heard them moving about the empty old house in the dead of night, doing things they shouldn’t be doing. What if they’re stealing the best china? Or the silver spoons? She’s checked every morning, of course, but it’s the time you don’t check that they’re gone. No, she has to have words. It doesn’t matter about their references. They were told the rules when they came.
The stairs are longer and steeper than she remembers. Strange to think how long she’s lived in this house and never felt that before. She has to pause on the second landing, at the bottom of the narrow stairs up to the attic rooms. To catch her breath, you understand. Not to listen for low voices muttering in conspiracy. Of course not.
They had seemed such a nice pair, too. Polite and well-spoken. She had a kind face and he was quiet but helpful. Brother and sister. Twins, if you could believe that. Down from the country on some business or other. And of course they had the right references. Perhaps she should have expected something, given who had sent them. What had sent them.
She pauses on the stairs, halfway up. From here she can see that the door to their room is ajar, noises of conversation filtering out. A few more steps up and her old ears tell her it’s not conversation but a low moaning sound. A couple more steps and she can see through the open door.
It takes her a moment to work out what is going on. The woman is sitting on one of the twin beds, back to the door and naked as the day she was born. Her skin is very pale and covered in tiny, livid flecks of scars. Her brother stands beside her, leaning in close. He has a knife and is cutting her skin with the delicacy of a skilled carver, mopping up the blood with a white handkerchief as he goes. With each cut, she lets out a moan, her shoulders shuddering at the pain.
And then, with a slow inevitability, she looks around.
‘Oh, hello there.’ Her smile is all teeth, her eyes two black pits. ‘Why don’t you come and join us?’
40
It took the rest of the day for McLean to escape the apartment down on the waterfront. Further investigation of the rooms had turned up some more sex toys and a collection of pornography that made his eyes water, and that was just looking at the covers. Even after the body had been removed to the mortuary, the whole apartment had to be checked to make sure that Smith had been alone when he died. The call came in from Control mid-afternoon officially assigning him the case, not long after the letting agent had turned up. A smartly dressed young woman, she had been horrified to find her immaculate serviced apartments swarming with police and forensics experts, but had confirmed the other three apartments on that floor were currently empty. McLean had sent a couple of constables to do door to door around the rest of the building, but he didn’t hold out much hope of finding anything untoward. Everything pointed to a pathetic end to a life that nobody would mourn passing. Only his gut told him there was more to the case than met the eye.
He had spent the rest of the day waiting for the instruction to wrap everything up neatly and close things down, but it never came. McLean knew it would, sooner or later, so stayed on site to supervise the forensic examination personally. It wasn’t until the last white-suited technician had packed up and left that he locked the front door himself with the key they’d found in the pocket of Smith’s discarded trousers and drove straight home.
Ritchie had gone hours earlier, insisting she needed a shower to take the stench away, and a stiff drink to blur the mental images that would linger far longer than they were welcome. McLean could hardly blame her; he felt the siren call of hot water and a whole bar of smelly soap too. And if he was lucky Phil wouldn’t have found the hidden stocks of whisky.
Jenny’s little black car was parked outside the front door when he arrived home. McLean wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that. It had been a long and harrowing day and normally he would have dealt with it by staring at the wall while the house grew ever more silent around him, or possibly while whatever music he’d been listening to morphed into the hiss thunk hiss thunk of the needle circling the innermost groove. A psychiatrist would probably have told him he spent an unhealthy amount of time in his own company, and he had to admit they’d probably be right.
Entering by the back door, he was greeted by the smell of cooking. Something spicy and aromatic that was clearly the equal of anything the takeaway might have had to offer. He’d not really had any appetite for food, the smell of John Smith’s rotting body still clinging to him like body odour to a teenage boy. Now his stomach gurgled in anticipation, reminding him that it had been neglected since breakfast and that had hardly been much.
‘Oh, hi, Tony. Wasn’t sure when you’d be in. I made a big pot of curry for Rae and Phil. Reckoned there’d be plenty to spare. Hope you don’t mind.’
‘If there’s a cold beer to go with it, I could kiss you,’ he said without thinking. Jenny’s blush most likely mirrored his own. She turned swiftly back to the pot on the stove, stirring furiously. It didn’t take a genius to see that he’d touched a nerve. ‘I expect Phil’s drunk it all anyway,’ he added quickly.
�
�Actually, probably not.’ Jenny stopped stirring, but still kept her eyes on the pot. ‘Changing a nappy with a hangover’s something you only want to do once.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’ McLean dumped his case on a chair. ‘It wasn’t something I was planning on ever trying out.’
This time Jenny stopped stirring, turned to face him. ‘Really? Never fancied having children?’
He paused before answering, unsure whether he was comfortable with the way the conversation had turned. ‘There was a time, years ago. I think it’s probably a bit late for me now. And the hours I work.’
‘Ah well. You can always be Uncle Tony in your spare time. Now, let me get you that beer.’ Jenny pushed herself away from the Aga, heading for the fridge. ‘Supper’s pretty much ready, so you’ve timed it just right.’
‘Not quite.’ McLean shrugged his shoulders, pulling at the lapels of his jacket. The stench still clung to the fabric, or at least he felt like it did. ‘I’ve spent all day at a particularly unpleasant crime scene. I badly need a shower.’
Once he had washed, changed clothes and shoved all his dirty laundry into a plastic bag so that the smell was contained, McLean returned to the kitchen to find Phil and Rachel seated at the table, places laid out for all four of them. Jenny’s culinary skills proved to be most acceptable, the curry far better than the cheap takeaways that had been his staple diet for so long. Eating in the kitchen reminded him of days long past when he and Phil had relied on his grandmother’s hospitality to help eke out their student finances. Something about having more company than just Mrs McCutcheon’s cat helped to ease the stresses of the day. There was good conversation, no mention of his police work, and for a moment he was able to completely forget about the bloated, rotting corpse of John Smith, Heather Marchmont’s strange advances, Jo Dalgliesh lying in a hospital bed and all the other things that were making his life so complicated at the moment.