Quite Ugly One Morning (2 page)

Parlabane came round slowly, his senses kicking in one at a time behind the steady, rhythmic throb of his headache, which for a few moments he had thought might be someone playing ambient trance through the wall.

Pound, pound, pound, pound.

Arse.

Different day, different city, same hangover.

Like a fortune teller in reverse, he struggled to peer through the haze and see what lay in his immediate past. At first he couldn’t remember much, but was sure that the number 80 had been somehow very significant.

Then the smell hit him, and spun him into an accelerating panic. He sat up rapidly and winced, as his sudden movement brought a cymbal crash to the end of a bar in his head. That smell was miserably familiar and quite unmistakable. One hundred percent recycled materials. For best results, shake well before opening.

He felt a draught and saw that the window was open, which snapped a piece of the puzzle into place, but suggested the completed picture would not be pretty. He remembered getting up and opening it at some point during the night to let the smell out, and figured he must have spewed but been too incapacitated to clear it up at the time. The source of his panic was that he couldn’t remember where he had thrown up, indeed couldn’t recall the act at all, but was certain it couldn’t have been anywhere sensible, because even an unflushed lavvy bowl of boak can’t permeate a flat so comprehensively. Indeed, the smell was even stronger than before he had attempted to ventilate the place.

He quickly turned to face the other way, expecting to find a lumpy abstract etched on one side of the pillow, but it was clean. He whipped the duvet off, but there was no multicoloured surprise waiting beneath.

Where the hell was it?

Pukey come home.

Parlabane got up, which brought the snare drum into play
on top of the dull bass, but mere blinding pain could not be allowed to obstruct his quest. He wandered delicately around the flat, squinting as he entered the uncurtained kitchen, where the sun glinted painfully off the foil take-away cartons on the worktops.

‘Thank fuck,’ he mumbled, glancing at the greasy plate beside them. Looked like Chinese. Could have been Indian, but no matter. The main thing was that kebabs didn’t come in foil cartons, so he couldn’t have been
that
drunk.

Unfortunately, the smell was everywhere, and seemed to have invaded every room. There was no air freshener, but this was no great loss, as the stuff never really worked. Instead of replacing the smell of sick, it just mingled with it, and consequently he associated and confused the smell of each with the other.

He approached the open door of the darkened living room with genuine fear and a grim sense of fate. The stench was noticeably stronger as he got closer, and somewhere in the reaches of his memory he saw himself leaning over the back of a hideous green settee and serving up several quarts of second-hand soup. But somewhere else he pictured himself cleaning it up, picking slippery, fibrous pieces out of a deep-pile carpet in a pair of bright yellow rubber gloves, and figured it couldn’t have been last night.

Walking into the living room, he was abruptly reminded that apart from the bed, the flat didn’t actually have any furniture, and that the hideous green settee and the awful shag-pile carpet belonged to a photographer in London who had not regarded the episode as a good basis for starting a relationship, and had indeed – perhaps not entirely unreasonably – never spoken to him again. This living room didn’t have any kind of carpet to its name, and as its exposed floorboards were not of the trendy polished variety, he figured he would be picking skelfs out of his bare feet all afternoon.

Parlabane walked to the window and braced himself for the onslaught of light as he pulled back the curtains. What he saw made him open his squinted eyes wide with horror and dismay.

‘Polis!’ he breathed, and shut the curtains again hurriedly.

‘Fuck.’

Not now, not already.

He spied out from between the curtains, looking at the
activity below. There were plenty of blue uniforms and the obligatory middle-aged man in a camel trenchcoat pointing at people, but, rather strangely, no cars.

Calm down, he told himself. Treaty or no treaty, extradition orders don’t get served that fast.

And amidst the now rapid pounding in his skull, the thought finally crossed his mind that if they were here for him, they wouldn’t be fannying about in the street.

He wandered down his hallway to the front door, from where he could hear the echo of voices in the spiralling close below. Through the spyhole he could see that no one was about on his landing, so he opened the door and ventured on tiptoe to the edge of the stairs, where the smell rose up to hit him like a surfacing submarine, afloat on a sea of sick.

More voices, the tapping of footsteps and an unidentifiable, intermittent squelching sound. Then a slam.

‘Aaaw naaw.’

Maybe the wind in the close, maybe a draught through the open window in the bedroom, who cares. Something had closed his front door and left him on the landing in his boxers and a grubby T-shirt. He gave it a less-than-hopeful push in case it wasn’t a slam-locker, but the gods were not smiling.

Mince.

Now, the rational course of action for any normal human being at this point would be to enlist the help of the conveniently present police in securing the services of a locksmith, or at least the services of few standard-issue Doc Martens. But even if he hadn’t been reluctant to enter into any dialogue with Lothian and Borders’ finest, he’d probably still have seen climbing in from another flat as the easiest solution.

Go with what you know, and all that.

There was no reply from the flat directly above, and a glance through the letterbox confirmed that the occupant wasn’t merely standing behind the locked door, peering suspiciously through the spyhole at the scantily dressed nutter hopping from freezing foot to freezing foot on the landing outside. He tried the bell one more time, then admitted to himself that
he
wouldn’t open his door to someone of his current appearance, with the phrase ‘contributory negligence’ still large in the public mind.

Bugger.

He padded his way back down the staircase, putting his tongue between his teeth to stop them from chattering, and, reaching the last turn before the landing where the voices were coming from, glanced down to make sure his dick wasn’t hanging out of his shorts. First impressions last, however shallow and unfair that may seem.

Parlabane peeked around the wall to see the back of a policeman’s head going down the stairs in front of him, leaving the open door to the flat beneath his own unguarded. This was, apparently, the centre of attention and the source of the smell, and a lethal combination of desperation and professional curiosity drew him towards it. The polis wouldn’t leave the flat empty like that for more than a matter of moments, so he would have to be quick; just nip in, get out the back window sharpish and climb up into his bedroom.

He darted from the stairs through the doorway and involuntarily stopped as his bare feet made contact with a jarringly unfamiliar surface.

Lovely. Liquid Axminster.

He noticed the streaks on the wall and the open door, then spotted the foot-dragged trail on the floor, leading along the hallway. His eyes followed it to the room at the end, where a half-naked dead man with two truncated digits up his wrecked nose stared horrifiedly at him from his position of repose on what looked like a broken-down door.

Parlabane walked, entranced, towards the body, his field of vision widening to take in the peripheral debris as he approached the living room, a distant part of his mind contemplating the mystery of how the stuff underfoot could have such effectively lubricant and adhesive qualities at the same time.

The other man didn’t seem troubled by such trivial philosophical diversions, but his expression suggested he had a lot on his mind nonetheless.

‘Sorry to hear it, Jim,’ Parlabane muttered, looking aghast at the havoc that had been wreaked upon the man’s person and – presumably – belongings. He took in the deep, wide and apparently fatal wound to the man’s neck, then glanced down at each of the mutilated hands which had provided the unconventional nasal stoppers.

Parlabane had seen a few bodies in his time, some murdered more imaginatively than others, but this was something of a
creative masterpiece, with hints of inspired improvisation. Surveying the attendant chaos, he pitied the poor bastard polisman that had to figure this one out, a thought which brought the belated consideration that this was not the wisest place to be discovered right now. He decided to head back out, reckoning locking himself out of his flat an easier thing to explain than what he was doing wandering around a murder scene with very few clothes on.

As he prepared to lunge across the flat’s bilious moat, he heard voices and footsteps in the close below, and spun back on one heel, dismayingly brushing one of the wall’s loftier damp daubs with his sleeve.

Tits.

He tiptoed round the puddle of blood and picked his way across the cluttered floor towards the back window, hoping it wouldn’t be paint-stuck. He paused momentarily, deciding whether to go around or over an upturned bookcase, when he became aware of movement to his right. He turned his head slowly and reluctantly to see a suede-headed woman in a dark green suit stare inquiringly at him from the entrance to the flat’s kitchen.

Parlabane gulped.

‘I’m sleepwalking?’ he offered, with an appellant, not-very-optimistic, please-take-pity smile.

She shook her head apologetically and held up an ID badge.

Parlabane decided to go for the direct and truthful approach.

‘Look, I’ve locked myself out of my flat upstairs. The window’s open directly above. Could you possibly just let me climb up there, pretend you didn’t see me, and then you can get on with whatever’s going on down here, and I can get on with my hangover?’

Dalziel looked at him with a pained expression of dilemma.

‘Well, here’s the problem,’ she said. ‘There’s been a brutal murder in here this morning, so we’re looking for a brutal
murder-er
,
and under such circumstances we tend to broaden our definitions of what constitutes “suspicious”. Unfortunately that covers half-dressed, vomit-streaked men attempting to leave the crime scene by the back window. I mean, ordinarily . . .’

‘Yeah,’ conceded Parlabane, holding his hands up. ‘You really are caught on the horns.’

‘Jesus, don’t you heat this place?’

‘Well, our usual suspects tend to be more sensibly dressed. You know: trousers, shoes . . .’

‘Stripy jumper, mask, sack marked “SWAG"?’

‘That kinna thing, yeah.’

Parlabane shivered and pulled at the jaggy sweater they had given him, his T-shirt having been binned despite his protests because its smell reminded everyone of the inside of that bloody flat. He had agreed to come along quietly to avoid or at least defer being formally arrested, but they hadn’t allowed him to attempt to enter his home and had taken him to the station in his partial state of dress. He grudgingly gave them permission to force an entry and search the place, trying not to dwell too long on the irony, but they hadn’t managed to get in by the time he was led away by Dalziel and Callaghan.

To Parlabane’s incredulous horror, the police station was fifty yards away on the opposite side of the square, a local feature McLean had neglected to mention when he gave him the keys. Still, fugitive beggars couldn’t be choosers.

They had walked him across the snow-spattered grass, past the inevitable gawking onlookers and what he instinctively (but just too late) recognised as a press photographer, who got half-a-dozen frames in before Parlabane’s face was obscured by a fist and an erect middle finger. By the time they reached the front desk, his feet were soup-free but purple with the cold. A pale and visibly trembling postman was led out of the door as they came in.

Parlabane had been allowed to wash and been issued with the jaggy jumper, then led to an interview room where he sat for close to an hour before Inspector McGregor turned up with Dalziel, briefly rolling his eyes when he saw the shambles that was before him.

‘Bad morning?’ Parlabane inquired.

McGregor widened his eyes and exhaled, nodding.

‘A dead body in pyjama trousers in a wrecked flat awash
with blood and boak, and a huge jobbie on the mantelpiece for garnish.’

Parlabane gaped.

‘I didn’t notice a jobbie myself.’

‘No, it had been removed for tests before you showed up.’

‘What, you removed a jobbie before you removed the corpse?’

‘You didn’t smell this jobbie.’

‘I’m not so sure about that.’

‘Anyway, a short time later one of my officers discovers a barely dressed man wandering around the murder scene with the declared intention of climbing out the window. Now, I understand you have already agreed that we were not being over-zealous in considering this suspicious. So can you possibly explain what you were doing there?’

‘Yes,’ Parlabane said, trying to sound as calm and reasonable as his chattering teeth would allow. ‘As I told DC Dalziel at the time, I was locked out of my flat and I was attempting to climb back in.’

‘Well, that seems logical enough, Mr Parlabane, but let me just ask you a couple of things. Did you know the occupant of the flat downstairs . . . what’s his name?’

‘You tell me.’

‘OK . . . Ponsonby. Dr Jeremy Ponsonby.’

‘Not at all. Never seen him before.’

‘And how long have you lived at that address?’

‘Oh, a good thirty-six hours.’

‘And where did you stay before that?’

‘Sweetzer Ave.’

McGregor tried to place it. ‘West End?’

‘West Hollywood.’

McGregor nodded. ‘Right. So it would be fair to say that you didn’t have the run of Dr Ponsonby’s premises, and that were he not dead, he might have minded a wee bit if you walked in unannounced and used his back window to gain access to your flat?’

‘Pretty fair, yeah.’

‘So here’s my problem, Mr Parlabane,’ he said, patiently but tiredly. ‘Most people, even when they are locked out and underdressed, tend not to just walk into someone else’s property, even if the door is wide open. But just supposing they did, just for talking’s sake. Most people would be put off
by a strong smell of spew and by the large puddle of it at the door. But again, just for talking’s sake, let’s pretend that’s not the case. Most people would have quite a strong reaction to a mutilated corpse. Some might faint. Some might throw up. Some might run out screaming and calling for the police.’

He looked Parlabane fiercely in the eye. ‘Very, very few would be sufficiently unperturbed as to continue going about their plan of climbing out the window to get back into their flat. Most might consider, shall we say, that matters had overtaken them. That there were greater things afoot than their need to get back into their home.’

Parlabane nodded, understandingly.

McGregor continued. ‘I suppose what I’m really trying to say is that I consider your behaviour to have been . . . unusual. Exceptional, even. So I have to ask myself two questions: A, why you ventured into Dr Ponsonby’s flat, and B, why his condition failed to give you the screaming heebie-jeebies.’

Parlabane sat back in his chair, hugging himself with the over-long sleeves of his jaggy jumper. His hangover had not abated through his new predicament, and he felt that large quantities of Irn-Bru, fried food and sleep were the only things that could save him. Between Parlabane and those things was McGregor, a man so clearly resigned to the inevitable unpleasantness and frustration of this case that he would probably sit patiently probing Parlabane well into the middle of the next century if he felt he had to.

Frank, uncomplicated honesty was a dangerous gambit with police anywhere, as you risked blowing their minds, with ugly consequences for all concerned. However, as McGregor was already looking bored in anticipation of a tedious fib, Parlabane decided to chance it.

‘All right. A, Curiosity. B, Dr Whatsisface was not the first murder victim I’ve ever seen. I’m assuming you’ve ruled out suicide by this point.’

McGregor smiled. It wasn’t a big smile, but it was definitely there, and in it Parlabane could see relief, Irn-Bru, fried food and sleep. McGregor made a beckoning gesture with his right hand, encouraging Parlabane to elaborate.

‘I am, I will freely admit, a dedicatedly professional nosy bastard,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I’m a journalist, and I’m afraid I find it difficult to walk past an open door, never mind an
unguarded crime scene. It’s like a reflex, an uncontrollable instinct.’

‘Like a fly to a shite?’ asked Dalziel.

‘Well, I’ll admit that groups of cops tend to attract my attention, so if I’m the fly . . .’

‘We’re the insecticide, Mr Parlabane,’ said McGregor firmly. ‘So having had a look around, why didn’t you go back out the door?’

‘I heard someone coming up the stairs, and I didn’t think it would look good to be found trespassing on a crime scene. After all, I didn’t want to end up in the police station in my underwear, freezing my bollocks off, being questioned about what the hell I was doing by polis who I’m sure have more important things to be getting on with right now.’

‘Quite.’

There was a knock at the door, and Callaghan stuck his head round to beckon McGregor outside for discussion.

‘Do you reckon he believes me?’ Parlabane asked Dalziel once they were alone.

‘Why are you asking me whether
he
believes you? Why aren’t you asking me whether I believe you?’

‘I already know you believe me.’

Dalziel laughed, as if she couldn’t help it, and shook her head. She had softly curved features but a rather sharp nose, upon which Parlabane spotted a tiny dimple where he was sure a stud sat when she was off-duty.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘You got me. But I’m just the DC, and instinctively believing you could be the kind of mistake I have to learn from as I climb the ranks.’

‘But it’s not instinctive,’ he said, shamelessly going into charming/flirtatious mode, forgetful of his ridiculous appearance. ‘You believe me because if I had anything to do with the murder, it would be both unlikely and improbably stupid for me to wander back into the scene of the crime while it’s crawling with police officers.’

‘Ah, but the dog does return to its own vomit,’ she said, pointing at him with a pen.

‘Let me assure you, none of that vomit was mine. In fact, I was looking for mine just before I locked myself out, but my subsequent discoveries have cast doubt on whether there was anything to find.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t ask. So what do you figure to the late Dr P?’

‘Back off, scoop. I’m hardly going to reveal the facts of an on-going investigation to a self-confessed hack. Given what’s already happened today, I think it would be . .. imprudent, to say the least, to encourage your involvement in this case.’

‘Believe me, Ms Dalziel,
nothing
could encourage me to get involved in this case. I’ve seen the mess, remember, I’ve smelt the smells, and I don’t envy you this one whatsoever. But how can I keep my eyes peeled if I don’t know what to look for?’

‘What do you mean by that?’ she asked, now more serious.

‘You know fine.’

Dalziel stared sternly and hard across the table at Parlabane, who felt he was doing enormously well to be commanding the slightest modicum of respect in his current condition.

‘Are they sharp eyes?’ she finally asked.

He gave her a wry grin.

‘I’d say your guy was dead less than nine hours when I saw him this morning,’ he stated. ‘Going by the mess on the floor and the mess on his face, it’s safe to assume he struggled heavily with his assailant before succumbing. He was tied up before his throat was cut, as he bled exactly where he was found, then whatever was used to restrain him was removed. The messiness of the severing suggests his fingers were bitten off rather than sliced with whatever cut his throat. And as he lost specifically the index fingers of
both
hands, I’d guess they were bitten off while he was restrained rather than during the struggle, maybe even after the fatal wound. It would also be my guess that they were bitten off in retribution, that the good doctor accounted for one of his killer’s index fingers earlier in the battle.’

Dalziel made a poor job of trying not to look impressed

All right scoop,’ she said. ‘Sticking with the premise that you had nothing to do with this and aren’t giving me these things from first-hand knowledge, tell me where you were while you reckon this was going on.’

‘Asleep upstairs.’

‘What, you slept through all the racket this fight, murder and interior flat demolition must have made?’

‘Ms Dalziel, believe me, I
have
slept through an earthquake. You might have more luck with whoever lives in the main-door flat below.’

‘Her name’s Mrs Angus. She’s a widow, lives alone, and doesn’t wear her hearing aid to bed.’

‘Of course. So nobody heard anything. Did anyone see anything?’

‘No one’s come forward so far.’

‘I’m not talking about the public.’

Dalziel winced as she realised what was coming.

Parlabane smirked. He tried not to, but it was too good.

‘You mean someone got murdered across the street from this station and not one flatfoot noticed anything suspicious?’

‘Go on, lap it up,’ she muttered impatiently.

‘I’m sorry,’ Parlabane said, smothering a laugh. He wondered how many times he had heard frustrated cops ask whether people go around with their eyes shut, how come nobody ever notices a bloody thing . . .

‘So what’s the story?’ he asked.

‘Way too early to say, although it seems a safe bet it wasn’t premeditated. As a lot of the mess couldn’t have been made by a fight, McGregor reckons it was a burglary gone wrong.’

‘But you don’t.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Oh, but you did.’

At that point, McGregor came back into the room, and all was quiet.

‘Right, Mr Parlabane,’ he said with a strangely light, almost cheerful tone. ‘We’ve been through your flat and belongings. We tried to mess the place up as is standard procedure, but as you don’t seem to own very much it was a bit of a poor effort, I’m afraid. DC Callaghan went through your wallet and has confirmed your identity, occupation and – from the ticket stubs – your recent arrival from Los Angeles. He probably also removed a small sum of money but there’s not much either of us can do about that.’

He handed Parlabane the keys to his flat.

‘They didn’t force the door, in the end. Someone followed your lead and climbed in from Dr Ponsonby’s place. You’re free to go when you wish, but I’d ask you not to stray too far for a few days – it’s just that if we draw a total blank on this one, we’ll need someone to fit up for it, and you’re the obvious choice.’

*
*
*

‘What are you so bloody happy about?’ Dalziel asked as Parlabane shuffled out of the room.

‘It took a second climber to get into Mr Parlabane’s flat,’ McGregor replied contentedly. ‘The first one fell in the attempt and broke his ankle.’

Dalziel didn’t need to ask who it was.