‘Do you want to be fresh eyes, or don’t you?’
A massive sigh huffed its way out of her. ‘Fine, we’ll be “fresh eyes”.’
‘You’re in charge — I’m only asking.’ The car grumbled forward one more length. ‘No need to be sarky.’
A gaggle of teenagers skipped across the road, slipping between the slow-moving traffic. All spots and elbows and leggings with the knees ripped out of them.
The driver’s window of the Fiesta buzzed down and a scrunched-up crisp packet sailed out into the sunshine. One of the teenagers snatched it up off the tarmac and bunged the packet back through the window. Following it up with what looked like a few choice mouthfuls of foul language and some rude hand gestures.
Good for her.
Still nothing from the Dunk, though.
‘Stop sulking. I said we’ll be “fresh eyes”, OK?’
‘OK.’ Big squint-toothed smile. ‘So, it’s September last year and the Bloodsmith’s on victim number three. He’s had practice, right? He’s done it twice already: he knows where the heart is. So how come he guts Adam Holmes like a kipper to get it? Took a chunk of liver away with him, too.’
True.
‘What did the forensic psychologist say?’
‘Can’t remember. Something rambling and unpunctuated, probably.’ They’d finally made it as far as the roundabout, and the Dunk wheeched them straight across, joining the queue of traffic on the other side. ‘And you see the cut on the wrist? With Bruce Malloch he nearly took the hand clean off, would’ve been blood everywhere, like a fire hose, but look at the blood in the Adam Holmes crime-scene photos: it’s not all up the walls, right?’
Lucy slumped back in her seat and groaned. ‘We already know this, Dunk. By the time he kills Jane Cooper he’s—’
‘He’s not killed her yet, remember? That doesn’t happen till...’ creases bunched up between the Dunk’s eyebrows as that steam-powered brain of his tried to get the pistons moving, ‘January next year. Four months from now.’
‘Seriously?’ Lucy puffed out her cheeks. ‘This is a daft game; we can’t just forget everything we know about the Bloodsmith.’
‘Hey, it’s your rule, remember? Thirty-nine: “Shake things up”?’
Might as well humour him.
Lucy pulled out the picture and risked another look.
The bathroom’s tiled floor was smeared with blood, rather than drenched in it like Bruce Malloch’s home office. And it looked as if it’d come from the bits that’d been emptied out of Adam Holmes — lying there in slippery sticky mounds...
Swallow it down.
Breathe.
There was blood in the bath, too. Arcing lines and little red dots. Because he’d got better at harvesting it. Not wasting so much. Learning on the job.
Her stomach lurched.
OK, that was more than enough.
Lucy put the photo away before her tartiflette made a guest appearance all over the dashboard. ‘The papers are saying he’s smarter than we are.’
‘Not yet they aren’t. They don’t start printing that crap till October.’
‘Seventeen months, Dunk, and we’ve got nothing but a bunch of dead bodies.’
Maybe the papers were right.
8
‘Bit crappy, isn’t it?’ The Dunk locked their pool car and curled his lip at the small block of flats that blighted Ditchburn Road. Everything else was built in the local sandstone — nice homes with nice gardens, bay windows, two point four children, and a roses-round-the-door kind of feel. But Ruthkopf House was a four-storey abomination, clad in a mix of yellow panelling and strips of blackened wood. Like a massive Rubik’s cube that’d gone horribly wrong. With a car park out front.
Lucy handed him the Operation Maypole folder on the way past. ‘Flat Three F.’ Then pushed into a small reception area.
Had to hand it to the developers: just because it looked ugly on the outside, didn’t mean it couldn’t look ugly on the inside as well. They’d gone for the sort of ‘minimalist’ approach that meant slapping a coat of garish paint on the bare walls and pretending that made the building stylish, rather than a nasty concrete warren stuffed full of as many flats as they could legally get away with.
The stairwell rang to the sound of Lucy’s bootheels, all the way up to the top floor, while the Dunk puffed and panted along behind her.
Flat 3F was down a short corridor, the magenta door and lime-green walls fighting against each other in a headache-inducing contrast. A small plastic plaque was fixed to the doorframe: ‘MR & MRS MYERS’.
Lucy knocked.
Waited, while the Dunk leaned against the wall — huffing and puffing, as if he was expecting one of the Three Little Pigs to answer the door.
Instead, it was an equally pink-faced man with a screaming baby cradled half over his shoulder, patting it on the back as it howled. He had a fairly impressive set of bags under his watery bloodshot eyes. ‘What?’ Not sounding all that welcoming.
Lucy checked the plaque again. ‘Mr Myers?’ Then pulled out her warrant card. ‘Police. Can we come in, please?’
His mouth clenched like a fist. ‘If this is about that wanker in Two G: he’s lying. I never touched his bloody Majestic Wines delivery, or his Amazon parcels. He’s the one you should be harassing, with his loud bloody parties at all hours!’
She put her card away. ‘It’s OK, we’re not here about your neighbour, we’re here about Adam Holmes.’
That got Lucy a blank look. ‘Who’s Adam Holmes?’
The Dunk pulled his chin in, doubling it. ‘You’re kidding, right? Adam Holmes? He lived here? In this flat?’
Still nothing.
‘The Bloodsmith’s third victim? He died in your bathroom, mate.’
Those watery pink eyes widened. ‘He what?’
Lucy patted him on his unbabied shoulder. ‘Probably best if we come in. You might want to sit down for this.’
The flat’s bathroom was even smaller in real life. Only just wide enough to squeeze in a toilet and corner sink. Didn’t even have a full-sized bath — you’d have your knees up around your ears if you tried lying down in it. The black-and-white tiles were still there, though it must’ve been hell getting all that blood out of the grout.
Lucy and the Dunk stood in the bathroom doorway while Mr Myers stomped around the living room, with his screaming baby over one shoulder and his mobile clamped to his other ear. Voice raised to shouting level, trying to compete with the screeching cries, ‘NO, I’M NOT KIDDING, KAREN, THE POLICE ARE HERE RIGHT NOW. SOMEONE DIED IN OUR FLAT!’
The Dunk held up the crime-scene photo. ‘Right: it’s a year ago, remember?’
‘ACTUALLY, SCRATCH THAT. HE DIDN’T “DIE”, HE WAS MURDERED!’
‘Don’t think it was this noisy last year, or someone would’ve reported it sooner.’
‘YOU HEARD RIGHT, KAREN: MURDERED!’
‘Come on, Sarge, focus.’ He lined the photo up with the actual bathroom. ‘We don’t really know what happened with Abby Geddes, but Bruce Malloch was a complete mess. Blood everywhere. So, our boy tries something new.’
‘NO, THE BASTARDS DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT IT WHEN THEY SHOWED US THE FLAT. WE’RE RENTING A MURDER SCENE! I BET WE DIDN’T EVEN GET A DISCOUNT.’
‘See?’ The Dunk pointed at the body. ‘This time he makes a precision cut in Adam Holmes’ wrist. And does it over the bath, too. Much neater job.’
‘OH, DON’T YOU WORRY; SOON AS THE POLICE SOD OFF, I’M GOING RIGHT OVER THERE AND TEARING A STRIP OFF THOSE LYING MONEY-GRABBING SCUMBAGS!’