Simon Beckett - The Restless Dead

The front door had long since lost any paint that might have once covered it. Warped and decrepit, it hung skewed in its frame. The handle rattled loosely in my hand when I turned it. The door wasn’t locked. It juddered open on rusted hinges, and an ammoniac stink of animal faeces spilled out.

‘God,’ Rachel muttered, wrinkling her nose.

A dark hallway confronted us. I played the torch over the peeling and mildewed wallpaper and bare floorboards. There was no furniture, only a single, broken chair. The floor was covered with old newspapers and mounds of what looked like faecal matter I hoped was animal.

‘Stacey?’ I called.

There was no answer, but now I could hear faint bumps and fluttering coming from further inside.

‘Here, let me try the lights,’ Rachel said, moving past me to reach for a switch on the wall. She flicked it a few times, but nothing happened. ‘OK, so much for that idea.’

Careful of where I walked, I stepped across the threshold. Rachel followed close behind as I went down the hallway. The smell was even worse inside, and I felt ashamed and angry that Edgar had been left to live alone in those conditions. Glad of the torch’s heft, I went to the nearest door and pushed it open.

The quiet was shattered by an ear-splitting shriek.

Rachel grabbed my arm, making the torch beam jerk crazily. Caught in the light, a seagull glared haughtily from inside a makeshift wooden cage.

‘Jesus...’ Rachel let go of me but stayed close.

I shone the torch around the bizarre scene in the room. Now the source of the noises I’d heard was explained. It was a kitchen, or at least had been. The encrusted sink was almost buried under filthy dishes and empty food cans, and the walls were stacked high with cages. Glowing eyes stared back at us from ancient bird and hamster cages, rabbit hutches and even an old fish tank. Most were occupied by seabirds, but there were small animals as well: rodents, rabbits, a hedgehog and even a young badger, all of them injured, some with splinted wings or legs. Inside the grimy oven, which was missing its door, a young fox watched us from behind a screen of chicken wire.

‘How can he have lived like this?’ Rachel asked in a hushed voice. ‘Wouldn’t somebody have known?’

Apparently not. Leaving Edgar’s menagerie to the shadows, we went back into the hallway. I shone the torch along its length, wondering if I should check the bedrooms upstairs next. I didn’t relish the prospect.

‘Wait, shine the torch back,’ Rachel said, pointing. ‘There, on the floor.’

Picked out like a theatrical prop in the beam of light, an object was lying by a half-open door.

A woman’s shoe.

It lay on its side, the ankle strap broken and the white leather mud-stained. I could hear Rachel breathing beside me, fast and tense. I shone the torch back on the doorway, trying to see through the gap into the room.

‘Stacey?’

There was no answer. Rachel stayed close behind me as I went down the hall. I thought about telling her to stay where she was, but I knew she wouldn’t take any notice. I put my hand on the door.

‘Stacey?’ I said again, gently pushing it open.

There were more cages in here, though not so many, and most of these were empty. A grubby tapestry hung on one wall, embroidered with the first verse of ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. A large chesterfield stood with its back to the doorway, stuffing sprouting like fungus from the cracked leather.

A bare foot hung over the end. In the torchlight its toenails looked black, but I knew from seeing them in daylight they were varnished bright red.

‘Stay here,’ I told Rachel.

She didn’t argue, but I wasn’t trying to spare her. I knew from the unnatural stillness of the foot what I was going to find, and the fewer people who disturbed this place now the better.

I didn’t want to go inside myself, but I had to make sure. I took a few more careful paces into the room, until I could see what was on the sofa.

In the light of the torch, Coker’s daughter lay splayed and unmoving on the cushions. Her blond hair framed a face that was unnaturally swollen and dark. The open eyes bulged as though in surprise, the sclera shot through with broken blood vessels.

I shone the torch away, sickened. As the darkness hid her again, I took a few steadying breaths, shaken by what I’d seen. I’d known when I’d gone into the house that there was a good chance she’d be dead. I’d been prepared for that.

What I hadn’t been prepared for was that Stacey Coker was naked from the waist down.

Blue lights strobed the darkness, casting a sapphire hue on the underside of the trees that crowded around the old house. Police cars and trucks lined the lane leading to it, squeezed into the undergrowth at each side to leave clear access. Floodlights had been set up in the garden, if it could be called that, casting moving shadows of the white-clad CSIs against the dilapidated walls.

I sat sideways in the open door of a police car, my feet resting on the wet ground outside. The rain had stopped, but the damp freshness of the air was polluted by exhaust fumes from the cars and generator. The white Land Rover had gone and so had Rachel, led away to give her statement as more police arrived. I didn’t know if Edgar was still here or not. The last I’d seen of him was when he’d been taken from the Land Rover and put into a patrol car. His eyes were scared and uncomprehending as he stared at the bright lights and chaos transforming his home. As he shuffled past me there was a soft pattering sound, and I saw a growing wet patch spreading on his crotch. Even knowing what he’d done, I felt a stirring of pity.

Until I remembered the teenager’s body sprawled on his sofa.

I hadn’t given Rachel any details when I’d left the living room, but she’d seen enough from my face. It was a relief to go out into the fresh air and leave the squalor of the house behind, although the image of what I’d seen still burned in my mind. I would have happily left Edgar locked inside the Land Rover until the police arrived, except that there was still the small matter of calling them first. The mobile reception was as fitful as ever, and I’d no idea how far we’d have to go to find a signal. In the end we were forced to get back in the car and drive until I could make the call.

It was a tense journey. Rachel drove while I kept a watch on the gangling figure in the back as I waited for a signal for my phone. He sat placidly enough, but after what I’d seen it felt as if we were sharing the car with an unpredictable animal. One that was all the more dangerous because it seemed so harmless.

We didn’t have to go far before the signal bars flickered into life. Rachel and I both got out of the car while I phoned Lundy, not wanting to talk in front of Edgar. Late as it was, the DI answered. He sounded tired, and heaved a sigh as I told him what had happened, though without going into details.

‘Ah, Christ. How bad is it?’

I glanced at where Rachel was leaning against the Land Rover. She looked small and lost, staring at the ground as the wind ruffled her hair. ‘Very.’

Lundy told me to go back and stay outside the house until they got there. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to slip my arm around Rachel while we waited. She leaned against me wordlessly, and we stood like that until the first police car arrived. Lundy came half an hour later, by which time the house had been secured behind a flimsy barrier of flapping police tape. He stopped for a few words, asking if Rachel and I were all right. Then he went to talk to the CSIs and the rest of the crime scene team before disappearing into the house.

Rachel and I were separated shortly afterwards. No one suggested I leave as well, though there was no real reason for me to be there. Whatever had happened here, it wasn’t anything a forensic anthropologist could help with. Frears got to the house soon after Lundy. The pathologist’s smooth face looked puffy and pale above the blue coveralls, as though he’d not long been awake. He favoured me with a tight smile as he walked past, snapping on a pair of gloves.