Cath Staincliffe: Blue Murder

Doc was kneeling beside the corpse, a Dictaphone in one gloved hand. The still cool air held a sickening mix of aromas; the stink of faeces and the nauseating tang of spilt blood. Janine sucked at her tongue to forestall the retching reflex. She wanted it under control before she looked any more closely at what was making the smell.

Rachel Grassmere glanced up and nodded hello, handed Janine a packet of Fisherman’s Friends. She took one gratefully, crunching on the lozenge to release the powerful fumes into her nose and mouth, to mask the stench.

‘Chief Inspector Lewis,’ Rachel Grassmere said.

‘This your baby?’

‘You could say that,’ Janine looked at Grassmere then at her bump. Raised her eyebrows. Grassmere grinned.

Janine studied the body. The man lay face down with his hands beneath him, half in and half out of the shed. His head was turned to the side so she could see the peculiar glassy stare of one eyeball and the right side of his ashen face. His mouth was pulled down in the slack repose that death left. He had black hair. Around him on the earth, his blood had spread, a pool of dark, lustrous liquid. The victim was wearing dark corduroy trousers, an anorak. She couldn’t see his footwear clearly, his feet rested inside the shed but they looked like some sort of boot, chunky soles. Had he fallen here? Or crawled out from the shed? She would ask forensics to try and establish that.

‘No visible sign of injury on the back, back of the skull or legs,’ Rachel Grassmere told her. ‘Doc’s just finishing off. We think we’ve got a shoe-print.’ Grassmere pointed and Janine followed her out to where a green plastic butt with a simple tap stood, the ground a little damp around it. ‘Looks like a partial sole from a trainer.’

She could barely make out the geometric pattern, would never have known it was there if she hadn’t been shown.

‘Went to wash his hands, or his shoes?’

‘Mr Tulley?’ Janine asked.

Grassmere shook her head. ‘Different tread.’

Janine waited at the edge of the area observing the socos at their work. She was eager to hear what they had found, what tiny clues pointed this way or that, but knew better than to press for information too soon.

She heard someone call her name and turned to look. Someone approaching. Tall bloke, slim build, nice face… she recognised that face… Richard Mayne! What on earth was he doing here? He lived down in London, had done since Tom was a baby. He carried a protective suit closely rolled in his hand.

‘Richard!’

He smiled. ‘Hello, stranger.’

Janine felt slightly embarrassed as she realised what she must look like in the Andy Pandy suit.

‘What you doing on my patch, then?’

‘Whatever you say, boss. I’m at your service.’

Janine shook her head. ‘I didn’t even know you were back.’ But it was great to see him. He was an excellent copper and a good mate. They’d had a laugh in the old days, competed for their sergeant’s badge, enjoyed spinning ideas off each other.

‘First day. I never really felt at home down south. Like another planet.’

‘Realised what you were missing?’

‘Something like that.’ There was a hint of mischief in his eye. She wondered what he meant exactly.

Then Rachel Grassmere called to them. ‘We’ll turn him, now.’

‘Come and see what we’ve got,’ Janine told Richard.

He unrolled the suit and began to pull it on.

Jade was not allowed to play on the allotments. Mam told her very clearly with her mouth pulled back so you could see her gums and the brown bits where her teeth had gone all bad. ‘There’s bad men go there,’ she was told. ‘They get little girls like you and hurt them, cut them into little pieces.’

Jade’s belly hurt and she wanted to go to Nana’s but if she said then Mam might guess something was up and start asking her and she couldn’t tell Mam that she’d been to the allotments.

She sat on the back yard wall, watching. There was a funny tent there now like at a Funday and people waiting on the path but there weren’t any balloons or burgers. Mam was still asleep and Jade wasn’t allowed to wake her up. Not allowed. She was starving. Maybe if she had some food the tummy ache would go away. She jumped from the wall onto the top of the wheelie bin then down. In the kitchen she helped herself to two pieces of sliced white bread. She didn’t want jam today. Okay. She didn’t even want to think about that.

She went and lay in front of the telly. She picked holes in the bread, pulling pieces away and rolling them between her fingers into small, grey balls. She chewed them one at a time. She flicked the channels. Boring tennis, boring film with no colours, boring car racing, boring golf, Channel 5 was so fuzzy you couldn’t tell what was on. She was so bored and her belly still hurt.

Eddie Vincent stood at his bedroom window looking at the hustle and bustle below. He shivered and moved a little to the edge of the frame, peered out with rheumy eyes through the grubby, grey floral nets to the allotment beyond. He couldn’t get warm, no matter what.

Stone-cold from the inside out. There were bobbies swarming all over the place. They’d put some sort of tent up around Matthew Tulley’s shed. He ought to go down there – tell them what he had seen. It was his duty And he had always done his duty. Oh, yes, he thought with rancour, he had always done his duty.

But he was too sick. They’d come calling anyroad wouldn’t they? Door-to-door. On the knocker. Hah He’d loved the door-to-door. Canvassing in the old days. You always had a few grousers, them that nothing were good for and there was no persuading them otherwise. But the rest, they’d turned out for him. And he’d won, hadn’t he? Elected to the council for a good nineteen years, and then the Trots muscled in. Lads, wet around the ears, full of piss and wind and big ideas.

Couldn’t do a thing while Thatcher was hacking away at everything. Thatcher, Thatcher, Milk Snatcher. He’d seen things change, then. People ground down, kids going hungry, turning wild. Apathy blooming like black mildew. And now: rickets back, TB back. Kids still dragged up in poverty. He hadn’t been into Manchester for months but when he used to go he saw all the homeless and the beggars. And the NHS close to collapse they were saying.

Funny place to die, your allotment. He and Maisie had kept theirs on till the end of rationing. Lean years and they’d have been much worse but for the crops they raised there. Not that you could grow sugar or chocolate or butter or raise a pig. But they picked sackfuls of vegetables and fruit.

When he was overseas, supplies had been regular at first, dull but ample. An army marches on its stomach after all, or crawls on it. It got harder later on. He’d eaten cat in Italy, trapped in the mountains with his chums; dark, stringy meat that made him gag but he forced it down. Not something he’d care to repeat. In fact, he’d no desire to relive any part of his life. His time was nearly up, he didn’t think he’d see the year out and with that thought there came a surprising sense of relief.

He shivered again and the pain came, sluicing through his belly. He bent forward gasping, then edged along the wall to the chest of drawers. He picked up the bottle, no lid on it, and shook out a tablet. He swallowed it and turned and took two steps to the bed. He climbed in, shucking off his slippers. He pulled the eiderdown and candlewick bedspread round him, curled on his side. His arms wrapped round his belly trying to warm it. The pillow smelt fetid. He imagined clean sheets, smelling of fresh air, a hot water bottle with its rubber scent, warm milk. The comforts that Maisie would have rustled up for him. Or his mother. Dabbing Calamine on his measles, making mustard baths to break his fever, rubbing camphorated oil on his chest on bitter winter mornings. The curtains were still open, the room full of light but he was in bed now. Too weak to move. He closed his eyes.