Lucy shrugged.
The Dunk did a slow three-sixty, squinting at the Tattie Shack and parked cars. ‘Probably lurking somewhere near, like a nasty little rat, creeping about, following us. And speaking of rats: which crime scene do you want to hit next?’
‘Bruce Malloch.’
Victim number two.
Bruce Malloch’s house was nestled halfway down a terrace of identical, narrow, yellow-brick two-up-two-downs in Blackwall Hill. Roysvale Crescent: a nice, respectable street, where the only way to tell one home from another was the colour of their front doors and the occasional shrub in the tiny gardens. Well, that and the fact number fifteen had spent three weeks appearing on the news and in all the papers. ‘HORROR HOUSE OF BLOOD, SHOCK’, ‘“BRUTAL MURDER WAS LIKE JACK THE RIPPER” SAYS TOP COP’, ‘SICK PSYCHO STRIKES LEAFY SUBURB’...
Stilclass="underline" nice view.
From up here, Oldcastle was laid out in all its tumorous glory. The crumpled-up-cardboard sprawl of Kingsmeath on the left, with its nasty little council houses and soulless tower blocks. On the right, the genteel Georgian streets of the Wynd and the fancy houses of Castleview. And straight ahead, down the valley and across the curling cul-de-sacs of Blackwall Hill to the twisted steel ribbon of Kings River. On the other side: Logansferry, with its harbour and industrial estates; Cowskillin, with its fifties post-war prefabs and the football stadium; Shortstaine, bloated and heavy with bland housing developments; and right in the middle, Castle Hill — Victorian streets twisting around each other, circling the huge granite shark’s fin that broke through the valley floor, with the ruined castle perched on top — wreathed in its cocoon of scaffolding. The whole city brooding, and malevolent, and miserable, and oppressive.
AKA: home.
‘You know what bugs me?’ The Dunk dipped into his pocket and came out with an evidence bag. Tipped a shiny key into the palm of his hand. ‘There’s no consequences any more. Take that Business Secretary thing — millions of taxpayers’ cash, our cash, going into Paul Rhynie’s mates’ pockets and nothing happens.’ He unlocked the dark-green door. ‘We’re being robbed blind, but everyone just shrugs their shoulders and gets on with it.’ The Dunk stepped back and wafted Lucy over the threshold. ‘Whatever happened to accountability?’
She stepped into a hallway gritty-grey with fingerprint powder; mud and dirt tracked in across the no-longer-oatmeal-coloured carpet. The stairs leading up to the second floor were just as bad. Bruce Malloch’s living room had a couple of movie posters on the walclass="underline" Back to the Future, The Empire Strikes Back, Die Hard; a black leather couch, faded a couple of shades where they’d tried to lift prints off it; big flatscreen TV; newish PlayStation; glass coffee table. All of which screamed ‘bachelor pad’.
And loneliness.
‘All that dodgy procurement wank during the pandemic — hundreds of millions spaffed away on PPE that didn’t work, from companies owned by government cronies — just normalized it. That’s why we get tossers like Rhynie.’
The Smurfs had covered Bruce Malloch’s kitchen in fingerprint powder too. It wasn’t quite as bright in here: some sunlight oozed through the frosted glass of the back door, but a roller blind obscured the window.
‘Tell you, Sarge: people in power? They haven’t got a clue what it’s like to actually work for a living, so why would they care? Why not give your best chums, Quentin and Jacinda, a hundred-million-quid contract for doing sod all, or cocking things up? Why—’
‘Dunk!’
He stared at her. ‘What?’
‘Any chance we could concentrate on the actual job?’
He pulled one shoulder up to his ear. ‘Sorry, Sarge.’
‘Thank you.’ She flicked the light switch, but nothing happened. A couple more goes established that it probably never would, meaning Bruce Malloch’s expensive kitchen toys couldn’t shine in all their glory. Even then, what drew the eye wasn’t the fancy-looking coffee machine, the Thermomix, sous-vide machine, or plethora of other gadgets, it was the huge dark-brown patch on the ceiling.
The Dunk stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring up at it. ‘You’d think they’d’ve got rid of that by now.’
Lucy clumped up the stairs to a small landing. The bathroom door was open, showing off a tiled space just big enough for a toilet, sink, and shower cubicle. Master bedroom on the left, plain duvet crumpled on the floor, pillows scattered, drawers hanging out of the bedside cabinet, built-in wardrobes ransacked, clothes all over the place. Because God forbid a search team should tidy up after itself.
Which left the door straight ahead.
It opened on a small home office, wreathed in darkness. The vague outlines of a desk, swivel chair, and filing cabinet were just visible in what little light managed to work its way through the closed venetian blinds. Four monitors perched on arms above a beefy-looking laptop and ergonomic keyboard.
The carpet scrunched under Lucy’s feet as she stepped inside.
‘Bloody hell.’ She pulled her chin in and clamped a hand over her nose and mouth. The whole room stank as if someone had left a handful of batteries and a packet of sausages on the radiator. For months. ‘Dunk — open the windows, before we all choke to death!’
‘Sarge.’ He bustled over to the blinds and hauled them up.
Sunshine spilled in.
The search team hadn’t bothered cleaning up in here, either. Those four monitors were spattered with little brown dots, dried and shiny like beetles. A leathery slick of coffee-coloured yuck covered half the desk, but most of it was on the carpet, like a huge puddle of mud had died there. Half a dozen black clumps marked where internal organs had been dumped outside the body. And on the wall opposite the window, those familiar three-foot-high letters: ‘HELP ME!’
Worst of all were the drifts of shiny blue-black bodies. Flies. Had to be millions of them in here: born, lived, loved, and died on a dark-red diet of Bruce Malloch’s blood.
Urgh...
Lucy raised her right foot and desiccated fly carcases tumbled back to the carpet. Which explained those scrunching sounds.
‘Wow...’ The Dunk hissed in a breath. ‘And I thought the kitchen was bad.’ Then he opened the window as wide as it would go, letting in blessed fresh air. ‘Manky, manky, manky.’
Lucy handed him the folder as the stench dissipated a bit. ‘Out loud.’
‘Eh?’ He turned it over a couple of times. ‘You want me to read it to you? Haven’t you already—’
‘Rules for being a hotshot detective, number eight in an occasional series. You absorb more information when you consume it in multiple formats. Of course I’ve read the file — dozens of times. But now that we’re here, standing in the actual crime scene, I want you to read it. Out loud.’ She snapped on a fresh pair of nitrile gloves. ‘Right now.’
‘So how come we didn’t do that back at Rat Haven Cottage?’
‘Rule thirty-nine. Shake things up.’
‘Detective sergeants are weird.’ He rummaged through the folder and pulled out a chunk of paperwork much bigger than the one for Abby Geddes. Frowned at the top sheet, mouth moving in silence for a moment. ‘Right, here we go: Bruce Malloch, thirty-five, software designer with Camburn Logistic Services Limited. Line manager reported him missing when he didn’t come into work three days on the trot.’ The Dunk shook his head. ‘Imagine your line manager being the only one who cares enough to report you missing?’
‘No family?’ Being on the first floor afforded the room a miserable view of the narrow, overgrown rectangle of grass and plants abandoned outside the window. Could see into the next-door neighbours’ gardens, too: wee kids playing on a swing set; dirty big Alsatian chasing its tail round and round and round; wannabe yummy mummy hanging out the washing in a strappy top that was two sizes too small for her...