D
on Brennan was in the kitchen. Sitting at the table. He replaced the phone, sat staring at it. His hand absently rubbing the stubble on his chin.
A cage … made of bones …
He heard sounds from the living room. A cheerful children’s song being sung on the TV. His wife Eileen talking to Josephina. And Josephina herself answering, her phrasing still unformed, just enjoying the sounds she could make, the novelty of communication. Laughing like all life had to offer was good.
A cage … made of bones …
He didn’t know how long he sat there, lost in his own thoughts, memories, but gradually became aware of a shadow standing before him, blotting out the light coming in from the garden.
‘What’s the matter? You all right?’
He looked up. Eileen. She read his eyes. Knew something wasn’t right. Sat down next to him. Behind them, the TV continued to play cheerfully.
‘What’s happened?’
He sighed. ‘Just spoke to Phil. He’s at a house down on East Hill.’ He fell silent, unsure how to say the next words.
‘And?’ Eileen, eager for news, even if it was bad.
‘There was a cage in there. With a child in. A cage of bones … ’
Eileen’s hand went to her mouth. ‘Oh my God … oh no … ’
They sat there, not speaking, not moving, while garden sunlight cast shadows round them and a contented child played in the next room, unaware that the world could ever be a bad place.
‘W
here’s the body?’ Rose Martin said, trying not to look at the ground.
Glass looked round, back to Rose. ‘Taken away. I didn’t think you needed to see it. Very nasty.’
A flame of anger flared inside her.
He
didn’t think she needed to see it?
He
didn’t? She took a moment, composed herself. It was probably the right thing, she thought. She didn’t need to see a body, not her first day back. And she could hardly have refused if it had been there. Instant loss of respect. She waited until the anger subsided before speaking. ‘Four-by-fours tend to do that,’ she said.
‘They will,’ Glass said, ‘especially when they’re the second car to hit.’ He turned to her. ‘I didn’t think you should see the results of that. Not on your first day back.’
She nodded. ‘Right. Thank you.’ Gave a small laugh. ‘Just what I was thinking.’
He smiled again. ‘No problem. Body’s in the mortuary if you need to see it. Give Nick Lines a call.’
His hand touched her shoulder. Just briefly, then away. Her anger flared again. Should she make something of it? Ask him whether he would have done that to a male colleague? No, she decided. She didn’t want any trouble. Not yet.
But it meant he knew. Of course he knew; everyone at the station knew. And he’d made up his mind based on that. The affair with Ben had ended up common knowledge. No doubt, she had thought, rumours would do the rounds about the speed of her return being because she was now Glass’s lover. Let them. She could take it.
And if this new boss thought he had a chance with her as well … She could play her part, play along. Let him think he had a chance, even. See what she could get out of it. A tactical deployment of weapons.
‘So what have we got here?’ Rose said, snapping on her latex gloves.
‘Road accident,’ said Glass, looking down at where deep black tyre tracks had come to a sudden, unexpected halt, the back of the 4x4. ‘Woman ran out in front of that car over there,’ he said, pointing to a VW Passat stuck in the banked side of the road, ‘then this one came along, finished the job. Dead virtually on impact. Woman who was driving’s in a right state.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Rose, not doing so. ‘She over there?’ She pointed to the ambulance parked at the side of the road.
‘They both are.’
A blonde woman who looked like a dishevelled footballer’s wife was sitting in the back of the ambulance. Blanket draped over her shoulders, she was staring off into the middle distance, but her eyes appeared more inward-looking than they had probably ever been in her life.
Next to her was a middle-aged man, dressed in a business suit and looking equally dishevelled. Neither of them was looking at each other.
‘They been any help?’ asked Rose.
‘Both said the same thing. This woman came running down the bank out of the trees. Didn’t stop. Probably going too fast. First car, the man, couldn’t swerve out of the way, tried to stop but there wasn’t time so just ploughed into her. Up and over the bonnet. Four-by-four hit her when she landed. Finished the job.’
Rose looked down at the ground once more. It was dark from more than just tyre tracks. She swallowed hard, pleased there was no body to see. Tried not to let the sight of the blood that was there disturb her. Questions, she thought. Keep it at bay with questions.
‘Happened this morning, you said?’
Glass nodded.
‘What time?’
‘Early. Very early. About sunrise, not much after. Six-ish.’
‘And what were our drivers doing out at that time?’
A smile crossed Glass’s features. ‘Lovers. They’d spent the night together. At a motel. He was off to work, she was off to get the kids up for school. Told poor old hubby she’d been with a sick friend all night.’
Rose smiled too. ‘So, the victim. Do we know who she is yet?’
‘One of the uniforms found a Visa Electron card in the woods. Name of … ’ he checked his notebook, ‘Faith Luscombe.’
‘Faith Luscombe … ’ Rose took out her phone, turned to Glass. ‘You checked her out?’
‘First thing I did. She’s known to us. Got a record. Soliciting.’
‘Where?’
‘Colchester. New Town.’
‘Bit out of the way, up here.’
‘Not necessarily,’ he said. ‘She was naked when she met her death. Might have been working.’
‘Could be,’ said Rose. ‘Out here with a client, parked up in there somewhere, got a bit rough, she ran away … ’ She looked at the steep bank. ‘Down that slope, into this car. Then that one.’ She suppressed a shudder. ‘Makes sense. So we should be looking for a clearing up there, a car. A place where she was running from. Any other witnesses.’
Another touch of her shoulder. ‘That’s what you’re here for.’
‘Right,’ she said.
‘We know how she died,’ he said, taking his hand away. ‘What we need to find out is how she got here. Throw some light on the matter.’
‘We’ll need to get in the woods, have a comb through.’
‘Uniforms have done that already. That’s how the card turned up.’
‘I’ll need to get them in there again. See what else we can find.’
Glass pulled a slightly pained expression. ‘Well … that might be difficult. We’re down on numbers at the moment. Budget cuts for one thing. And we’re a bit stretched. What with all that activity down on East Hill.’
Rose nodded, kept her face straight. Felt anger welling up inside again. Phil bloody Brennan. Once more, he had taken priority. She tamped the anger down, forced a smile. She knew how to get her own way.
She moved close to Glass. Arched her back once more. ‘Oh come on, Brian, I’m sure you could get some extra bodies in to help here … ’
Glass looked at her, face flat, expressionless. ‘DS Martin, I would if I could. But it’s just not possible. If you want to look in the woods again, you’ll have to do it yourself. Personally, I would accept what the uniforms found for now and move on.’
Rose backed off. Angry with him, angry with herself. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Fine. You got an address for her?’
He gave it to her. ‘And the name of the person she lives with. Donna Warren.’
‘Do we know her?’
‘Oh yes. Faith’s partner in crime.’
‘OK.’ She made a note.
Glass looked at his watch. ‘Better get a move on. I don’t think anyone’s going to be losing sleep over some prostitute who got herself killed, so let’s get this one wrapped up soon as, eh? Shouldn’t take you too long.’
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll just have a word with our couple over there, then get over to New Town.’
Glass stayed where he was. Rose thought something else was expected of her.
‘Thanks for this opportunity … ’ she almost called him Brian, ‘DCI Glass. I—’
He cut her off. ‘There’s something else.’ His face impassive.
Her heart skipped a beat. She waited.
‘I’m promoting you.’
She wasn’t sure she had heard him properly. ‘What?’
‘I’m promoting you. Provisionally, anyway.’
‘I … ’
‘You had applied for promotion before your … absence. I’d like to put it through.’
‘I don’t know what to say … ’
‘Thank you would be nice.’
She laughed, grinned. ‘Thank you.’
He didn’t. ‘You’re welcome. Right, DI Martin, this arrangement will become permanent once you’ve completed this assignment.’
‘Right.’
He looked straight at her, eyes boring into hers. ‘To my satisfaction. Understand?’
And suddenly she understood. Do what he wanted. That was what he meant. And she would. She wanted that promotion. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I won’t let you down.’
‘I know you won’t,’ he said, and turned away.
First day back on the job and she had been promoted. And because of that she didn’t care that Phil bloody bastard Brennan was taking precedence. She would show him. She would show all of them.
She walked over to the couple in the ambulance. Notepad at the ready.
She would show him. Show all of them.
T
he day fell away as Phil stepped carefully through the doorway of the run-down house.
The depressing ruin draped itself around him, sucking out the light. The floorboards creaked under his feet. He put his weight down slowly on each one, testing to see whether the wood had rotted, unsure if there was a cellar beneath and if so what it might contain.
The boards held. He moved slowly into the hallway. The smell struck him first. Neglect. Damp. Terminal decay. The close, fetid air clung to his face like a cold death mask. He pulled on latex gloves. Work-required, but in any case the thought of touching anything in this place felt like a contamination.
Phil couldn’t shake an irrational sense of unease. He analysed it: it didn’t make sense. He had attended much more dangerous crime scenes before. Some where his life had been in danger. A few that had been so bad his body had been crippled by panic attacks. So why was this – an empty old house – so bad? He couldn’t explain. But he knew he felt it.
Into what would once have been, he guessed, the living room. Nothing lived in it now. At least nothing human. Small shadows scurried away at the sides of his feet, disappeared down cracks, holes. He took out a pocket flashlight, swept it over the floor. Some of the boards were missing, rotted and caved in. But no cellar.
The room was empty of everything but detritus. Old pizza boxes and mouldering kebab wrappers were slowly breaking themselves down into compost. Rusting high-strength lager cans, empty bottles sticky with dust. Cigarette ends, both legal and illegal, were dotted around. Human consumption. And in the corner, the inevitable conclusion. Human waste. As old and atrophied as everything else in the room.
Damp cardboard and a festering, mouldering blanket had been a bed. Stained and crumpled pages from old, well-used porn mags at the side. Bedtime reading. From the patina of dust coating every surface, no one had been there for a while.
Two broken, unboarded windows on the far side of the room explained how the previous inhabitants had made their entrance and exit. Phil thought he heard something. A scuffling movement from somewhere. He straightened up, listened.
‘Hello?’
No reply. Just the dying echo of his voice through the ruin.
Heart beating faster, he turned right, into another room, that had once been a kitchen. Most of the cabinets were still in place, as was the remains of a cooker in the corner and an old fridge, the door open, hanging off. The walls, he noticed, had once been a cheerful yellow. But the vibrancy was gone, the fight given up. They were now streaked black with mould. A back door led out into a garden. He tried the handle. It didn’t budge. A thick wooden board had been nailed over the glass panels.
He swept the room with his flashlight, peered into the corners, the cabinets, even inside the oven. Nothing. He turned back into the main living room. Tried to imagine what the house had once been like. Couldn’t. The decay was too pervasive.
Turning left, he went into another hallway. Stairs led upwards. He took them.
Three doors presented themselves on a small landing. He chose the right-hand one. Found the wreck of a small bathroom. The sink smashed off the wall, the toilet pan cracked in two. The bath now a breeding ground for mould and mildew.
He opened the door on his left. The main bedroom. The room was completely bare. Peeling, damp walls, rotted wood, boarded windows. No furniture, just dirt and dust. The walls had been painted, not papered. Originally emerald green, it looked like. And the floor, too. Phil swung his flashlight again. There was something on the wall. He stepped in to examine it.
The same design they had found on the wall of the cellar beside the cage. Not a pentagram, but something … not right. And seeing it again, something clicked inside Phil. Something deep and hard, either lodging or dislodging. A tumbler in a vault combination falling into place.
He recognised it. He didn’t know what it was, but there was part of him that recognised it. Then the familiar constrictions started in his chest. Not a full-blown panic attack, just something low and rumbling. A sense of unease. He didn’t know what the symbol was, but it meant nothing good to him.
Trying to head the attack off, he backed out of the room. Tried the third door.
And immediately found himself thrown back out on to the landing.
His back and head hurt from contact with the bare wood, his chest from the force of the blow. It had knocked the wind out of his lungs. He tried to get his breath, gagged as he breathed in. The stink was awful. He opened his eyes. A vision of humanity – as wrecked as the house was – was on top of him. Screaming, hitting him about the head.
Phil didn’t have time to think, to do anything but react instinctively, use his urge for self-preservation. His arms were pinned at his sides, as much by his own body as by his assailant. He brought his knee up between his attacker’s legs, hard. The man gave a yelp of pain, like a wounded animal, drew back. Stopped hitting him as his hands went to his groin.
Phil knew this was only temporary, that his attacker would recommence soon, so he pressed the advantage. He brought his right fist up, straight into the man’s face. Felt it connect with nose cartilage. Saw blood spurt.
Glad he had remembered the latex gloves, he punched again. His assailant had no fight left in him. With another scream of pain, he dragged himself hurriedly off Phil, ran down the stairs. Phil got slowly to his feet, breathing in through his mouth. The smell was still in his nostrils.
He turned and, knowing that what he had seen on the wall would keep for later, gave chase.
The man was already out of the front door, running down the gravel drive, Phil after him, shouting for help. He reached the first house, headed towards the road. He saw the uniforms, the incident vehicles, the crowds ahead and turned. Made for the allotments.
Four uniforms gave chase. Phil joined them. Together they pursued what looked like a running bundle of rags
It was no contest. The officers brought him to the ground before he reached the allotment gates. Phil arrived in time to stand over them.
‘Right. Let’s get him on his feet.’
They helped the man to stand. Phil got a good look at him. He was older than expected. Although that might have been the long grey hair and beard. His clothing was in ruins and tatters, his features filthy and scabbed. His bleeding nose made him look even worse. And the smell. Like he was decomposing before them. Phil hadn’t thought it possible to decay that much and still live.
The fight had gone out of him now. He was whimpering.
‘Come on,’ said Phil, turning. ‘Let’s take him somewhere, have a chat.’
Phil hoped he had found the perpetrator, the child’s abductor. But looking at the wreck of humanity before him, he doubted it.