Never Forget (4 page)

W
ingsy drove us to our next destination while we happily rowed about men and women using power tools to carry out DIY. I was convinced I was winning when his mobile conveniently started to ring. He appeared very keen to pull over and terminate our conversation. Wanting to give him a bit of privacy and stretch my legs, I got out of the car.

My attention was drawn to two women standing at the end of the short driveway of a mid-terraced house about twenty feet from our vehicle. I registered that it was probably an old person’s house: the front garden was a mess, the
once-white
net curtains were a dirty grey, and the paintwork was chipping and peeling.

Instantly, I had a feeling that something wasn’t right. The two women were standing looking up at the windows, one with a mobile phone in her hand. I was nosy and I liked to chat, so I walked towards them with my warrant card at the ready.

One of them, a pleasant-looking woman of about fifty, hair going grey in the front, said to me, in a voice with the hint of a Caribbean accent, ‘Are you from the council?’

I’d been called worse. ‘No, I’m a police officer,’ I answered, warrant card backing up my words. ‘Everything OK?’

‘It’s our neighbour’s empty house,’ said the older of the two. ‘We were expecting the council to come back, but we’ve been worried about it for a while.’

The other woman, a few years younger, said, ‘Delia, can I leave you here? I was running a bath when you knocked.’

I watched her walk away and go into a house two doors down. I wasn’t sure what the issue was, but it was clear that something wasn’t right, so I wanted to make sure I knew where she lived. Never let a witness leave without an address and phone number. I’d failed half of that, but I was too busy looking at the house in front of me.

‘What is it that worried you?’ I asked.

‘Well, you see, it’s just that, since old Mr Baker died, the house has been empty. Then, about a month ago, I started seeing someone hanging around. All different times of day, it was. Never got a good look at him, but, well, you know – what would someone be doing looking at an empty house? The last thing we need is kids getting in and messing about, smashing the place up. Or squatters.’

‘Did you report it to anyone?’

‘I was about to, love, really I was, but then this bloke turned up. Had a key, he did, and some papers. I asked him who he was and he said he’d been sent by the council, to see what sort of a state the place was in, tell them what work needed doing and all that. So I didn’t worry any more. I thought, well, the place is going to be sorted out now, cleaned up and that.’

‘And did you see anyone hanging around again afterwards?’ I asked her.

She shook her head, curls bouncing. ‘No, not a blessed soul. There was a bit of noise a couple of nights after that, just the once, but by the time I’d got out of bed and looked out of the window there was nothing to see. Probably foxes. They’re dreadful round here; they make such a racket overturning bins and screeching like they’re being killed. You do worry, don’t you, what with those stories you hear of them dragging newborn babies out of their beds – ’

‘So,’ I interrupted her – we’d be here all day otherwise, ‘you weren’t concerned any more – until today…?’

‘Oh, yes, love, sorry. It was the postman, you see. Our normal one, he knows Mr Baker died and had no family to speak of so he doesn’t bother to deliver next door; he just returns all the mail to where it came from. But he’s on holiday this week – off to Bermuda, he was, something about his daughter’s wedding…’ She checked herself. ‘Anyway, this one today was a temp, and he knocked on my door with a parcel for me – wouldn’t go through my letterbox, you see – and we got chatting. He’s not from round here, he said – comes from one of those new-fangled eastern European countries, used to be Russia… and anyway, he asked if I knew anything about the place opposite. “Why?” I said, and he told me he’d gone to deliver some mail there and he’d spotted a whole lot of insects at the window. Some dead, some alive, he said they were. I mean, that’s not normal for a house, is it, empty or occupied?’

I stared at the windows. If I wasn’t very much mistaken, an unusual number of flies were indeed bashing about behind the panes of dirty glass.

Wingsy, having finished his call and got out of the car, followed my gaze.

‘Think we should knock, Nina.’ It wasn’t a question. He knew on instinct, as did I, that this was not looking good.

I went up to the front door, Wingsy just behind me. I banged a number of times on the door and the downstairs window. Wingsy did the same. Neither of us said a word. We had a good idea of what lay beyond the warped wooden front door of No. 17. Delia kept a safe distance on the pavement.

I looked through the letterbox. I could hear the faint buzz of flies, smell the unforgettable odour of a soulless shell. We each tried a house on either side but got no reply to our knocking there either. Resigned to what we were going to have to do, we telephoned DS Kim Cotton to tell her we planned to gain entry to the house.

We got ready to force the front door. We stood mentally preparing ourselves and squeezing our hands into white
disposable rubber gloves. ‘I still have a key for the front door, if that’d help?’ said our helpful neighbour. ‘Don’t think they changed the locks.’

As she went back into her house opposite, Wingsy and I looked at each other. ‘It could just be his cat or something?’ he suggested. ‘Or a stray that wandered in. You’re not looking too convinced.’

‘Way I see it, mate, we’re gonna smell of dead body for some time. Last time I was in a situation like this was when I was in uniform. Had no qualms then about going home and burning all my clothes in the back garden. This suit is Next, you know?’ I tried to make light of the situation.

‘Yeah, but it’s not this year’s, though, is it?’ said Wingsy.

‘Piss off, you twat. I just – ’ I broke off as I saw Delia coming back across the street towards us. As she gave us the key, I explained that she should go back home and we’d be across to speak to her later. Really I was stalling. I had no intention of leaving my friend to go into the house by himself, but I knew how unpleasant the next few minutes were going to be.

Wingsy turned the key with one hand and pushed against the cracked and peeling door with the other. As his left hand let go of the key, he wasted no time in placing it firmly against his mouth. The buzzing got louder. Two hasty flies flew past Wingsy’s head.

‘Bloody hell, even the flies can’t wait to get out,’ I said in a second attempt to lighten the mood. Still didn’t work, of course. I followed Wingsy inside.

The hallway was dark. There was little natural light. The stairs were in front of us along the right-hand wall, one closed door to the left and one slightly ajar door at the back. The left-hand door was probably the lounge and the other the kitchen. For the second time that day, I heard myself shout, ‘Police. Anyone home?’

While I opened the door to my left on to an empty room, Wingsy made his way towards the back of the house. The
room I was standing in did at least have some light from the window. The unappealing grey net curtains hung dismally, the wire they were suspended from having long since lost its tautness and let itself go. There was nothing else to look at except bare wooden boards, a single light bulb in the middle of the ceiling and surprisingly fresh-looking blue wallpaper. I went to check on Wingsy, trying out the light switch on my way. To my surprise a dim glow showed me the room’s full misery.

Wingsy was still in the kitchen, opening the back door. ‘I’ve looked in that built-in larder thing and the other built-in cupboards. Not down here, then.’ He slammed the wooden cupboard door shut. ‘Only one thing for it.’

I should go first this time, I thought as I headed for the staircase, before I changed my mind and let Wingsy be the gentleman I knew he was. I didn’t hurry, taking as many deep breaths of untainted air as I could. Thought about calling out ‘police’ again, but, if there had been anyone else alive on the top floor locked up with a corpse smelling this bad, the sight of me arriving was not going to do them any further harm.

T
here really was no smell on earth quite like that of a decaying body. I moved along the landing towards the front bedroom, the boards creaking as I made my way towards the source of the stench and insects. I flicked on the light switch, illuminating the dingy area at the top of the stairs. Although there were three doors, my senses were making it quite clear which door separated us from a corpse. Bracing myself and making sure that my mouth was shut in case a startled bluebottle flew straight from the rotting flesh and on to my tongue, I turned the door handle. Wingsy said, ‘Want me to go first, sweetheart?’ I shook my head, mouth still shut, and pushed the door inwards.

The stench seemed to leap at me and attach itself to my nasal hairs. The air was thick with it; it had always reminded me of cheese past its best. My eyes, now accustomed to the dark, rested on a figure in the far left-hand corner. It was face-down, and from the size I guessed it used to be a man. Something seemed to be moving in the area that once was his right leg. Maggots crawled around the back of his thigh area. The man was naked, which was odd as there was nothing else in the room or, so far, anywhere else in the house.

I realised that I had been holding my breath. That now meant that I needed to take a lungful of rancid air.

The light came on overhead and Wingsy half shouted, ‘Fuck me!’

I was thinking something very similar myself. ‘Wingsy, do you think this bloke used to be white?’

‘And he’s stuck to the floor by the looks of it,’ came the reply.

Angry-sounding buzzing was coming from the window, where the flies were hitting the glass, impatient to make good their escape. I looked up at the window, tearing my eyes away from the man on the floor. I noticed that there was a pathetic grey net curtain similar to the one downstairs, but that this one was pulled back across its suspension wire. The wire was taut, unlike the one downstairs and therefore possibly new. Why would someone replace the wire and rehang such a sorry item?

The sound of Wingsy calling the office to update them interrupted my thoughts. I moved closer to the body to see if I could make out any obvious cause of death beneath the decomposition and the maggots. Nothing looked suspicious, other than the naked, dead man on the floor of an empty house. I was relieved at not having to touch him and disturb the evidence. Besides, no action I attempted was going to help him. Under the circumstances, with the right side of his face disappearing into the living room ceiling, it would have been too little, too late.

I listened to Wingsy give details of what we’d found, and only interrupted to add that the neighbour, Delia, would need a visit. We were likely to be busy with our own statements. Then I went to check the remaining two rooms. The other bedroom was empty, barring the statutory once-white netting, and the bathroom contained a bath, washbasin and toilet but nothing more.

Downstairs we waited for the on-call DI and a couple of uniform officers to arrive and carry out scene-preservation. I checked the time: it was later than I’d thought. I’d only have a couple of hours to get my paperwork in order before the briefing at six. Staying late afterwards and missing my time with Stan was not an option.

B
y the time we got back to the nick, driving the whole way with the windows open to lessen the smell on our clothes and hair, we had managed to make several poor-taste jokes to cheer ourselves up. We went straight in to see Kim Cotton to update her on our lack of progress on Operation Guard as well as our latest discovery. We then took ourselves off to a quiet corner to complete our statements. Making our way past the never-ending stream of workmen, who were improving the appearance of the old building with a lick of paint and repairing the crumbling older parts, we found an office with a couple of free computers.

No sooner had we got settled than Alf, the caretaker, came in.

‘’Ello, you two. Hiding away from work again?’

‘You know me, Alf. Not one to meet a bit of graft head-on,’ I answered. ‘How’s things with you?’

‘Mustn’t grumble. Only six weeks until I retire. Not that the pension’s much to shout about.’

‘What are you gonna do with yourself all day?’ asked Wingsy. ‘You’re such a young man.’ Alf was coming up to sixty-five but, in fairness, looked ten years younger. He was one of those people we all took for granted would always be around. The entire division knew Alf, and even those of us from other nicks were fond of him. He was always good for a brew in his poky little office at the rear of the station, where you could be certain no one of rank would ever venture. Nothing was too much trouble.

‘Dunno. Bit of telly, read a book, visit my son Adam in Spain. Him and a mate have got a bar out there. He’s doing very well for himself. Villa, that kind of thing.’ Alf walked over to the window, opening and shutting it, peering at the hinges. ‘Yeah,’ he said, pretty much to himself, ‘this is definitely broken. Get me tools. Later, you two.’

We had peace for all of about three minutes before Wingsy got a call from Simon Patterson, the detective inspector we’d seen at that morning’s briefing. I heard only one side of the call but got the gist. The body we had found at Preston Road had been identified. I looked over Wingsy’s shoulder as he wrote down, ‘Jason Holland, 23/03/78’. Wingsy nodded as I indicated that I would put that into the system to see what came up.

While he got more detailed information on the phone, I got the lowdown on the deceased. He was not a nice person.

The screen in front of me showed an image of a well-worn white male, a tattoo of a swallow on his neck. Holland had been of a generous build when the picture had been taken, only three months ago. If he had been dead for three or four weeks, it was unlikely that he’d have lost much weight in between.

As if he read my mind, Wingsy leant over my computer, arm barely touching mine, and said, ‘He’s a big old lump. Can’t see him being overpowered very easily.’

‘Just what I was thinking, mate,’ I said. ‘Next briefing’s when?’

‘In an hour. Loads to do before then.’

Now I had a decision to make. The briefing meant that I would be cutting it very fine to get to my old friend’s house by eight as I’d promised. But missing the briefing would not go down very well either. I would have to hope that it wouldn’t go on for too long. Whatever it was that Stan wanted to tell me was clearly something that would impact on both of our lives.