Simon Kernick - The Business of Dying

I sat there for a few seconds mulling over the possibilities, but I found it difficult to concentrate. The problem was, I couldn't help thinking about Barry Finn. Usually I can rid my mind of inconvenient thoughts – it's something you've got to be able to do if part of your life involves ending the lives of fellow human beings – but this killing had hit me a lot harder than any of the others. It was the indignity of it. Right now, he was probably laid out on tarpaulin in someone's garage being slowly and carefully dismembered like a piece of rancid meat.

Knifing a man to death in cold blood while he struggled to understand what the hell was going on, then sentencing his relatives to years of torment by removing all traces of his existence; making him vanish into thin air, like Molly Hagger and who knows how many other lost souls. Whichever way you chose to look at it, it was a shameful way to make a living.

I picked up my coffee, went to take a drink, then decided I needed something stronger. A lot stronger. Outside, the day had become grey and cloudy, and it had begun to spit with rain. There was a half bottle of Remy in the cupboard so I poured myself a couple of fingers, and filled a pint glass with the contents of a can of Heineken from the fridge. There didn't seem any point in doing things by half measures, and I had nowhere to go for the rest of the day.

I drank the brandy down in one, lit a cigarette, and took a good draw of the beer. I smoked the cigarette down to the butt, finishing it at about the same time I finished the beer. I poured myself some more brandy, drank it down, lit another cigarette. I didn't feel any better. I could still picture Barry Finn. I could hear the noises he made as he died: that horrible gasping as he fought for breath through punctured lungs. Futile. All futile. I thought of the pleasure Raymond had taken in the murder, like a kid playing his first ever PlayStation game. I'd never really taken him for a sadist before, but I wouldn't underestimate his potential for cruelty again. Would he have worn that same smile had he been killing me? Somehow I felt sure the answer was yes. Maybe he was even now planning my demise with his mysterious associates; men adept at making bodies disappear.

And how close were the coppers to me? Had the young cop at the roadblock talked to the investigating officers? Were they checking my background, viewing me now as a possible suspect? Had they gone further? Was I under surveillance even as I sat here getting drunker and drunker?

Paranoid thoughts were suddenly swarming through my brain like steamers on a tube train. There seemed no end to them, and no way to escape the strength-sapping fear they generated. I'd never had a panic attack before, but I could feel one coming on.

I filled the brandy glass again and found another can of Heineken in the fridge. I drank the one, then took a long gulp from the other. I tried to imagine what it felt like to take a knife in the gut. I'd read somewhere once that it was like being hit with a cricket bat, except twice as bad. I got the feeling it was plenty worse than that, especially when you were being held in a vice-like grip by someone you'd never met before and the one doing the knifing was your employer, someone you knew and trusted. Christ, I hated myself; for just a few seconds, I truly hated myself. I was no amoral bastard who didn't give a fuck about his actions. I felt guilty. I knew I'd done wrong, I really did, and that was what was getting to me.

At some point the drink hit me hard. Cricket-bat hard. I came over very tired and knew I was going to have to lie down. In a way, it was a relief. I lay back on the sofa and let the weariness wash over me, finally ridding my mind of its demons.

I don't know for how long I slept. Maybe a couple of hours, something like that. I needed it anyway, however long it was.

I was woken by the sound of the phone ringing. It was pitch black in the room and I could hear the rain coming down outside. My mouth was desert-scrub dry and I had a headache, a result of the fact that I'm not used to drinking brandy during the day. I closed my eyes again and waited for the call to go to answerphone.

It was Malik. I picked up as he was starting to leave a message.

'You sound in a bad way, Sarge,' he told me in a manner that was far too cheery for my liking.

'I've been asleep. You woke me up.'

He started to apologize but I told him not to worry. 'I needed to wake up anyway.' I yawned. 'Where are you phoning from?'

'The station.'

'What are you doing down there? It's your day off.'

'Just doing a little bit of overtime.'

'Very conscientious.' And sensible too, now that he was on the verge of promotion. It was important to show enthusiasm while you could still manage it. 'So, what can I do for you on this shitty, wet evening?'

'We've found the murder weapon in the Mark Wells case.'

I was suddenly more interested. 'Oh yeah? Where was it?'

'In a park not far from Wells's flat. It was in some bushes. A kid looking for his football found it.'

'Prints?'

'No, but you can't have everything, can you? It's definitely the weapon that killed her. A butcher's knife with a ten-inch blade. It's got her blood all over it.'

'How do we know it belongs to him?'

'He threatened people with a very similar knife on two separate occasions in the weeks before the murder. It's his knife, Sarge. It's definitely his.'

'Shit.' And, you know, I still wasn't convinced.

'They're doing a load of other tests on it as well. Just in case he left any DNA traces.'

'I'm glad that bastard's going down. That'll teach him to hit me.'

'And that's not the only thing. Wells's brief came in today.'

'He's recovered from his injuries, has he?'

'No, it's a different one now. He sacked the other guy. Anyway, he comes in and says that Wells has been thinking about this business of the shirt and he reckons he did own a shirt like the one we found once, but that he gave it away a long time back.'

'He gave away his shirt? Who the hell does that?'

'Yeah, and get this. He reckons he gave it to one of his girls.'

'Which one?'

'Well, that's the thing. He said he gave it to Molly Hagger.' We both agreed that this sort of story wasn't going to get Mark Wells very far in court, especially as, conveniently, the person he'd supposedly given it to had disappeared into thin air. I wasn't entirely sure whether this new information cemented the case against him or not. The fact that I'd only just woken up, having not long consumed nearly half a bottle of brandy mixed with beer, didn't make matters any easier.

'Have you seen Carla Graham yet?' he asked.

'No, not yet.' I resisted the urge to tell him I'd made an appointment with her. 'I don't suppose I'll bother now. It doesn't look like there's much doubt it's Wells, and there's no point raking up stuff that's got nothing to do with the murder.'

'It'd be interesting to see why she lied.'

'Yeah. Maybe I'll ask her if I ever run into her again.'

The conversation moved on to other things, all of them brutal. Malik told me that we had another possible murder inquiry on our hands. An eighty-one-year-old lady had held on to her handbag after a gang of young muggers had decided to relieve her of it, and had fallen on her head during the struggle. She was now in intensive care and the doctors were doubtful she'd pull through. Two people had been glassed the previous night in a pub fight, and one was going to lose his eye. One arrest: a nineteen-year-old who was already on bail for another assault. I recognized the name but couldn't picture his face. Three more suspects were still at large.

I asked Malik about the Traveller's Rest case. Had he spoken to his mate about it again? He said he hadn't, and laughingly told me that the e-fit bore a startling resemblance to my face.