Chris Simms - Savage Moon

'Suicide. There's a note with the body, it puts Peterson right in the shit.'

'Where is this squat?'

'Head towards the city centre on the Oldham Road, it's the last tower block on your left just before you hit Great Ancoats Street. You can't miss the place, it's a total eyesore.'

'I'm on my way.' As he dropped the phone on to the passenger seat behind him, the thought burrowed back to the front of his mind. Where the hell is my wife?

Jon got there forty minutes later. A uniform waved him into a lay-by on the opposite side of the road to the ugly building. A barrier of blue construction site hoardings had been erected round the base of the derelict premises. Judging by the volume of graffiti covering them, they'd been there for quite some time. Rick stood waiting in the gap where one panel had been removed.

'You looked fucked, mate,' his partner cheerfully announced.

'Thanks.'

'How's Alice?'

Jon shook his head in reply. 'By the way, I've stepped down from trying to head up the investigation. Summerby's assuming responsibility.'

'Probably not a bad thing. You've got other things on your plate.'

'Yeah well, your position on the team is unaffected. I guess you're just lumped with me.'

'Perfect. We're still in the thick of it, but now the pressure's off.'

I wish, Jon thought, turning to the building that loomed over them. 'This looks a nice place to live.'

The overgrown grass surrounding the tower block was littered with debris. Segments of window frames, panels of formica, squares of plywood. Sprinkled over everything was a generous amount of broken glass. All the windows at ground level were covered by metal plates, those on the first and second floors by chipboard. But many had been kicked out and, from the third floor up, no windows or even frames existed.

Looking up, Jon could see the ceilings of the higher flats, only bare plaster and wires where lights had once hung. A sign on the side of the building announced, If any incident occurs in connection to this property, call Secure Holdings.

He read the phone number, wondering how long ago the company had gone out of business. 'People actually live in here?' he asked as Rick led him to a side door, the metal panel covering it bent back.

'Quite a few. They're all in the main foyer giving statements. According to the housing inspectors who found the body, the building was first taken over by a bunch of art students. There's no leccy or gas, but the water's still connected, so they weren't shitting in buckets. They held a few wild parties, then the local vermin cottoned on. It soon descended into crack dens and all the rest of it. The students were scared off a long time ago.'

'Where was Danny Gordon?'

'Sixteenth floor, corner flat. I don't think many could be arsed climbing up that high. The door to the flat was locked, but the smell gave it away.'

Squeezing through the gap between the door frame and protective panel, they entered a stairwell that reeked of urine. Jon was instantly reminded of the sharp aroma in the panthers' dens.

As they set off up the stairs Jon noted that the elaborate murals on the walls had been ruined by a covering of mindless graffiti. It was, he thought, a clear indication of the order in which the tower block had been colonised. Arty free-thinkers first, brain- dead no-thinkers second. As they reached each landing the view over the city became more impressive. To their right was Sportcity, site of the facilities built for the Commonwealth Games and now used by local teams, including Manchester City Football Club in the main stadium. He spotted the B of the Bang sculpture, a collection of metal spikes radiating outward from a central point that was meant to symbolise the explosion of energy from a starting pistol. Jon smiled when he thought of what the locals had named it: Kerplunk.

As soon as they stepped out into the corridor of the sixteenth floor the smell hit him. There it is, Jon said to himself. The unmistakeable aroma of rotting human. They paused at the door to flat while Rick took out a couple of white face masks from the scene of crime bag kindly left at the door by forensics.

Jon was looking at the splintered wood a third of the way up the door frame. 'What went on here?'

'The housing inspectors kicked it open, reckoned the smell was dead pigeons.'

'They didn't have keys?' Jon asked, mask held to his face.

'Not for the lower lock. Looks like Danny Gordon had fitted that one himself.'

Jon stepped through the door and turned around. At the top of the door was a bolt. 'That wasn't drawn?'

'Suppose not,' Rick replied. 'Is that significant?'

Jon shrugged. 'If he took the trouble to lock himself in, why not draw the bolt across too?'

'You're thinking someone else locked him in, from the outside?'

'Maybe. No doubt it's suicide?'

'It looks more or less certain, though there is something odd on the suicide note.'

Rick walked down the bare concrete corridor and into the front room. In an attempt to reduce the draught that must have blown in, Gordon had tacked plastic sheeting over the window frame, reducing the light from the outside. A few packing crates stood in one corner, clothes piled untidily on top. In the middle of the room a fold-out table was covered in empty tins. Soup, baked beans, ravioli.

In the other corner Danny Gordon's corpse lay on a bare mattress. Decomposition was well under way, but even the patches of black blossoming under the waxy skin couldn't mask the obvious injuries to his face. He was wearing a T-shirt and shell-suit trousers. The trainer and sock on his left foot were missing and sticking out from between his bare toes was a tarnished syringe.

'Look at his forearms, completely fucked,' Rick said from behind his mask as the white-suited forensics investigator moved to the side.

Jon examined the thick peppering of punctures that ran along them. 'So you think he's been here a good five days?'

'Yes, that's a good estimate,' the woman replied.

'Which means, though it's possible he killed Rose Sutton, he couldn't have been responsible for Peterson and Kerrigan,' murmured Jon.

'Looking at those skinny arms, I doubt he could have inflicted much damage on anyone, male or female,' Rick added.

'Where's the note?' Jon said, turning away from the pathetic sight.

'Here,' Rick nodded to the table. 'He points the finger squarely at Peterson, describing the abuse that went on in the Silverdale. Says that Peterson destroyed him and he can't go on any more.'

Jon skimmed over the childish writing with its embarrassing amount of spelling mistakes. What a life, he thought. That it ended like this, in a squalid tower block flat on a mattress probably dragged from some skip, seemed depressingly inevitable.

Jon reached the end of the note. Below Danny Gordon's signature was a single word. Kuririkana. The writing shifted out of focus as Jon looked inwards, searching his memory. Where have I seen that before? He tried to replay his movements over the last few days. Bollocks, it was like searching for a needle in a haystack. 'Have you seen that word somewhere else? It looks familiar somehow.'

Rick shook his head. 'I thought you might know. What's that song the All Blacks do before rugby matches?'

'The Haka.'

'That's it. Could it be Maori? Looks like it might be to me.'

'You know, I've seen it performed so often, but I've no idea what the lyrics are.'

'DC Adlon has gone to the University, maybe they can help. Thing is, it doesn't appear to be Gordon's handwriting.'

Jon looked more closely. Rick was right. Though written with the same pen, the letters were regularly spaced and less spiky. 'Any sign of the pen?'

'No,' the woman in the white suit replied. 'Not so far anyway.'