Franklins phone launched into what sounded like Gilbert and Sullivans ode about policemen being a poor put-upon bunch of sods. Yes?... What, now?
Oh... Right, well, if you can give me a call when youve done that, thatll be great and we can get on with the geographical side of things and I suppose it wont hurt to spend a little time dealing with the severed feet case, and did I tell you we post mortemed the other mummy?
Is that the one from the tip, or the car?
The tip, and I think I know why it was thrown away.
Franklin started the car again. Yeah, well be there soon as we can.
Silence from the phone.
Dr McDonald?
Sorry, dropped my chocolate biscuit. The mummy from the car was eviscerated and the internal organs preserved separately then stitched back inside. The body in the tip wasnt so lucky. He tried to preserve it whole, and mummification only works if you can dry out the remains faster than the microbes inside can decompose it.
The gears made complaining grinding noises as Franklin performed a hurried three-point turn. She stuffed her mobile into a pocket. Put your seatbelt on.
He covered the mouthpiece. Where are we going?
Someones just broken into Brett Millars house.
When was this?
Now. Right now. Neighbour just called it in.
abdominal cavity is full of slippery moist organs and they go off incredibly quickly if you dont preserve them, thats why undertakers inject everything with preserving fluid when you die, because otherwise youd probably burst during the eulogies, and that wouldnt be very nice for the mourners, would it?
Any idea who broke in? Did the neighbour recognise them?
How should I know?
So my educated guess is that Paddington is one hundred percent committed to the end result. Hes venerating these bodies by mummifying them, but they have to be perfect. This one wasnt, so he disposed of it and started again. That also means hes learning.
Franklin put her foot down, sending pantile boxes whizzing past the car windows. Where am I going, and how do we put on the blues-and-twos in this thing?
Callum pulled out his notebook and flipped it open, bracing his knees against the door and the dashboard. Walderswell Court. Right at the end, then left. He reached out and poked a switch, setting the sirens wailing and the lights flashing.
DC MacGregor?
Still here, Doc.
Please dont call me Doc it always makes me feel like Im meant to be one of the seven dwarfs and I know Im not the tallest person in the world, but I like to think Im a bit bigger than that, and if you think about it
OK, OK, sorry. Not Doc. Youre definitely not one of the seven dwarfs. After all, Snow Whites roll call didnt go: Sleepy, Grumpy, Dopey, Doc, Sneezy, Happy, Bashful, and Bug-Eyed Crazy Weirdo Person.
You can call me Alice, if you like, or do you prefer to keep things on a formal footing, sometimes thats better in a work evironment, isnt it, or does it just make me seem all distant and aloof, which would be bad, because I think we should operate as a team and
No, that would be great. Alice it is. He grabbed the handle above the door as Franklin threw them around the corner past another long sweeping row of houses. Go right at the end and its second on the left. Back to the phone. Was there anything else, Alice? Only were wheeching across town trying to get to a break-in before the thieving scumbag legs it.
No, that would be great. Alice it is. He grabbed the handle above the door as Franklin threw them around the corner past another long sweeping row of houses. Go right at the end and its second on the left. Back to the phone. Was there anything else, Alice? Only were wheeching across town trying to get to a break-in before the thieving scumbag legs it.
Oh, right. Sorry. That explains the sirens and things in the background, doesnt it? Ill let you go. She hung up.
Yup. Three hundred and sixty degrees of weird. He put his phone away as the pool car screeched around the corner and into an older, less gentrified bit of Blackwall Hill. No more lock-block driveways and formation gnomes. No more attic conversions. Just street after street of identical semidetached bungalows, bristling with satellite dishes.
Franklin waved a hand across the car. Kill the siren!
He clicked the button and she hit the brakes, just before the corner, swinging around onto Walderswell Court at a sensible thirty miles per hour. The police vehicular equivalent of whistling a casual tune to kid on youre not up to something.
The houses here were just a bit smaller than the ones on the road outside, jammed in just a bit tighter too. Number 32 was down the far end, next to a building plot. From the signage fixed to the site fencing, someone was chucking up two blocks of LUXURY STARTER FLATS!!! where a pair of wee bungalows used to be.
Yeah, good luck selling those, stuck on the border between Blackwall Hill and Kingsmeath. You could see the dual carriageway from here... Wonder if that was where Brett and his mates got the idea to do up their flat on Customs Street?
Franklin coasted the last twenty feet, engine idling. How can we be first on the scene?
You drive like a maniac, what do you expect? Callum popped open the glove compartment and took out the box of nitrile gloves, pulling two from the slot in the top like rubbery blue tissues. Tossed the box across to Franklin. Well, come on then.
He climbed out into the drizzle and snapped his gloves on. Pulled out his pepper spray.
Across the road, a little old man peered out from between a pair of net curtains. Walking stick in one hand, phone in the other. That would be their informant.
Callum half crouched, half ran across the pavement and up the driveway to Brett Millars house. No sign of forced entry on the front door. The handle was cold in his fingers... and it wouldnt budge. Locked.
Franklin flattened herself on the other side of the door, extendable baton extended. Well?
Doesnt look like he got in the front way.
She nodded at the other side of the road. Then how did Nosey Norman see it to call it in?
Good point.
Callum pointed. Round the side.
A six-foot wooden fence marked the boundary between number 32 and the building site, leaving just enough space for a narrow gravel path and a full-height gate. It was hanging off its hinges.
On the other side, a bush was flattened, as if someone had fallen into it. A smear of blood on the harling, probably left by sticking their hand out to break their fall. Oh yeah, this one was a master criminal. With any luck theyd be in the kitchen making themselves a bacon buttie.
Round the back.
The kitchen door was wide open, the glass in the bottom section smashed into regular safety-sized cubes.
Franklin held up a fist, then stuck one finger up and swept it in the direction of the back door. Clenched her fist again.
Callum stared at her. Are you off your head? This isnt the A-Team.
A sigh, then she slipped in through the broken door, bent almost double.
God help us.
He followed her inside.
The kitchen was ground zero for a whirlwind of tins and smashed mugs, jagged shards of plate covering the lino floor, blood-spatters of tomato ketchup on the tiles above the cooker. A shattered jar of mayonnaise lying spent against the dented fridge.
Callum crunched through a drift of Special K. Wow. Someones behind on their housework.
Franklin did the ridiculous SWAT team signs again, then crouched her way out into the hall.
He wandered after her.
The hallway was a mess of thrown coats and hurled boots, the plasterboard dented where theyd hit the walls. Franklin did a slow three-sixty, then froze and pointed down the hall. Four doors: three shut, one wide open bangs and crashes thumping out of it. Then a computer monitor bounced off the hall carpet, the display a spiders web of fractured glass.
She crept down the hall, baton raised and ready.
It would be a druggie, off his proverbials on coke, or crack, or jellies, or smack. Sees the house is empty and bingo tries his hand at a bit of DIY Bargain Hunt...
Or maybe it was someone who knew Brett, Ben, and Glen? Someone who knew they might have a stash lying about. Or, going by the destruction, someone they owed money to.
Callum flicked the safety cap off his pepper spray. Shall we dance?
Franklin raised an eyebrow. Looked at him for a moment, then smiled a nasty smile. Foxtrot or tango?
Good. He smiled back. Lets see where the music takes us.
She barged in through the open door. POLICE! ON YOUR KNEES, NOW!
He thumped through less than a breath behind her, into the heart of a disaster. The wardrobe doors were ripped off their hinges, clothes everywhere; a computer desk smashed almost beyond recognition; single bed overturned, the slats cracked and splintered like broken ribs; a disembowelled games console, spilling its electronic innards across the floor; posters torn from the wall.
And there, in the middle of the hurricane, was a man long greasy hair dangling down his back, sunken eyes, cheekbones you could carve granite with, wrists like two bones wrapped in pink cling film. Skin so pale every vein popped out like a blue-green worm. A solid ring of love bites around his neck. Filthy hoodie, filthy tracksuit bottoms, bare, filthy feet speckled with blood.
Full-on junky chic.
He had both hands above his head probably not helping with the rotting-cabbage stink of sweat and that stale spicy base-note of old marijuana holding a desktop computer covered in stickers, cables and a keyboard dangling from the ports in the back.
Captain Filthy just stood there, staring at them.
Franklin whipped the baton back into first-strike position. PUT THE COMPUTER DOWN AND GET ON YOUR KNEES!
He bared his brown-grey teeth.
IM NOT TELLING YOU AGAIN: KNEES, NOW!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! The computer went flying, hurled full force at Franklins head.
She ducked left, but it still caught her on the shoulder, spinning her one way while it went the other, cables flapping.
Captain Filthy lunged for Callum, arms out, hands like claws.
So he got a face full of pepper spray.
Oh crap...
Might as well have sprayed him with lavender floor polish, because Captain Filthy just kept on coming.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!