Then it was finished with him and he was wiping snot and bile from
his face, now waxy to the touch. For a moment, he was a walking corpse enjoying
a small and blissful death. When cleaner blood reached his brain, he checked
his just dry-cleaned suit for collateral damage and saw the writing on the
wall. Under a weak orange glow, he learned that ‘Quinny sux cox’ and where he
could find ‘yung gay virgins to be fukt hard.’
Chewing gum to cleanse his palate, he found Slowey leaning on the
Fiesta and sucking down a menthol cigarette.
“Any water in there?”
“I can do you the melted ice from a regular diet coke. With or
without the sticky straw?”
“When in Rome. Open that door as well.”
Weak light found the huddled shape in the bus shelter again.
Harkness prodded the form then stood back, hands in pockets. Slowey’s mobile
phone was playing a rumba, the closest thing to a street party this
neighbourhood had ever known.
“Morning, Mickey.”
The shape turned, spectacles blank with reflected light, thick
black hair crammed under a woolly hat, sleeping bag zipped up to the nose.
“DC Slowey, I don’t know if you’ve met Mickey.”
“Fugg arf,” mumbled the shape into its carapace of hair and damp
nylon.
“How rude.” Harkness looked over his shoulder to see Slowey
nodding emphatically with the mobile clasped to his ear. With his free arm, he
flicked away the suit sleeve to brandish his child-size digital watch at
Harkness.
“Oh, well. ‘Til next time.”
“Gehway arn fagg yoozeff,” mumbled the shape again, spectacles
turning to the wall and reflected lights flicking off.
“Who was that, then?” asked Slowey, moving off in third gear with
a commotion of juddering and whining as Harkness secured his seat belt on the
first attempt with a pleasing appearance of soberness.
“That was Mickey Patten. Mickey the Bridge. Military fantasist and
full-time troll. You must have seen him.”
“Must I?”
“Stands on the bridge all day, lives underneath it, or used to.
Nobody’s seen the Billy Goats Gruff for a while.”
“Oh, him. Why’s he on a bench then? What’s his story?”
“It’ll keep.” Harkness absent-mindedly rubbed his forehead in
slow, delicate circles, willing his brain to start working, hoping all the
synapses would start to fire. “What was the phone call?”
“Night-turn sergeant at the crime scene politely enquiring where
the fuck we were. I told him the wanton use of foul epithets betokened a casual
and unwarranted degree of aggression, suggestive of lazy thought processes and
high blood pressure. He said I knew where I could stick my fucking degree and I
said I did indeed and we’d be there in a jiffy.”
“Good enough.” Harkness flicked down the sunscreen, causing it to
drop into his lap to Slowey’s complete indifference. Shrugging and twisting the
rear view mirror his way, he checked his teeth for unsightly debris, scowled at
the remains of his eyebrows, rubbed grit from his eyes, ran a hand over the salt
and pepper stubble lining his chin and tightened the knot of his tie. “Who was
it?”
“Morose. Mr Happy himself.”
“Great. How do I look?”
“Well,
you look like a 6’5”, flame-grilled orang-utan in a bad suit, so that’s nearly
normal.”
“Doesn’t
look too bad from here,” said Slowey as his car slewed into the cul-de-sac he’d
nearly overshot. Finding further progress barred by parked cars and emergency
vehicles, he goaded the car onto the pavement at the junction of Marne Close
with Somme Avenue.
Harkness
studied the street. Thirty homes, all semi-detached, number one next to him,
number thirty across the road. Probably built between the wars with well tended
squares of grass at the front, garages wide enough for a car at the side and
generous gardens at the rear, should the householders ever need to dig for
victory. Some had well-tended flowerbeds behind freshly painted gates and
manicured hedges, their residents old enough to care about appearances. Others
had replaced turf with concrete and gravel, the better to accommodate cars,
caravans, mopeds, rusting children’s bicycles and incontinent dogs. Any
remaining latticework or shards of colour in doors or windows were conceits of
the double-glazing industry, but original mock-Tudor beams and whitewash
abounded.
A
jamboree of colour was in full swing behind the police tape. Blue lights spun
and flickered atop livid red fire engines and bone white police cars and
ambulances. Beyond them a telescopic floodlight bleached every window and paving
stone yellow. The air was grainy with smoke and a generator throbbed. The shy
and discreet twitched their curtains while others slouched in doorways in boxer
shorts and dressing gowns, smoking, drinking tea or taking snaps and movie
clips with mobile phones.
“That’ll
be it then.” Slowey opened the boot and pointed to a house near the end of the
cul-de-sac, its façade now imprinted with a grasping claw of soot and crowned
with a halo of steam. He shrugged himself into his webbing, peering at it to
ensure the cuffs, CS, baton and radio were present and correct, then slipped
his jacket back on.
“Expecting
trouble, Slow?” said Harkness, brandishing pen and notebook.
“You
never know. Once a boy scout.”
“Always
an old woman. Bring the big torch. We might actually need that and you can
always hit someone with it if the mood takes you.”
“Nice
of you to join us, detectives.”
A
figure slipped under the police tape and approached them, peak cap covering his
eyes and fluorescent tabard streaked with grime. He swept his cap off, wiped a
film of sweat and smuts from his forehead, spat something grey into the gutter
and settled his hands on his utility belt. Beneath his stab vest, the
sweat-sodden hems of his shirt were bulging over cuffs, baton and belly fat.
“Always
a pleasure, Sergeant Morse. Look at the state of your new fluorescent.”
“Didn’t
it rain where you were? Cats and dogs for about five minutes here, then back to
this bastard heat. Just made all this filth stickier. Anyway, get promoted, did
you?”
“Hard
to imagine, I know.”
“Right,
you’ll be taking over then. We’ve done the usual.”
Harkness
sighed and stared at the scuffed and dull toes of Morse’s boots.
“Indulge
me, Sarge.” Harkness flicked open his notebook, noted the date and time and
held his pen poised.
“Well,”
began Morse, wiping the back of his hand across his nose and examining the
results, “we were the last to arrive. Next door, number 14, puts in the call to
Fire, says people are trapped. They turn out, put the door in, can’t get
upstairs. Then they put a ladder up and find three people, drag them out.
Paramedics can’t revive them here so they get carted off to County and they’re
dead on arrival. Fire says front door was point of ignition so we haven’t let
anyone move.”
“Anything
else?”
“You’re
not writing much.”
The
effort of focussing on the trajectory of his pen and the words left jittering
and looping in its wake made Harkness’s guts twitch. “Listen first, write
later, that’s why we’ve each got two ears and one pen. Please continue.”
“Scene
log being done by PC Jones. Due off an hour ago but we all like a bit of OT.”
“And?”
“And,
and, and.” Morse shook his head briskly and produced a scrap of paper from
under his tabard. “Voter’s roll shows Dale and Suzanne Murphy at this address.
A woman and two kiddies have been found. Nobody else in there.”
“Excellent.
You sent anyone to County with the bodies?”
“PC
Carruthers and his tame PCSO. But we’re pulled out tonight and I’d like someone
back on the town pronto.”
“Thanks
for all your help, Sarge,” said Harkness, smiling sweetly. “We’ll do our best
to expedite matters.”
“Just
one more thing, DS Harkness. You smell like a wino’s crotch. I never had you
down as old school, but I suppose rank has its privileges. No offence, just
thought you might like to know.”
“So,
Rob. I mean
Sarge
,” began Slowey, lifting the police tape for Harkness
who was striding forward, massaging the bridge of his nose with eyes tight
shut, “How do you want to play this?”
He
cranked open his eyes and breathed in deeply, immediately regretting it. “Right
then. You can go and do all the legwork you’re so good at. You know, check the
scene log, get the house to house underway, update comms, get SOCO turned out,
that sort of thing. I’ll go and stare at the ash and press the flesh. Noblesse
oblige, and all that. Oh, and I might see a man about a dog.”
“Come
again?” Slowey’s ballpoint had already filled a page and his tongue was
clenched between his teeth.
“Never
mind. Just keep writing it all down. Oh, and something I forgot to do last
time. Have you got your magic ink with you?”
“Always,
Sarge.”
“Good
man. If you get a minute, take elimination prints from anyone who might have
had a reason to visit that house.”
“Okey
doke,” said Slowey, smiling sweetly as he scribbled. “Perhaps if you stick a
broom up my arse, I could tidy up as well.”
Harkness
planted his feet on concrete sticky with wet ash and shut out the noisy
gyrations surrounding him. His eyes traced the trailing fire hoses to the
garden gate and over the gravel driveway, which crackled as water thick with
poison drained into it, leaving behind a scum of carbon and foam.
The
front door sagged, ajar. Below the letterbox, charred ripples in the plastic
showed where something had dripped and burned. The frame was ruptured and warped,
partly by heat, partly by the fire brigade’s attentions. Inside, a thick and
bitter blackness sucked in and crushed the light. Most of the windows, ground
floor and first, were stained with soot on the inside and pristine outside. A
large window on the first floor had been smashed, and a long ladder was still
propped against it.
He allowed himself to imagine it. Tendrils of smoke teasing the nose; an
irritation becoming terror in seconds. The hiss and roar of a hungry animal
consuming the house and anything that stood in its path. Heat bulging from the
walls, crushing the air, drowning the senses. Children surrendering to an
ecstasy of fear, howling, weeping and imploring. Mother mastering the keening
in her own soul and mustering her brood with a catch in her throat and razor
blades of panic in her veins. All of them pushed back from the stairs by the
vanguard of smoke with lances of flame advancing beneath it.
He
knew this must have happened. They couldn’t have slept through it and drifted
into comfortable oblivion as the oxygen was pilfered from their lungs. It
wasn’t impossible, but maternal instinct and primal fear together would surely
have been alerted by the first jubilant gasp of the fire taking hold. So why
didn’t they call someone? Why didn’t they get out? And where was the man of the
house, assuming he was still on the scene?
“Now
then, Rob, how you keeping?” A fire-fighter had joined Harkness, visor raised
above his white helmet, lavish moustache beaded with sweat and grime. He rifled
his memory for the man’s name: McKay.
“I
can’t complain. What do you think of this, then?”
“Call
out at 0035 hours, fire under control by 0055 hours. Malicious ignition, no
doubt. Accelerant through the letterbox, seat of fire in the hallway just below
the front door. Occupants found under the bed in the master bedroom upstairs.
Probably asphyxiated.”
A
hose began slithering away, causing Harkness to take a step back. A fire
fighter was reeling it back into a tender while another dropped a roll-up and
ground it under his boot.
“Meant
to ask, before I forget, how did that court case go? Firth, wasn’t it, and the Byron Street flats? Must be eighteen months ago now.”
“Two
years. Gutted a whole block but couldn’t prove intent. He got sentenced on a
lesser charge. He’s out and about again.”
“Bugger.”
“Never
mind, he’ll come again. Mr McKay, I’ll trouble you for two things if I may.
First, is Gretel on her way?”
“I
thought you might ask, so she’s being driven down from Hull. Lucky to have her
in the area really. Barbeque accident?” McKay was pointing at Harkness’s
eyebrows.
“You
should be a detective.”
“Very
common at this time of year. I’ve got some leaflets.”
“And
you know where you can stick them. Now then, won’t you give me the tour?” McKay
drew in a breath and chewed at his moustache. “I know: health and safety, risk
assessments, etcetera, etcetera. But I really need to get in there and you
could always say I’d have just charged in alone but for your guiding hand.”
“As
it’s you. What shoe size are you?”
“I’ll
just take the biggest you’ve got.”