‘ Okay,’ nodded Kruger. He slid his hands into his pockets and meekly followed Tapperman. Secretly he was dreading what he was about to see. His guts fell as though they’d been filled with a bucket of cement.
They passed a couple more uniformed cops guarding the stairs. On the third floor all three of them were required to don a pair of paper overalls and plastic shoes which would have to be bagged and tagged for evidential purposes when they left. Then they went up onto the top floor where they emerged on a carpeted landing. A hallway ran off to their left, doors on either side, entrances to apartments. There was a mass of police activity from the landing all the way down the corridor.
Tapperman turned to them. ‘We’ve managed to work out a way down the corridor without disturbing too much evidence, so can I ask you guys to follow exactly in my footsteps. It’s important.’
Numbly they both nodded.
Tapperman glanced at Myrna. Her horrified face sent a shiver down him, reminding him it was one of the worst crime scenes he had ever visited. He took a deep breath, began to lead the way.
Kruger steeled himself. Perspiration rolled down his forehead.
Before following Tapperman, he allowed himself a couple of moments to cast his eyes down the hallway ahead. He pursed his lips. He too had seen some awful things in his life, but this wasn’t far off taking the biscuit. Blood was everywhere.
Splats of it.
Gobs of it.
Swathes of it.
The carpet was saturated in it. Some parts of the floor looked deep enough to float a toy boat in it. The walls were covered, as though some would-be modern artist had opened a tin of red paint and gleefully thrown it everywhere with artistic abandon.
Tapperman walked a couple of yards before noticing he was alone. He stopped, looped his chin over his shoulder. ‘Coming?’
Kruger and Myrna caught up. He walked on, held up his hand to halt them and pointed down to his side at something on the carpet by the wall which both of them had seen already anyway.
A severed hand.
Cleanly cut off at the wrist. Lying there, palm up, like a gruesome ashtray. It was a right hand and there was a gold ring on the little finger.
Myrna touched Kruger. He reached back and squeezed her hand.
Tapperman moved on. Two yards further he stopped again, pointed down to his right. Was it a leg this time? Kruger wondered initially. Then, no. It was a forearm, cut from elbow to wrist. A hairy, muscled forearm.
Behind him, Myrna uttered a pitiful squeak.
‘ You okay, honey?’ he asked gently.
Her hand was over her mouth. She nodded, wide-eyed.
Their journey progressed, avoiding pools of blood, stepping over them like a nightmarish game of hopscotch. Tapperman pointed out all the sights of interest along the way, like a tour guide taking a party around the Museum of Horrors.
Another severed hand — again a right one. Palm down, fingers spread wide looking like one of those huge bird-eating spiders but with three of its fat legs amputated; a pair of feet removed from the rest of the body at the ankles, standing there side by side. Could have been a pair of bookends. Obviously placed there with care by the offender.
All the while, the bile rose inside Kruger’s stomach as the journey down the corridor became increasingly akin to a ghoulish fantasy. His ears pounded, bass drums rattling his eardrums. He was light-headed and slightly ‘out of it’; he fully expected to wake up, bathed in a cold sweat.
There was no such luxury for him.
Tapperman reached one of the doors in the corridor which led to an apartment. It was open. He stood slightly to one side and indicated for Myrna and Kruger to have a looksee.
They did.
That was enough for Kruger.
Fuck the evidence.
He lurched past Tapperman down the hallway and sank to his knees, supporting himself against the wall. He regurgitated his stomach contents in one violent vomit. It looked just like wet cement.
Behind him, and ringing in his ears, was the ear-splitting petrified scream of Myrna. She had hit hysteria within a milli-second and showed no signs of coming back to earth until Tapperman gave her one almighty crack across the chops.
‘ Fuckin’ civvies,’ he said under his breath. Maybe it had been a mistake inviting them to the scene. On reflection, though, perhaps he should’ve warned them.
It’s not every day that a person gets to see two severed heads, plonked side by side, ear to ear, on a coffee table. Eyes wide open. Mouths gaping. Tongues lolling out. Set in their own coagulating blood, like candle wax.
The heads of the two brothers, Jimmy and Dale Armstrong. Now former employees of Kruger Investigations.
Tapperman had a further thought. Jeez, they look like a matching pair of candles. If there had been a wick coming out of them, he would have been tempted to light it.
Chapter Eight
The phone rang twice more before Danny even made it upstairs. Each time she answered, it was the same as the first call. Nothing… then one word which took a further step towards obscenity.
The fourth time it rang, Danny lifted the receiver, replaced it and threw it down, off the hook.
Before going upstairs she checked all the doors and windows were locked, curtains drawn.
Only then, when she felt completely safe, did she go for that long bath to soothe her jagged nerves.
In the deep, hot, soapy water, she had time for reflection.
Over the years she had dealt with many women — and some men — who had become victims of obsessive behaviour by their former partners or other people, who for some reason became attracted to them in a sick way. In the past she had given normal, routine advice. See a solicitor. Get an injunction. Ring us when he’s here. Keep a log. You’ll have a hell of a time proving it, you know. Stop being such a softie. Pull yourself together.
Only now did she begin to really understand just something of what those poor people must have been going through. Now it was real to her. It may have only just started, but it made her afraid, alone and isolated. And much, much more.
Without even knowing what was coming, Danny burst into tears.
Her initial reaction was to choke them back, but she realised she needed their release. Accordingly, she howled in anguish, smashed the bath brush on the water and went with the flow.
When they subsided, she felt slightly better.
Ten minutes later, refreshed, skin buzzing, hair clean, in her bathrobe and slippers, she trotted downstairs, filled up the wine glass and pointed the remote at the telly.
Tentatively she picked up the phone and bounced it in her hand. She replaced it, held her breath, bit her tongue.
Nothing happened.
She breathed out and sat down.
When the ring came it sound like an explosion in her ears.
Inside herself, something crumbled.
Louis Vernon Trent sat prim and proper across from the old lady. He smiled at her occasionally. She thought he looked like a thoroughly decent young man.
Most of the time he watched the world go by from the train window, gazing at the landscape which he knew so well. Particularly once he had changed trains in Manchester, he recognised every inch of the towns and country
