‘Thank Christ for that. This is a nasty one.’ Salter peered quizzically around, as if his words might apply equally to the compact kitchen in which they were standing. ‘Will hit the resale value, too. That living room’ll need completely stripping back.’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘No consideration, those buggers. Still, Morton won’t care any more.’
He straightened as the scene of crime officer poked his head around the door, his eyes blinking under his protective headgear. Like a bloody tortoise waking from hibernation, Salter thought.
‘All done, Hugh,’ he said. ‘Yours to mess up.’
‘Beyond even my talents to mess this place up any further, mate,’ Salter said. ‘Anyway, I leave the detecting to you people these days.’
‘I was told you lot had commandeered the place. Ordered us plods to keep our size elevens out till you’d done the serious stuff. Imagine that went down well with the boss. No skin off my nose either way.’
‘That right?’ Salter shrugged. ‘Nothing to do with me, mate. You know me, always happy to help out the local coppers.’
‘And up yours as well, former DI Salter,’ the other man said cheerily. ‘You deserve this fucking lot.’
‘No one deserves this lot,’ Salter said. ‘Not even me.’
He followed the SOCO back into the living room. The smell of blood had been strong in the kitchen. Here, despite the open windows, it was almost overwhelming.
‘Jesus.’ Salter looked around. There was a large congealing pool of blood in front of the white leather sofa, further smears and splatters around the walls, across the furniture. Everywhere. Another officer was crouched by the door, carefully packing away the remaining equipment. ‘What’ve you found?’
‘Plenty of DNA,’ the SOCO said. ‘Most of it’s the victim’s, though, and I imagine you already know who he is.’ There was an unmistakable undertone of irony.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll share the good news with you in due course, I’m sure. Anything else?’
‘Reckon there was a woman here, too. In the bed.’
‘You can tell that from the DNA already? That’s impressive.’ Salter was peering vaguely around the room, giving a convincing impression of disinterest.
‘No. Smell of perfume on the sheets. Unless your man was into Versace or whatever it is.’
‘Anything’s possible, mate.’ Salter looked up, as if he’d only just realized he was engaged in a dialogue. ‘A woman, eh? Lucky sod.’ He gazed back at the bloodstains on the sofa. ‘Well, not so lucky, I suppose. What do we think happened to her? Was she part of this?’
‘Like you say, Hugh, anything’s possible. Or maybe she’d buggered off before all this happened. Maybe he’d already got what he paid for.’
‘Jesus, you like to think the worst of people, don’t you?’
‘Goes with the territory.’ The SOCO was losing interest, recognizing that Salter had no intention of sharing any information. ‘Anyway, we’ve plenty of stuff, but it’ll take some work to sort it all out.’ He paused, before making one last effort. ‘Strikes me as a professional job.’
Salter was peering at the pool of blood. ‘Messy one if so,’ he said, non-committal.
‘That’s your trouble,’ the SOCO said. ‘Once you start talking, there’s no stopping you.’
Salter smiled and then raised his eyebrows as the shrill note of the front doorbell sounded through the flat. ‘Saved by the bell,’ he said. ‘Sounds like the big guns have arrived to take over from us minions.’ His tone suggested that he included himself in the last group only as a matter of courtesy.
The two SOCOs took the hint and picked up their cases. Salter followed them out into the hallway. Hodder was already opening the front door.
‘Gentlemen.’ The man on the doorstep was a squat, rumpled-looking figure, probably in his early fifties, his grey hair swept back in an ineffectual attempt to hide an increasing baldness. Despite his dishevelled appearance, he carried an air of confident authority.
‘Guv,’ Salter acknowledged. By contrast, his own brand of cocky superiority suddenly appeared slightly gauche.
The older man peered at the two SOCOs, his expression suggesting that, though he hadn’t met them before, he would remember them in future.
‘Keith Welsby,’ he said. He gestured towards Salter. ‘From the Agency, like my colleague here.’ Somehow he succeeded in conveying the relative seniority of his own role compared with Salter’s. ‘All done?’
The lead SOCO nodded. ‘On our side, sir.’
‘Thanks very much, then. We’ll be in touch in due course.’ He was still holding open the front door, and the tone of dismissal was unmistakable. The SOCOs needed no further prompting.
Welsby closed the front door behind them, and then turned slowly back to Salter and Hodder. ‘Right, lads,’ he said, his face expressionless. ‘So what the fucking fuck’s been going on here, then?’
Chapter 3
Her head aching, her mind still in some other place, Marie Donovan sat at her large wooden desk, trying to smile at the young man opposite. She hadn’t chosen the office furniture herself and it was all too imposing for her taste. Perched in the leather swivel chair, the young man looked like a mouse caught in a boxing glove.
‘It’s still not right, is it, Darren?’ she said at last, knowing that she had to go on with all this, despite everything. She glanced down again at the document. She was trying to find the right words. With Darren, she was always trying to find the right words. Simple ones, that he could follow.
‘Darren?’ she prompted.
He blinked. ‘Miss?’
‘It’s Marie,’ she said. ‘You can call me Marie.’ Christ, she thought, it’s as if he’s never left school. She imagined he’d been the same there – meek, compliant, fundamentally useless. ‘I was saying that we still haven’t got the printing right here, have we?’
‘I did my best, miss.’
‘Marie,’ she repeated. ‘I’m sure you did, Darren. But you need to concentrate. Let’s have a look at this, shall we?’ She held up the printed document. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
Darren gazed at the handful of sheets, a brief shadow of panic crossing his face in response to the direct question. He leaned forwards and squinted. ‘It’s a bit blurred,’ he offered finally.
She nodded. ‘It’s very blurred. You let the original move while it was printing. OK, what else?’
Darren looked dismayed that the inquisition was not yet finished. ‘Um. It’s a bit, well, wonky.’
‘It’s very wonky,’ she agreed. ‘You didn’t square up the originals. Anything else?’
He gazed silently at the document, then back up at her. The look of panic had returned. ‘Miss?’
She leaned forwards and picked up the paper again. ‘It’s printed on both sides of an A3 sheet, right?’ She paused. ‘A big sheet.’ She stretched it out to show him exactly what a big sheet looked like when it was stretched out. ‘And each side is divided into two halves?’
Darren was staring at her now with an expression of abject misery. She’d lost him at the first mention of paper size.
‘OK,’ she went on, ‘so it’s a big sheet that’s supposed to be folded in half to make a four-page A4 – that’s a littler sheet – booklet.’ She carefully folded the sheet to demonstrate. ‘Like that, see?’
Darren made no response. Knackered as she was, she was momentarily tempted to lean over the desk and give him a violent shake. She had a fear that she might actually hear what passed for a brain rattling around in his skull.
‘So that means,’ she persisted, ‘that both sides need to be printed the same way up. Right?’ She was determined not to be deflected now. ‘Otherwise some of the pages will be printed upside down. Right?’
A glimmer of light shone in Darren’s eyes. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘You don’t want pages to be upside down.’
She unfolded the sheet and spread it carefully in front of him. ‘OK,’ she said slowly, ‘so, now turn that sheet over and tell me what’s wrong with it.’
She had expected him to turn the sheet over left to right, or possibly right to left. Instead, he grasped the
