Simon Beckett - The Chemistry of Death

That gave me another reason to go inside. But even if I hadn't needed to find a landline, I didn't have a choice. As little as I wanted to go into the house, there was no way now I could simply walk away.

The smell immediately grew stronger. I stood in the hallway, trying to get a feel for the house. At first glance it seemed superficially tidy, but there was a thick covering of dust over everything.

'Hello?' I called.

Nothing. There was a door off to my right. I opened it, found myself in the kitchen I'd seen through the window. Dirty dishes stacked in the sink, food left to congeal and rot on plates. A few fat flies were stirred into life, but not enough to account for the noise I'd heard earlier.

The lounge was similarly untenanted. The same dusty armchairs I'd seen through the window faced the dead television. I couldn't see a telephone. I came out and made my way to the stairs. The carpet running up them was old and threadbare, the top of them almost invisible in the gloom. I paused at the foot of the stairs, my hand on the banister.

I didn't want to go up there. But having come this far I couldn't just leave. There was a light switch at the bottom. I flicked it, and jumped when the bulb popped and went out. Slowly, I made my way up. The smell became more pervasive with every step. And now it was joined by another, something cloying and tarry that pricked at my subconscious. But I didn't have time to wonder about it now. The stairs ended in another hallway. In the near-darkness I could make out an empty, dingy bathroom, and two other doors. I went to the first, opened it. Inside was a rumpled single bed, standing on unpainted floorboards. I came out and went to the second door. The tarry smell was stronger here as I took hold of the handle. When I turned it the door stuck, and for a second I thought it was locked. Then the resistance suddenly gave way and I pushed it open.

A black cloud of flies buffeted my face. I batted them away, almost gagging at the warm stench from the room. It was a smell I thought I'd become almost accustomed to, but this was overpowering. The flies were becoming less hysterical, beginning to settle again on a shape on the bed. Covering my mouth with my hands, I breathed in short gulps as I approached it.

My first feeling was relief. The body was badly decomposed, and though it was impossible to tell at a glance whether it had been male or female, whoever it was had obviously been dead for some time. Certainly a lot longer than two days. Thank God, I thought, weakly.

The flies covering it stirred irritably as I carefully moved closer. It was getting too dark for them to be active now. If I'd arrived at the house a little later, or lightning hadn't chosen that moment to disturb them, I might never have heard their tell-tale drone. The window was slightly open, I saw now. Not enough to allow the air in the room to clear, but wide enough for flies attracted by the perfume of decay to enter and lay their eggs.

The body was propped up on pillows, the arms lying limply outside the bedclothes. By the bed was an old wooden cabinet, on which was an empty glass and a motionless alarm clock. Next to them was a man's watch and a small prescription bottle of pills. It was too dark to read the label, but then another flash of lightning lit up the room. It picked out features like a silent snapshot: faded floral wallpaper, a framed picture above the bed, and in its momentary glare I made out the printing on the bottle. Coproxamol painkillers, for George Mason.

The old gardener's back may well have been bad, but that wasn't the reason he hadn't been in the village lately. I remembered what Tom Mason had said in the churchyard when I'd asked him where his grandfather was. Still in bed. I wondered how long ago old George had died. And what it said about Manham that no-one had noticed his absence.

I was careful not to touch anything as I turned to leave. This had more of the makings of a domestic tragedy than a crime scene, but I didn't want to disturb anything more than I already had. Someone else would have to determine what he'd died of and try to fathom his grandson's reason for not reporting it. It was hardly the action of a sane mind, but then grief was a strange thing. He wouldn't be the first person to prefer denial.

As I went into the hall the tarry smell hit me again. And now, with the door open, there was just enough light for me to see the thick black smears along the edges of its frame. A strip of wadded-up newspaper, coated with the same material, still clung to the bottom of the door. I remembered the resistance when I'd first tried to open it. When I lightly touched the black stuff my fingers came away sticky.

It was bitumen.

And all at once I knew what had been trying to surface from my subconscious since that morning. Among the scent of flowers and cut grass in the churchyard had been another faint odour. I'd been too distracted to spare it much thought, but now I realized what it had been. Bitumen, clinging to either Mason or his tools after he'd used it to try and seal his grandfather's bedroom.

The same substance I'd found in the knife cut in Sally Palmer's vertebra.

I tried to calm down, to think this through. It seemed inconceivable that Tom Mason was the killer. He seemed too placid, too uncomplicated to be capable of planning the atrocities, let alone carry them out.

But we'd known all along that the killer had been hiding in plain sight. Mason had done that all right, patiently working in the churchyard or on the village green, blending into the background so effectively that no-one ever really noticed him. Always in his grandfather's shadow, a softly spoken man who never made an impression.

Except he'd made one now.

I told myself I was jumping to conclusions. Until a few minutes ago I'd been convinced Carl Brenner was the killer. But Mason fitted the profile just as well. And Brenner didn't keep the decomposing body of his grandfather in the house. Or try to mask the smell with the same material that had been embedded in a dead woman's neck.

My hands were shaking as I took my phone out to call Mackenzie, forgetting that there was no reception. I swore and hurried downstairs. But as much as he needed to know what I'd found, I couldn't leave until I'd made sure Jenny wasn't here. I tore through the darkened house, opening every door to check inside. None of them held any sign of life, nor even a telephone I could use.

I ran out to the Land Rover, trying my mobile again in case some atmospheric fluke allowed a signal. It was still dead. A gust of thunder boomed overhead as I started the car. It was fully dark now, and raindrops were starting to burst on my windscreen. The yard wasn't big enough to turn the car round so I began to back up. As I did the headlights swept across the trees opposite, and for an instant there was a small, answering flash.

If the car hadn't been an automatic I would have stalled it as I stamped on the brake. I stared into the woods where the flash had appeared. But whatever had been caught in the headlights was invisible now. Mouth dry, I slowly edged forwards, turning the wheel back towards it. As the beam swung over the trees, something deep within them gleamed again.

It was the luminous yellow rectangle of a car registration plate.

I saw now that the track I'd driven up didn't stop at the yard but continued on into the woods. Although it was heavily overgrown it still looked used. But whatever was parked up it was too far away to see. If not for that momentary reflection I would never have known anything was there.

I needed to contact Mackenzie, but the track beckoned me. This was private land, several miles from where either of the bodies had been found. It wouldn't have been searched. And there had to be a reason for a car to be there. I hesitated, torn between two impossible choices. Then I rammed the Land Rover into drive and set off up the track.