Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

At that, Powel turned. ‘She attacked DS Blake.’

‘There’s a reason they call him “Blakey the Octopus”, Guv.’

Blake took the towels from his face. His left eye pointed about ten degrees off from the right one, but both of them had already gone a dark shade of pink. ‘I nebber tudged her!’

Ooh... Yeah. Mental note: never try to cop a feel of Franklin’s bum. She’d completely flattened Blake’s nose, leaving a squint lump of bloody gristle behind.

Franklin bared her teeth. ‘You lying, sexist, racist scumbag!’ She took a step forward, hands snapping into fists again.

Callum grabbed her arm. ‘We can easily check, Blakey.’ He pointed up at the dark CCTV globe mounted above the cutting table. ‘Big brother sees all.’

‘Ah...’ Blake stared up at the camera.

‘So maybe what actually happened is you slipped on the wet floor and tried to break the fall with your face?’

Blake pressed the towels against his nose again. Looked down at his feet. ‘I slibbed ad fell.’

Callum held his arms out, like he was about to accept applause for a magic trick. ‘There you go: told you it was nothing but a silly misunderstanding.’

‘What was that supposed to be?’ Franklin paced the length of the APTs’ lounge, between an off-grey sofa and a coffee table covered in tabloid magazines, one arm jabbing in the general direction of the dissecting room.

Callum poked buttons on the vending machine, setting it whirring and clunking. ‘You’re welcome.’

‘I’m welcome ? Well thank you so much. He grabbed my arse!’

Oh joy.

A plastic cup clunked down in the dispenser, then the hissing and gurgling started.

‘He grabs your backside — that’s sexual harassment. If you’d reported him, that would’ve been it: Blake gets hauled up in front of Professional Standards for being a dirty sex offender. End of.’ The machine stopped its noises, so Callum extracted the scalding hot cup and pressed the buttons again. ‘But no, you had to lash out. You break his nose — that’s assault. Now it’s you in front of the rubber heelers and everyone thinks he’s the victim.’

Gurgling and hissing.

‘That what you want?’

She stopped pacing. ‘So you just swan in and save the poor powerless black woman, do you? Because you know best.’

He stared at the ceiling. ‘I give up. I really do.’

‘The Great White Saviour rides again!’

‘For God’s sake... Do you never stop? All I’ve done since you got here is try to be nice. I was just looking out for a member of my team, OK? Even though she’s hell-bent on leaping feet-first into the sodding wood chipper!’

She threw herself down into the sofa. Sat there seething. Looked away. Closed her eyes. Then let out a barely audible, ‘Thank you.’

He picked up one of the scalding cups and held it out. ‘Here.’

Franklin took it. Held it in her lap as her head fell back against the back of the couch. ‘Why do so many white guys see a black woman and think she’s going to be an easy shag? You think it’s hard being a police officer? Try doing it when you’re a woman, you’re black, you’re attractive, and everyone thinks you’re “gagging for it”.’ She ran her spare hand across her forehead. ‘If I’m sleeping my way to the top, how come I’m still a sodding constable?’

Callum smiled. ‘If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you’re in the least bit attractive.’ He took a sip of burning-hot chocolate. ‘Oh, I did for two or three seconds when I first met you, but soon as I got to know you? Not a chance.’

She gave a little laugh. ‘When I was fourteen my geography teacher tried to feel me up in the stationery cupboard, said he’d always wanted to try a black girl. Wasn’t the first to chance his arm and he wasn’t the last.’

‘Did you break his nose too? Or...’ Callum sniffed. Wait a minute. He sat on the other end of the couch. ‘That’s why you got lumped into Mother’s Misfit Mob, isn’t it? You said you punched a superintendent — all hands was he?’

Franklin held up her cup in salute. ‘Welcome to the world of hyper-sexualisation.’

‘Yeah: they can’t fire us. They want to, but they can’t. So they chuck us all together and drip-feed us crappy nothing cases till we get fed up and quit.’

‘ And he was married.’

Callum had another sip. Lucy was right — the hot chocolate wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the tea. ‘How you getting on with our body in the bath?’

‘You know what I should’ve done? I should’ve agreed to go to that hotel with him and recorded him being a sleazy git. Then sent the tape to his wife. Let’s see Superintendent Neil Lambert slither his way out of that one.’

‘Nice to know your first thought was revenge instead of blackmail.’

She gave her forehead a little slap. ‘Blackmail. Damn — why didn’t I think of that?’ Franklin sagged in her seat. ‘Our body’s a Caucasian male, five eleven, difficult to tell how old. Turns out the water in the bath was a very heavy brine solution with leaves and flowers and herbs and spices thrown in. Little bits of bark. His lungs are full of it too, so he was alive when he went in. You think you’re a bit wrinkly after half an hour in the bath? Our victim looks like he’s about ninety.’

‘At least all that salt will have preserved the tissue.’

‘Only the outside layers. Didn’t stop his stomach bursting in the water. Gah...’ She had a little shudder. ‘God, I hate post mortems.’

‘Shouldn’t have transferred to Oldcastle then, we’re up to our ears in them.’ He punched the buttons for a third hot chocolate. ‘What do you reckon to Glen Carmichael and his mates being responsible? Three of them, killing the guy in the bath together — holding his head under till he stops struggling. Or it could be one of them. They fall out, fight, same result.’ The machine hissed and gurgled. ‘ Or maybe they get their hands on a load of dodgy drugs? One of them has a catastrophically bad trip so they try to sober him up in the bath. But he drowns. They panic and do a runner.’

She pursed her lips. ‘Makes sense. Three blokes, stuck in that flat for months together, the windows all covered with hardcore pornography, getting drunk and wasted. Can’t expect sensible decisions from—’

The door battered open and Lucy staggered to a halt on the carpet tiles. ‘Callum?’ A bit out of breath, but grinning too. ‘You are not going to believe it.’ She hooked a thumb over her shoulder, tattoos rippling. ‘Digital X-rays have finished processing. You’ve got to see this!’

OK.

He peeled himself out of the couch and followed her down the corridor to the lab.

Lucy pointed at a large computer monitor sitting on a desk covered in empty Quality Street wrappers. ‘Look.’

He hunched over and squinted at the screen. It was filled with human bones, the skin reduced to pale wisps of grey around them. The X-ray had been taken from the side, showing the body curled up with its elbows in, hands against its chest and knees against them, neck bent so far forward that the front of the skull was obscured by the kneecaps. Definitely one of the mummies. ‘And?’

‘This is so cool.’ She clattered her fingers across the keyboard and the image zoomed in on the jumbled monochrome mess where the face met the kneecaps. ‘See?’

‘No.’

‘I thought it was an artefact on the machinery — some of the APTs X-ray all sorts of crap for a laugh and if they damage the equipment it shows up on the digital prints — so I checked the anterior plates.’ The tip of her tongue poked out between her teeth as she typed, and the picture changed to a close-up that was little more than a mess of white lines and grey masses. ‘ Now do you see?’