Кара Хантер - All the Rage

* * *

At Summertown High the bell has just rung for the end of the period. In the GCSE art class, students are rolling up sheets of cartridge paper and stacking paints and brushes on the long bench that runs underneath the window. Outside, the clouds are racing across a low grey sky.

The teacher stops behind Sasha Blake's chair. She doesn't seem to have heard the bell. Or if she has, she's not as bothered as her classmates about getting to the next class. She leans back a little to scrutinize her watercolour of the still-life arrangement in the centre of the room. A white china bowl of plums and lemons, and a pale-blue jug with a sprig of forsythia. Along the side of her sketch she's dabbed swatches of different purples. Reddish mauves, bluish indigos; none of them quite match the colour of the fruit glistening in the bowl.

`˜You're coming along, Sasha,' says the teacher. He's perhaps thirty-seven, with sandy hair thinning a little and a check shirt in a thick cotton that's gone bobbly from long use. He's not wearing a wedding ring.

`˜You have a real eye. You should think about doing A level.'

She turns round, finally, and looks up at him.

`˜There's a book you might like,' he begins tentatively, `˜ Still Life by A. S. Byatt `“ it has a wonderful passage about how to describe the precise colour of plums `“ how to capture the bloom on them. In fact, it's why I chose this particular arrangement `“'

He's just getting into his stride when one of the two girls lingering at the door calls over.

`˜For God's sake, Sash! Get a move on, can't you?'

Sasha looks round and gets quickly to her feet. As she reaches for her bag, her long dark ponytail swings forward over her shoulder.

`˜Sorry sorry sorry!' she calls to her friends, rushing to clear her materials away. `˜Just got a bit sidetracked.'

`˜Yeah yeah,' says the other girl with a smile, `˜like that's never happened before.'

Sasha grins and hoists her bag over her shoulder, throwing a half-apologetic, half-relieved glance at the teacher still standing behind her chair. The classroom door bangs shut behind the girls but he can still hear their voices filter back as they go down the corridor.

`˜Was Spotty Scotty actually hitting on you back then?'

`˜Er, that's like, totally gross! Imagine him actually kissing you!'

`˜He is such a creep!'

The man stands there, his cheeks flaming and his fists clenched, as their arrogant young laughter drifts slowly away.

* * *

`˜OK,' says Quinn. `˜That username could mean this bloke is in Oxford. But we don't actually know that. For a start, there must be other places called Botley, right?'

`˜Two I've found,' replies Asante steadily. `˜There's a village near Chesham, in Buckinghamshire, and another one in Hampshire.'

I see Somer start a little, and then I remember `“ her new bloke is with the Hants force.

`˜Right,' continues Quinn. `˜So that's two to one against for a start. And even if it is the Oxford Botley, we don't know when it happened `“ we don't even know if it happened at all .'

Asante leans over and presses a key. The comments under the last entry are now visible on the screen.

`˜Shit,' says Gislingham under his breath. `˜Shit.'

* * *

At the allotments, it's starting to rain again. Nina Mukerjee parks the forensics van on the far side of the car park and sits there a moment taking in the location. The line of compost heaps, the noticeboard with posters offering surplus plants and second-hand tools, the skips loaded with broken bits of pot and slate. She's been doing the job so long she sees everything as a crime scene. Fingerprints, smears, flakes of skin, tumbleweeds of dust. It makes eating at other people's houses especially trying: the only kitchen that ever looks really clean is her own.

She pushes open the door and pulls her kit across from the passenger seat. A few yards away she can see Clive Conway standing by a shed behind a line of blue-and-white crime scene tape. The tape is whipping in the wind and Clive has his hand to his head, keeping his hood in place. She pulls on her protective suit then moves as quickly as its bulk will allow to where Clive is waiting for her. There's no sign of CID, just a couple of uniforms milling about and stamping their feet to keep warm. She wonders who's been put on the case `“ whether it might be Tony Asante. They discovered a while back that they have a couple of friends in common at the Met and he's bought her a coffee once or twice since. She can't decide if it was just out of politeness or whether he's actually interested. Or what she'd do if he was. She's seen the mess made by relationships at work and she likes that aspect of her life clean too.

Clive doesn't bother saying anything when she reaches him, just pushes open the door, letting her see inside. Her uncle had a shed about this size when she was a child `“ she remembers the windows thick with cobwebs and sticky with snail trails, the shelves haphazard with rusting implements, the musty, dead-insect smell. But this is different. It's neat enough to live in `“ well, almost. There are watering cans and plastic flowerpots stacked in lines on the shelves, spades and forks hanging on their own individual hooks, and on the work surface two bags of seed potatoes and a neat line of earth-filled seed trays with small white plastic labels and tiny spikes of green just visible here and there. The floor has been swept, even in the corners, but the dark stain spread across it tells a different story. As does the smell.

`˜I don't think there's any doubt that's urine.' He crouches down and points. `˜I also found some shreds of hair. But no roots as far as I can see. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're going to turn out to be extensions.'

* * *

No kidding `“ my mate grabbed a hot cunt only to find she was packing a dick

submitted 9 hours ago by YeltobYob

6 commentsshare hide reportSerously? That really happened? submitted 9 hours ago by downwiththegynocracyshare hide reportNo shit. He said no way u cdve known. Well hot. Tits, arse, the lot. Until he gets her fucking pants down submitted 8 hours ago by YeltobYobshare hide reportFuck me `“ those chicks with dicks theyr the fucking worst. All come and fuck me + dont even have a fucking hole submitted 8 hours ago by letscutthecrappeople7755share hide reportToo fucking right mate. He said he shd have realized something was wrong when her fucking hair came away in his hand It was only fucking EXTENSIONS wasn't it submitted 8 hours ago by YeltobYobshare hide report were the tits fake too? submitted 7 hours ago by KHHVandsowhat88share hide reportWhat a cunt. Hope he made her suck him off submitted 7 hours ago by supremegentlemen89share hide reportNever got the fucking chance. Anyway, who wants beard burn on your fucking dick. These tashhags are the worst slags of the lot submitted 6 hours ago by YeltobYobshare hide reportSomeone at the back mutters, `˜Sick bastards'; Baxter is shaking his head, Gislingham's face has hardened. There isn't much they haven't seen, in this job, but it doesn't make vileness like this any easier to confront.