The Faceless (7 page)

The lift was broken. The stairs reeked of piss; Renwick counted one fresh-laid human turd and three used syringes as they climbed. She breathed through her mouth. “Where’s the crime scene again?”

“Twelfth floor.”

“Christ.”

“Small mercies. Could’ve been thirteenth.”

A big man with a spade-shaped beard appeared. “Chief Inspector? DS Ashraf.” His handshake was an iron clamp, gently applied. “This way.”

The corridor had faded blue concrete walls smeared with shit or blood. One striplight flickered; the others were smashed. An old man with yellowed eyes and a drinker’s reddened face stood in his doorway giving a statement. An obese woman with a pallid, doughy face and greasy dark hair, vast slack breasts hanging to her navel beneath a stained top, stood screaming at another officer, spit flying from her mouth. She saw Renwick and lunged at her; the officer held her back. “Fuck you lookin’ at, bitch? Eh? Eh?” In her flat, three kids aged between three and thirteen sat gazing slackly, faces lit by a TV’s cold dead flicker.

There was incident tape across the hole where a steel door had been smashed down. Inside were the SOCOs in their white suits; among them, a thin, fiftyish woman with short black silver-sprinkled hair.

“Dr Wisher.”

“Chief Inspector. Come in if you’re coming. I haven’t time to print invitations.”

Renwick waited until Wisher turned away before rolling her eyes. Stakowski winked, took out a jar of Vick’s menthol rub. They and Ashraf smeared a little under their noses to counteract the stink of the place. Renwick had been in flats like this before; the very air made her want to scrub her skin with wire wool. They donned the white protective bunny-suits and entered.

THE TESTAMENT OF PRIVATE TOBY GOODWIN from the suffolk fens farm labourer by trade reserved occupation could have stayed at home but i chose to fight for king and country to risk my life for greater good and this is my guerdon such is my reward i fought hoping for a better world to come but it was not to be shrapnel tore my guts out at passchendaele resection of four feet of large intestine other smaller resections carried out along the colon and another in the duodenum constant pain there was constant pain and this bag this bastarding bag filled with my own liquescent shite that i carried a constant rebuke to my old high minded dreams and still i did not despair but laid my hopes at the door of education and yet this too came to naught as i lived to see another war more terrible than the last and in its embers a last flicker of hope a new world rising but this too this too pulled down and now only the ashes and the embers remain and in it crawl such things as these men and women sunk lower and fouler than dogs was it for these i fought was it for these my entrails were torn asunder was it for these i bled in the wind and rain the filth and shellfire the flanders mud and such were my thoughts when i lay gasping out my last breaths in a hospital ward with cancer eating up what innards i had left with the crabs pincers rending at my guts in 1962 year of the cuban missile crisis when it seemed certain that the world would end leaving us all burnt offerings on the sacrificial altar of our leaders pride as so many of us had been at passchendaele the somme the marne loos mons and so i died thinking nothing changes and so i think now watching from the blackness at the world we fought for the country we helped to save

B
LOOD GLUED CLUMPS
of hair to the walls, dried slowly dark on the cheap tiled floor.

“
How
many dead?”

“One.” Wisher folded her arms; her spectacles glinted. “As I told Sergeant Ashraf. Did he forget, or you?”

“Neither, Doctor Wisher. Just wanted to check.”

“I
do
try to be sure of my facts before making a statement,” Wisher said. “But I take your point. It does resemble the scene of a massacre.”

“Where’s the body?”

“Kitchen. Just follow the blood trail.”

Red handprints on the kitchen door; blood on the draining board and countertop, thickening on the tiles. A man sat against the sink unit, shirt open. Two kitchen knives beside him, blades red; a third still in his hand. Matted hair hung from the red-black ruin of his head; his eyes were ragged holes.

“Christ on a bike,” said Stakowski.

Renwick took a breath. Stay calm. Objective. There was one question here: whether this connected to her investigation or not. “What the hell happened here?”

“You know me better than that, Chief Inspector,” Wisher said. “We’re still processing the scene.”

“An educated guess?”

“Alright. This is of course a provisional statement
only
. But if you look, his nose is broken, the skin on his forehead badly split – apparently from smashing his head against the walls. If he fractured his skull, it wouldn’t surprise me. Look at his fingers and you’ll see hair stuck to them from where he ripped it out of his scalp. And then he went to work with the knives.”

“He did all this to himself? Are you serious?”

“Have you ever known me to joke, Chief Inspector?”

“Fair point,” Stakowski muttered.

Renwick stepped back in. “Some kind of episode, then? What? Drugs?”

“Possibly, or he could simply have a history of mental illness or self-harm. Formal identification and a toxicology report will help. Without that, I can only offer guesswork, and I’ll thank you not to build your case on that. I have a professional reputation to maintain. Now, if you’ll excuse me–”

“With pleasure,” Stakowski muttered.

“I heard that.”

I
N THE CORRIDOR,
the obese woman was still screaming at the same unfortunate copper, who had to hold her back when she lunged at Renwick again.

“Stairs?” Stakowski suggested.

At the top of the staircase, Stakowski offered Ashraf a cigarette. The two sergeants lit up. Renwick found herself wishing she smoked. “What else have we got? Manzoor?”

Ashraf released a stream of smoke. “Two missing, ma’am.”

“So who’s who?”

“The flat’s registered to a Danielle Morton. Officially single, but neighbours say she shares the place with two men, a Pete Hardacre and a Ben Rawlinson.”

“Ben Rawlinson?” Stakowski tapped ash out of the window. “Used to play pool with his dad, if it’s who I’m thinking of. Pulled him in a few times. He were a decent lad once, but he had some problems upstairs. Hearing voices and that. Last I heard he’d hooked up with a lass who was as tapped as him.”

“So what about Hardacre? Who’s he?”

“Small-time dealer,” said Ashraf. “They’re both addicts. He provides – provided – them with a supply of drugs in exchange for a place to stay. Also, according to the neighbours, there was something of a
menage a trois
going on.”

“
Menage a trois
?”

“Threesome.”

“I know what it means, Manzoor. Just surprised anyone round here did.”

“I’m paraphrasing. The most polite version I heard was ‘she’s a fucking slapper doing it with the pair of them’.”

Renwick laughed. Stakowski chuckled; after a moment, Ashraf smiled too.

“A dealer and junkie,” she said. “Bit of luck, we can ID him off fingerprints.”

“Bloke in the kitchen had grey hair,” said Stakowski, “head and chest. The Ben Rawlinson I know’s only twenty-odd.”

“That matches the neighbours’ description,” said Ashraf. “Hardacre’s in his forties, with long hair. Big man.”

“Most likely him, then.” Stakowski leant back against the wall.

“Let’s get a formal ID first. You know what they say about assumptions.”

“The mother of all fuckups, ma’am. I do believe it was me taught you that.”

Renwick raised two fingers. “So what’s the connection to Roseanne Trevor?”

“Or Tahira Khalid,” said Stakowski. Renwick gave him a long look; he held her gaze.

“Or Tahira Khalid,” she said at last.

Ashraf stubbed his cigarette out on the window frame, pocketed the dimp. “Did you see the flat door?”

“Solid steel,” Renwick nodded. “Standard dealer issue. Gives you enough time to flush your stash before the old dibble get in.”

“‘Old dibble’, ma’am?”

“Shut up, Stakowski.”

“The neighbours called us when they heard screaming and crashing around,” Ashraf said. “That’s something in itself – most people here would cut their own arms off before ringing the police. The old man next door had his eye to the spyhole all the time – he says nobody left. We had to break the door down.”

“They’d have to go past his flat to reach the staircase?”

“Absolutely. There’s no other way.”

“In which case,” Stakowski said, “where
did
they go? Out of the window?”

“It’s the only other way out.”

“And the windows were shut,” said Renwick. “And then what? Abseil down? Climb in through a window below? They get picked up in a helicopter? What?”

“I think a helicopter would have been noticed,” said Ashraf.

“With two hostages,” Stakowski said, “both presumably doped up. And the big question: why kidnap these two to begin with?”

“Locked-room mystery,” said Renwick. “Bloody hate them. So two people vanish into thin air and a third hacks his own face off with steak knives. Anything else? Raining frogs? Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?”

“There was one other thing,” said Ashraf. “Might not be relevant.”

“What?”

“Residents report seeing the Spindly Men in the forecourt outside, before this happened.”

Renwick took a deep breath, let it out again. “OK. Anything you find, copy us in on. Forward it to DC Crosbie.”

“You think it’s connected, then?”

“Think so. But god knows how.”

“Speak frankly, ma’am?”

“Don’t you always?”

“We’re overstretched already. You’ve got seven officers – including you, me and Dave – overseeing two investigations. Now you want to make it three?”

“It’s Ashraf’s investigation, Mike. We’re pooling information, that’s all.”

“Boss, they’re not convinced we’re going in the right direction as it stands.”

“Aren’t they?”

“No. Janson was gobbing off about having to do the Khalid case all by herself.”

“What you’d expect.”

“Aye, but that’s a point too. She’s easily the weakest officer on the team, and she’s all Dave’s got to work with in the field.”

“Yeah, I just–”

“Didn’t want her messing up the Trevor case?”

Renwick didn’t answer.

“We’re overstretched as it is. Add this case to the load, you’ll make it worse.”

“I can handle Janson.”

“Sod Janson. It’s Banstead I’m thinking of. He gets a sniff there’s trouble at t’mill, he’ll throw you to the wolves. You know that.”

“Wanna know something, Mike?”

“Alright.”

“I don’t give a shit, as long as we find Roseanne Trevor alive.”

“And Tahira Khalid?”

“Yes, her too.”

“But Roseanne Trevor most of all.”

“Yes! Alright?”

“Is it though, boss? Alright, I mean?”

“What do you want from me, Mike?”

He was silent.

“I can’t handle another Julie Baldwin, Mike. Just can’t.”

“Boss–”

“I know. I’m supposed to be objective. I’m being as objective as I can. But there is a link. I’m sure of that.”

“Well... not me you’ve got to convince.”

“You’re not happy, Mike, put in for a transfer. Or tell Banstead to pull me off the case.”

“Don’t talk wet.” He was silent for a while. “Anyroad. Cracked the whip on Janson back at the station. Told her you knew what you were doing and to shut up and get on with the job.”

Pause. “Thanks, Mike.”

“Any time.”

“No. Thank you.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

M
ANCHESTER, SEVEN-THIRTY PM.
The city centre was almost quiet; a lull between tides. The office workers had gone (except those who’d gone straight to the pub from work) and the late-night revellers were yet to arrive in force. The closest Vera came to liking the bastard North was times like this, when it seemed no-one was there.

Outside the Opera House, Christmas lights glowing all along Quay Street, she smoked a cigarette and yearned for home; the house on the Downs, where nobody spoke with a Lancashire burr or said
thee
or
thou
. That was home now. Not here.

In a few hours there’d be men bellowing threats at each other in the street; girls crying on steps, vomiting in gutters. Bestial: drink, fuck, fight, puke. The bastard North. The black sun.

For an instant the hand that held the cigarette looked like a bird’s claw. She blinked, and it was a hand again. But she could see the skin drawn tight across the bones, the veins raised. Age always showed in the throat and hands, the wrists. God. How many years left? Morbid thoughts. It was coming back here that did it. This place. Everything she’d fled from was here; she could gladly turn her back on it, never return. But for Allen it was different. He came back, always, year on year.

“Got to do it, sis,” he’d say. “Our bread and butter, this neck of the woods.” And yes, the pickings up here were rich, every time. But that wasn’t it, not really. He was like a moth, circling a lamp. Or a tongue probing a wound, unable to leave it alone to heal as best it might. They’d go to Manchester, to Liverpool – even, once, to Blackburn. But never to the heart of it; never to Shackleton Street and Adrian Walsh. Never to the Dunwich. Never to Kempforth. Orbiting the black sun, never flying into it. She could live with that. She thought.

There was a steel box on the wall for spent cigarettes. Vera ground out the last of her Sobranie, dropped the extinguished stub into the box and went back inside. Tiny embers danced in the air, died before they touched the ground.

T
EN TO EIGHT.
Backstage. Everything was ready. Vera heard the murmuring from the stalls. They loved him here. All those cow’s eyes, pleading.
Tell me. About my mother, my father. My brother, my sister. My daughter, my son.
She could feel the force of their need even from here. On stage it must be like a wind, dragging you every way at once, threatening to tear you apart.