Decay Inevitable

Sally brought the squad car to a halt outside a twenty-four-hour bagel shop. Sean slammed the car door, relishing the cold air as it clouted the smell of the job from him. The windows of the bakery bore diminishing spheres of clarity; mist seeped across the panes like a drawn curtain. He could see vague, pinkish shapes behind a counter, loading bread onto glass shelves, their faces snagging on the smears of mist, pulling them out of true as though their owners had no shape, no substance. It was a mesmerising trick. Sean breathed ghosts through the rain, wondering why it nagged at him so.

Sally’s nails on the windscreen: he turned to see her pulling a face, her tongue wedged between her teeth and lower lip. Come on, she mouthed.

Sean pushed through the door; hot smells – bread, cinnamon and coffee – settled into him. He was thinking about the man at the window, back at the flat. He couldn’t remember his features, what he had looked like. Every time his mind tried to focus on his eyes, or his mouth, they slid away, like a greasy egg introduced too quickly to the plate.

Would you mind opening the front door, please sir?

“Two coffees please, mate. And a couple of those raisin bagels.”

That look. Everyone he talked to or walked past gave him the same look when he was in uniform. What was it? Hatred? Pity? Mistrust?

He took the polystyrene containers and tried to give his best off-duty smile when the shop assistant told him there would be no charge. Outside he stared up at the closed windows of the sleeping street.

Hot coffee raged across his hands where he had crushed the cartons.

Sally, climbing out of the car, concern creasing her face: “Sean?”

“It was him,” he said.

Hours later, at the centre of the clamour, the blue lights and static volleying around the radios in her living room, those three words were all he could say.

CHAPTER TWO: FAIT ACCOMPLI

IT SEEMED PRE-ORDAINED that he should know the victim. Sean sat – the still point at a core of bustle – as forensics sorted through the gimcrackery of her flat. Occasionally they would shoot him an askance look when he picked up some jujube from a table or the floor. One of them, flat-mouthed, pressed a pair of rubber gloves into his hands without a word.

Naomi Clew, twenty-nine; Caucasian; sandy blonde hair; brown eyes. She had been stabbed eighteen times with a Phillips screwdriver; the fatal blow, a neat little puncture to her throat. Her mouth and eyelids had been mutilated. The body hadn’t been moved yet and was cooling on the bed to which she had been tied. The crisp sizzle of Metz flashes exploded there now; Sean watched the occasional flares coat the hallway as the forensics team took their snapshots. She wore a pair of cream Marks and Spencer silk pyjama bottoms, nothing on top but a glaze of blood. Her toenails were painted with chipped purple enamel and a ring encircled the little toe of her right foot. She wore other pieces of jewellery: a plain silver stud through her tongue, a plain silver bracelet, and a leather thong that threaded a small grey pebble around her neck. He found it hard to concentrate on that.

There was also a burn around her throat, a rope burn, inflicted post-mortem.

“What’s the fucking point of that?” Sean asked nobody in particular. “She was fucking dead already. Why strangle a fucking dead girl?”

“Come on, Sean,” said Sally, picking her way through the scrum of uniforms. “Fresh air.”

He let his partner hoist him to his feet and lead him outside. Watery sunlight dribbled across slates glossed by the previous night’s rain. Neighbouring windows were filled with folded arms, nighties and hair in rollers. Vans from BBC, ITN, and Sky were clustered on the allotted parking spaces; sodium light bathed pancake faces with unreal colour as on-the-spot reports were filed. A phalanx of reporters turned Sean’s way. He heard the words: “–officer who made the gaffe...” and then Sally was telling them to piss off while she bundled Sean into the squad car. He covered his face as the photographers blazed away at him and Sally took off through the estate.

“How did they find out so quick?” Sean asked, looking back at the scramble. “How did they find out at all?”

“Find out about what?”

“That I fucked up,” he replied.

“We both fucked up. Don’t worry, we’ll blag it.” Sally drove south through Catford, winding through dead, monotone streets for twenty minutes before parking opposite a pub – The Gnarled Fiddler – on the Bromley Road.

“A snifter is in order,” Sally said. “I’m buying.”

Udney, the landlord of the Fiddler, tossed them some keys from the upstairs window. “Help yourself, Sally, Sean,” he said. “I’m busy stuffing an old bird.”