Blood on the tongue bcadf-3

by Stephen Booth

  She opened her eyes again. A black, unmarked van with tinted rear windows was passing them slowly, going up the hill. Morrissev twisted in her seat to watch the policeman direct it into the side of the road. A blonde woman wearing a black coat and a red scarf stared at her until she turned awav, and they drove on into Edcndale.

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  JJiane Fry hated these spells of standing around doing nothing. There were plenty of people who were better at that sort oi thing than she was. It had been marginally better back at West Street, where at least she might have been able to hang on to

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  the SOCOs’ tan heater tor a little while longer. But out here there was nothing to keep her warm, apart from the long, red scarf she had bought from Gap at Meadovvhall for the winter. There was no shelter, nor even any physical activity to prevent her body from sei/ing up. She would rather have been the officer directing the traffic at least he got to wave his arms a bit. But it wasn’t the thing for a new detective sergeant to be doing.

  Instead, she spent her time going through some discreet exercises, rising up on her toes, stretching her tendons, practising her breathing, feeling tor the centres of energy in her bodv, keeping

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  her circulation moving in her extremities to combat the cold. She became so absorbed in what she was doing that she almost

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  forgot she wasn’t alone. Almost.

  ‘No blood,’ said DI Paul Hitchens. He folded his arms across his chest as he leaned casually on the wheel arch of the snowplough, whose blade had been hastily covered by a sheet oi blue plastic. Hitchens looked relaxed, and he spoke as it he were commenting on the weather. No blood today then, just snow. How boring. But Fry knew the comment wasn’t addressed to her. Hitchens had a more appreciative audience.

  DC Gavin Murfin had been talking to the county council driver and his mate, who were now sitting in the back of a patrol car. Murfin was wearing a pair of unsuitable fur-covered boots that came up to his knees, like the bottom half of a yeti costume. He stamped his feet on an area of compacted snow as he came round the back of the plough and whee/ed faintly in the cold air.

  ‘Blood? Not a drop,’ he said cheerfully.

  Fry frowned at Murfin as he fumbled among his clothes for

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  a pocket to put his notebook away in. He was wearing; so many sweaters that he looked like the original Michelin Man, with layers of rubber wobbling around his middle. Yet his face was Hushed with cold. Somewhere in his pockets, she suspected, there might be a secret supply of food something to keep him going for an hour or two, until he could find the nearest Indian takeaway for a beef buryani to stink her car out again.

  ‘You know, I really hate it when there’s no blood,’ said I litchens.

  The pathologist, Juliana Van Doon, was suited up and working in the area cleared of snow, while an officer video’d the scene. Mrs Van Doon had the dead man’s clothes open across his abdomen to examine a gaping wound. In her white suit, she looked like a badly designed snowman. Fry sighed. A snowman and the Michelin Man. There must be something wrong with her brain today. The cold weather was giving her hallucinations.

  ‘Blood really makes a body, I always think,’ said Hitchens. ‘It gives it that bit of excitement. A certain ye ne sais ^uoi. A subtle edge of implied violence, perhaps. The bitter-sweet taste of mortality. Do you know what 1 mean, Gavin?’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ said Murfin. ‘It means you know the bloke’s a definite stiff ‘un, like.’

  Fry thought Murfin’s voice sounded slightly muffled, as if he had smuggled something into his mouth without her noticing. She thought she heard the rustle of a chocolate wrapper in his pocket. She looked longingly towards her car. There were things for her to be doing back at West Street. There were d/nuy.9 things for her to be doing at the moment. Life went on in all its predictable messy ways in Edendale, as it did in eerv town in Derbyshire, as it no doubt did in every town and city in the country. There were plenty of crimes that

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  went by without being investigated, let alone cleared up. The paperwork was everywhere to prove it cases that had been allocated crime numbers for insurance claims, and then filed. Hveryonc was crying out for more police time to be spent on solving crime, as if the world depended on it.

  But here, at the foot of the Snake Pass, Fry felt as though she were standing on the edge of the world. On either side of

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  the A57 there was a white wall a couple oi feet deep where the snow lay untouched and unnaturally smooth, so that the edges of the road merged seamlessly into the surrounding moorland. The tarmacked surface of the A57 was normally the only sign of civili/ation this far out of Edendale, and Fry found its disappearance unsettling. It seemed to he telling her she might never get out.

  Mrs Van Doon turned tor a second to stare at the police officers standing in the road. Their voices carried loud and clear to where she was working. She shook her head and concentrated again on her job.

  ‘You’d think if someone had been cut almost in hall by a snowplough. they would bleed a bit.’ said Hitchens.

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  ‘Yes, you’d think so,’ said Murfm. ‘A bit.’

  ‘If only out of a desire to be artistically satisfying in their final moments.’

  Hitchens caught Fry’s eve and nodded at her, as if she had said something intelligent. She knew he sensed her antipathy to Murfin and her irritation at the way the DI was encouraging him. But Hitchens smiled, like a man who had all the time in the world at his disposal and had chosen to spend part of it right here, in this isolated, snowcovered spot, with a handful of fellow police officers, two distraught council workmen, and a body with no blood.

  ‘Mind you, it’s probably a clue,’ he said.

  Fry watched the pathologist taking a temperature and examining the corpse’s skin for lividity. The dead man was dressed in a dark suit that bore the marks of the snowplough blade where it had gouged into him and tossed him on to the roadside verge like a sack of rubbish. The blue overnight bag that had been

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  found with him stood a few feet awav. He could almost have been a passenger stranded at a snowbound airport, sleeping uncomfortably on the floor of the terminal as he waited for a flight that would never leave.

  Murfin surreptitiously chewed something and swallowed. When he opened his mouth, Fry imagined she could see tiny particles of chocolate hanging in the cloud of his breath, perhaps a sweet-flavoured mist that drifted and dissipated in the sharp air. ‘I think I’ve got it, sir,’ he said.

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  ‘Yes, Gavin?’

  ‘The snowplough driver is a vampire. He sucked all the blood out of the body, and he never left a drop/

  Fry turned away so that they wouldn’t see her expression. She felt the irritation turning to exasperation, and she had to take a few deep breaths of the ice-cold air to control it. She anted to slap DC Murtin round the head a few times, but she couldn’t do it with the DI present. Worst of all, she knew that Murfin would be hers for the duration of the enquiry.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Hitchens. ‘Our first vampire killer in E Division. That’s going to be a tricky one to do the paperwork on, Gavin. I don t think we’ve even got a form (or it.’

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  Murfin grinned. His lips began to move, and he patted his pockets, seeking something else to eat — a Snickers bar, a packet of sweets, there would be something there. Fry could see that he was thinking. His brain was occupied with a difficult challenge, and it wasn’t the detection of a crime.

  ‘Evcryhodv has their cross to bear, sir, he said.

  Mrs Van Doon turned, distracted by the chatter. ‘If you reallv

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  want to know, this man’s heart had long since stopped,’ she said. ‘No heart pumping means no blood. Your corpse was already quite dead when the snowplough hit him.’

  The pathologist began packing her bag. Fry wanted to help her. I
n fact, she wanted to go with her, to get out of the atmosphere here and into a nice warm mortuary, among peaceful company that didn’t crack stupid jokes or leave prawn crackers trampled into the carpet of her car. Mrs Van Doon looked tired. Like all of them, she was overworked at the moment.

  Fry did one more stretch, inhaled and exhaled deeply, and felt her bodv tingle with the extra oxvgcn.

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  ‘I dunno about that,’ said Murfin. ‘I still like the vampire theorv mvself.’

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  ‘Excuse me,’ said the pathologist. ‘I think I’m finished here for now.’

  Frv had to stand back out of the way to allow her past. She wanted to exchange a look, to share a little sympathy. Rut the woman’s head was down, and she didn’t look up. There were tired lines around her eyes and blue patches under them. Fry

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  recalled that, according to the gossip at divisional headquarters, their old DC1, Stewart Tailby, had once had a personal interest in Juliana Van Doon, but nothing had come of it. 1 ailbv was soon to make the move to an admin job in Ripley. Now Mrs Van Doon looked as though she had seen too many dead bodies.

  ‘You see, 1 reckon I know that bloke who was driving the snowplough,’ said Murfin. ‘And I’ve never seen him out in the sunlight.’

  The pathologist walked back to her car and began stripping off her suit. Fry picked up Mrs Van Doon’s case and held on to it for a moment as the woman reached out to take it from her. Their eyes met, but neither of them spoke.

  ‘What do you think, Doc? Should we take a blood sample from him?’ called Murfin. ‘I don’t mean the dead man, I mean the undead one, so to speak. We might get a oms-match.’

  Murfin barked with laughter. It was a very realistic bark, like the ‘arf-arf of a fat King Charles spaniel. It echoed off the banks of snow on either side and caused little avalanches on to the roadway. Mrs Van Doon took off her overshoes, piled her gear into the back of her car and drove off without another word, spraying a gallon of slush on to Murhn’s fur boots as she accelerated away.

  ‘Was it something I said?’ asked Murfin.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Ilitchens. ‘You’ve been eating garlic for breakfast again.’

  Ben Cooper found the CID room icy cold and deserted. Obviously, the central heating radiators on this floor weren’t working again. He could smell food. Tomato sauce and garlic. So Gavin Murfm hadn’t been gone all that long. At any other time, Cooper would have opened a window to let in some fresh air, but his fingers were already starting to go so numb that he could barely hold a pen.

  There were files piled on his desk, with yellow notes stuck all over them. It looked like a crop of daffodils had suddenly bloomed, despite the chilly air. He saw that one of the notes was much bigger than the others and was written in black marker

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  pen of the kind used for exhibit labels. He didn’t know what to

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  do with it, or whether he should even touch it. For all he knew, it might be vital evidence in a forthcoming prosecution. All it said was: ‘We’ve got our heater back, you bastards!’ Cooper rang down to the control room. ‘DC Cooper here. Can you tell me what’s going on? ‘DC Cooper? We’ve been trying to contact you since seven fortv-two.’

  ‘Well, I’m here now. What’s going on?’ ‘You were supposed to be on duty at seven.’ ‘Yes, I know. You must have a record of the way I was lelt stranded with a prisoner on Hollowgate tor hall an hour waiting for a pick-up that never came? I had to walk up Spital Hill and meet a PC who couldn’t even stay on his feet for thirtv seconds.

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  He looked like a reject from the Northern Ballet Company. Since I got here, I’ve been processing the prisoner through custody.’

  There was a pause as the operator consulted somebody in the control room. ‘We’re a bit stretched at the moment,’ she said.

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘There are several messages from DS Fry,’ said the operator accusingly. ‘Three o( them are marked urgent.’

  Cooper sighed. ‘So where am I supposed to be, apart from three places at once?’

  ‘The body of an unidentified white male was found on the A57 Snake Pass, two hundred yards west of the Snake Inn,’ said the operator.

  ‘Is the road clear?’

  ‘According to our latest information, it’s passable with care.’

  ‘OK, I’m on my way.

  ‘Er, we do have some later messages,’ said the operator.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I could probably just skip to the last one. It says: “Don’t bother.”’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I suppose it means they’ve managed without you, dear.’

  Cooper blinked. Suddenly, the control-room operator sounded like his mother. Or at least, like his mother used to belore she became ill.

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  ‘Thanks a lot,’ he said, and put the phone down. lie looked again at the files on his desk. It seemed he was muggins again,

  the sucker landed with the work that nobodv else wanted, not

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  when there was something more interesting to do. And it was all because he had set off for work early and found Eddie Kemp in that cafe. Next time, he would know better. Next time, he would pretend he hadn’t recogni/ed the suspect, as ninety per cent of his colleagues would have done when they weren’t officially on duty. That’s exactly what he would do next time. Maybe.

  Cooper slouched across the room to see if he could dredge any warmth out of the radiator. As he moved, his left foot squelched.

  Frank Baine banged the bell for a third time. There was no response.

  ‘Well, if you’re sure you’ll be all right,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ said Alison Morrisscv.

  She stood in front of the deserted reception desk with her bags, i he lobby was like no other hotel she had ever seen. It was dark, and it seemed to be full of ancient potted plants and stuffed fish in glass cases. It was also deserted. Baine had already put his head round all the visible doors to try to find a member of staff.

  ‘Someone will appear in a second,’ said Morrissey.

  ‘We’ve got the meeting with the police at nine o’clock

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  tomorrow morning,’ said Baine. ‘I’ll pick you up here about eight-thirty, shall I? It isn’t far.’

  ‘That will be great. And thank you, Frank.’

  Finally, he left. Morrissey ga/ed at a trout the size of a small dog. It stared back at her glassily, its mouth hanging open as if it might say something to her in a minute.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  A receptionist.

  ‘A room,’ said Alison. ‘I have a room reserved. And I’m about ready to die unless I get to it soon.’

  After she had showered and rested, she got out the files again. There w ere files on every member of the crew of Sugar Uncle Victor. Some, of course, were slimmer than others. The thickest

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  was that on her grandfather, Pilot Officer Danny McTcague. But at the top of the pile, the one Alison Morrissey would look at first and read again tonight, was the file marked ‘Zygmunt Lukasz’.

  Later in the morning, Ben Cooper discovered who was going to have to interview Eddie Kemp in connection with the double assault.

  ‘There isn’t anvbodv else,’ he was told. ‘Thev’re all out.’ Kemp looked almost pleased to see him. He seemed to feel they had struck up a close friendship waiting at the side of Hollowgate, as if a fiond had been forged between them hy performing a hit of early-morning street theatre for the customers of the Starlight Cafe. Cooper wasn’t sure how long the theatre would have lasted, without turning into a tragedy,

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  if it hadn’t been for the appearance of Sonnv Patel and his two oldest sons, brandishing brushes and shovels. They had made a great ceremony of sweeping the pavement clear of snow, until the three men leaning against their plate-glass window had shuffled their feet and moved on.<
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  ‘The tea’s not bad here,’ said Kemp. ‘But they’re going to have to turn the blecdin’ music off. It’s doing my head in.’

  Cooper and the PC accompanying him tried to keep their distance from the table, so they could breathe more easily. With the triple tape deck running and the duty solicitor sitting alongside Kemp, they took him through the events that had led to the injuries to the two young men at Underbank in the earlv hours of that morning. Kemp made no attempt to denv that he had been involved, but insisted that he had been assaulted first and had acted in self-defence.

  ‘That old one,’ said Cooper.

  ‘They’re known villains,’ said Kemp. ‘They’re dealers off the estates.’

  ‘And you say they attacked you first?’

  ‘Yes.”

  ‘When you arrived here, you were given the opportunity to see a doctor. You didn’t report any injuries.’

  ‘Well, t know how to handle mvself,’ said Kemp.

  Now that Eddie Kemp wasn’t wearing his Manchester United

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  hat, Cooper could see that his hair was dark and wiry. lie had the beginnings of a moustache, something more than a case of not having shaved this morning.

  ‘Who were the other men who took part in this incident?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Complete strangers?’

  ‘I reckon they were just passing and came to help,’ said Kemp. ‘Good Samaritans, if you like.’

  ‘Who had the baseball bat?’

  ‘Baseball bat? I didn’t see that.’

  ‘A snooker cue, maybe.’

  ‘Dunno. Perhaps those lads that came to help me had been playing snooker at the club.’

  Eddie Kcmp looked at the solicitor and smiled happily. Kemp was experienced enough to know that witness identification was rarely sufficient in itself for a prosecution to go forward. Among a group of six men, it would have been impossible to say who had done what. And it had been at night, too. He was quite safe, for now.