Death & the City Book Two

by Lisa Scullard

  “Yeah, trophy hunters,” Connor says on the phone, catching my eye as he walks around the left side of me, looking down into the hole I’ve just vacated, to start on the next one. “All these graves have been dug about a head too short for my liking.”

  That’s the other thing about teamwork. You’ve always got someone else’s experience to add another level of perspective. I rub my neck self-consciously, feeling pinpricks of empathy pain for whoever the intended occupants are.

  At least, I hope it’s that, and not Scarecrow Boy ringworm.

  Charlie and Sparky bag and tag the bodies, and put them in the Merc, discussing the alligator that got into the swimming pool while we were at school. They’re just preparing to leave, as Vehicle Recovery arrive with their high-visibility-striped low-loader, and hook up the white van. I’m doing some rudimentary maths on the back of the evidence bag, calculating the distance and direction of the one consistent anomaly in the woods.

  “Need some help?” Connor asks me, coming over after talking to the recovery drivers. It looks like his experience as a Crime Scene Manager goes further than he’s admitting to, but I don’t ask about it.

  “Yeah, stand in this hole facing the woods,” I tell him, trying to focus on my own job instead.

  He steps in, and I switch the laser back on, set a desired angle and distance, and point it at his chest.

  “I’ve just got to walk away from you until this gizmo beeps,” I say, starting off in the desired direction. “Then I’ll tell you if we’ve got something.”

  The laser trills if I veer off-course. It’s like walking with a sat-nav. I get about thirty-five yards, and the beep tells me I’ve arrived at the anomaly.

  So does the shallow grave-shaped hump in front of me, disguised in tree shadows, to the naked eye.

  “Anything good?” Connor calls.

  “Yeah,” I report. “You might want to call your Forensics buddies down here. Got some digging for them to do.”

  My phone rings, and I take it out, checking to see whether it’s Warren or head office before answering. It’s the latter.

  “Yuri from Logistics is on his way over with your car,” they tell me. I’m amazed how much of a social life my car is getting these days. I guess it just thinks it’s owed twenty years’ worth of birthdays due to its one not-so-careful owner that I relieved of it. “You’re going over to City Central station to complete a profile on someone from last night for us, and in the meantime your car gets another free little valet.”

  “I hope that’s not slang for ‘Concealing the body of someone who works at the car wash’ in it,” I remark.

  “Won’t be room. There’ll barely be room for you once it’s finished, at this rate.”

  “If I get it back turned into a Transformer just make sure it has a command for Restore Factory Settings,” I warn them. Connor has joined me, and surveys the burial mound speculatively, before holding out his hand for my phone.

  “Yeah, it’s JD,” he greets them. “We’ll have the Egyptologists down here, please.” He looks at me as he disconnects, and hands me my phone back. “Slang for Forensic diggers.”

  “I believe you,” I say defensively. “I do have some degree of control over my own psychosis.”

  “Pity you can’t teach other people how to do that,” he says, mildly. He snaps a four-foot leafy shoot from the nearest tree, and sticks it through an evidence bag into the ground, as a marker by the supposed grave, while I watch the recovery truck depart with the van. Gradually it dawns on me that subsequently I’m alone in the woods with Connor, until either Yuri or Forensics turn up. But for some reason or other, I don’t find it as threatening a prospect as I might have done recently. And that’s not just because I’m aware that there’s satellite coverage in the area for once.

  It gives my brain more fuel for speculation. About opportunists, who’d immediately start suggesting ways of passing the time. And people otherwise innocently just working together, whose sexual chemistry drives away all common sense, leaving a huge parking space free for ulterior motive and hidden agenda to reverse into. All I’m thinking about at the back of my mind right now, for idle entertainment while I scope the woods looking for further anomalies, is how many of the surrounding trees are good for climbing. And not as an escape route.

  But I’m beyond showing off. Why would you want to show the world what you’re capable of, before you need to use it. All you’re doing is illustrating your limitations, not necessarily your skills and abilities. It just encourages the competition - or your enemies - to tool up for more, like Warren said in I-Q-24 the other night.

  We head back out into the open, leaving the marked burial mound behind.

  “I’m wondering why they dug these holes so close to the edge of the woods, and not somewhere deeper in, out of sight. Like that one in there,” Connor muses.

  “Easier to find, when they’re filling them in late at night,” I shrug.

  “Aha,” he says. “Of course.”

  Benefit of differing experience and perspective, yet again.

  Chapter 28: Heat Seeking Wolf

  Yuri’s BMW bike is whirring up the driveway next to my car when I approach Connor’s house, back across the park. They’re followed by a navy blue Hyundai ORV with tinted windows, which curves away across the grass towards the excavation site, as Connor waves it over to where he’s waiting by the trees.

  Yuri switches off his bike engine. I hear my car engine still running, until he unclips a sprung cord from his handlebars, and the Toyota cuts out. The cord goes in through the driver’s window connected to a key in the car’s ignition.

  “Safety kill switch,” Yuri explains, taking off his crash helmet, and switching off the sat-nav on the handlebars where the wire was plugged in.

  “Yeah, I’ve worn one on a jet-ski,” I tell him. “Good idea. Interesting use of satellite navigation.”

  “If you follow me back to the farm we can leave the car there. I’ll drop you at City Central on the bike and pick you up after,” he says, leaning in and taking the key wire out of the ignition of the Toyota. “I had a feeling you’d be inappropriately dressed, so your leathers are in the passenger side.”

  I look through the window and see my old customised motorcycle leathers, and my crash helmet in the footwell that he must have got out of the kitchen cupboard. I hope he put everything back that it was hidden behind, or strolling carelessly into the kitchen later will be spiky, to say the least.

  “Where did you find them?” I ask curiously, not even sure I remember where I last saw the leathers myself.

  “Top of the sliding wardrobe above your bed,” he says. “Don’t worry. I fed the cat and he didn’t get indoors.”

  “What did you used to be, a cat-burglar?” I ask.

  “Locksmith,” he corrects me. “Part-time.”

  He doesn’t divulge how he spent the rest of his time.

  He waves me into the barn, to drive into the bay alongside a two-tone scarlet/violet-sunset Mustang, already with the hood open and a string of LED lights dangling from it, like the Dukes of Hazzard’s idea of a Christmas tree substitute. I’m disappointed to see as I get out that it doesn’t have the General Lee’s flag on the roof. Instead it has a Gothic-style crucifix. Kind of ostentatious. Very Hollywood, Tarantino hit-man ‘Pussy Wagon’ style. Never mind wearing his heart on his sleeve. He was wearing his business logo.

  He could have gone for the whole ad campaign and had it all over in laser-cut vinyl. He could call himself Heat Seeking Wolf. Sounds vaguely pornographic, in a kind of gun-toting werewolf’s nemesis/stalking wolf/stalking prey metaphorical palindrome of double meaning. The kind that can keep a schizophrenic awake all night figuring out all the contexts and meanings. However, Schizo Girl is out to lunch still on Batman & Robin quotes, so it’s the thought of vinyl decal sign-writing that reminds me of something else.

  “That better not be a cherry bomb sunset paint job,” I say to Yuri, getting out of the Toyota, and pointing to
the Mustang as he follows me inside. “Can you say ‘What FTO?’”

  “No, it’s standard, same as the Prelude was,” Yuri assures me. “Must have been cost, seeing as he liked it custom. Grey was hard enough to ballistic-proof on that FTO, as we all saw. Seems like the only colour to take the full credit so far is white. Can you say why?”

  “You’re testing the spectrum of my knowledge,” I remark. He grins. Seems like his kind of humour. “Reflection, I’m guessing. Anything darker than white absorbs a higher proportion of heat. Compromising the chemical structure.”

  “Well done,” he says. “Go to the head of the class.”

  “I’ll try not to let mine get too dirty,” I tell him.

  “You’ll be all right. When the chemical tests came back from soil and casualties, it looks like the FTO was converted to hydrogen fuel by some cowboy gas fitter. No evidence of petrol or diesel or liquid, or fire retardant foam. Probably why it was such a clean blast. The perfect H-bomb on wheels. And the tests you suggested for flamethrower tanks wasn’t inconclusive either, so someone wasn’t considering their Fire Health & Safety training much when putting it together.”

  “I bet it was insured as Third Party Only,” I grin.

  “Right again,” he grins back. “Probably the first time venison ever appeared on any budget airline menu. Or windshield.”

  “Or wing-flaps,” I agree. “Probably with a side order of barbecued crows in a jet engine magic mushroom marinade.”

  Yuri chuckles to himself, nodding.

  “Oh - and the CCTV permits came through. You’re getting cameras.”

  He points to a stack of small cardboard boxes on the workbench, security-sealed.

  “Because head office will want access sometimes while your car’s idle, I’ll hook up a spare battery source and stick some solar cells in your wing mirrors as well,” he tells me. “It’ll go to alternator current while driving, or to main battery as emergency back-up only.”

  “Luckily I don’t keep it garaged. Could put a camera on my bike,” I suggest. “They’d get a twelve-month video diary of the inside of my shed.”

  “Should put that online to satisfy the shed fetish market,” Yuri agrees. “You might find yourself a husband that way. All that outside space and those gardening things hanging around enticingly, going to waste.”

  “That’s my stuff, it’s not going to waste,” I tease back.

  “If a man’s not doing it, it’s going to waste,” he says, as if it’s a matter of fact. “Just like you are, trying to do a man’s job. All right, Trouble. Get your kit on, we’re going into town.”

  I can’t help smiling to myself as I pull the leathers on over my skirt and t-shirt. I used to have a problem with flirting. About it containing too much intent, or ulterior motive, putting me on automatic defensive. Now it seems to be that most flirting contains no intention at all. It’s just a form of social sport between sexes, exercising skills and the lighter aspects of personality. It’s still scary and wanders off into dark territories I’m not familiar with, but lack of outcomes have meant I don’t feel the need to shut down altogether any more. Just think of something smart and funny to say instead. And try not to sound as though it’s technically a proposition.

  Making mistakes like that, as I guessed with the what-flavour-lipgloss remark on the day of my date with Connor, is down to experience as protection. Lack of experience is what I feel is a big contribution to finding oneself misinterpreted in flirting games. Naïvety and inexperience are a difficult hole in one’s adult life to manoeuvre around. It appears in family life, in parenting, in PTA discussions, in social situations, at work, in job interviews, financial topics, seasonal events, and special occasions like birthdays, even. Adults who have done the relationships scene have a whole alternative slant on those things. All I get is how many birthday candles I can fit in the house, without starting a fire. I go vague and often blank when girls at work discuss gifts, outings and stuff they do as a couple. Like, visiting each other’s families. Having music that means something. Places to go that are special. I really haven’t the foggiest what they are on about. Or what makes it worth mentioning to others.

  I remember my boss Heath Gardner saying for a joke, upon seeing me blonde for the first time dropping a site timesheet for Crypto into the office, that I knew he liked blondes and was ‘Trying to get into his pants.’ My brain-stormed response was that I could only assume if that was the case, then he was keeping a Bugatti in there.

  I have a feeling that head office consider cars to be my soft spot also, having so far failed to find any vices or dependencies in my profile. I’m looking forward to what they come up with, if they do. It’ll be discovering a whole alternate personality I never knew existed. I’ve always felt that cars and bikes were a contrived substitute for a relationship, if that’s what they consider I’m about. And shoes are just an accessory, most of the time not even suitable for driving in. It would be fun to get that phone call one day, and find out what my sexual preferences are and how I like to dress for it. Shame the pictures won’t be genuine.

  The fact that they haven’t picked up on, is if cars are really my thing, then why don’t I take better care of them? Or maybe they’re indulging me for playing along, because I can’t give them another alternative. Either that, or they’re playing along with me, hoping that a dirty car means a dirty mind, and something else juicier will soon turn up.

  The truth is, I can only physically take care of what one half of a couple achieves in their everyday life. Especially a couple who are holding down a job or two along with parenting. And that includes housework, gardening and washing the cars. Even having separate personalities for each responsibility doesn’t stretch the amount of available time in which to complete everything.

  So I do half of everything, where possible. Including conversations. I’ve walked away from and opted out of so many conversations, and post-work chats, simply because there’s half of something else I need to do or think about, and continuity has never tried to catch up with me. I think if God has a continuity editor on my case, they’re surrounded by thousands of dead-end storylines to tie together seamlessly, and form some comprehensive lifeline of my own. Which so far is no more to me than a list of appointments and responsibilities, done out of duty rather than choice, or preference, or personality of my own. And that includes trying to maintain a personality that likes programming spreadsheet calculations, for self-employed tax and benefits, occasionally. Quite often that’s the one sitting on the sofa after work with a cup of tea, wearing other people’s blood in my hair, not to mention stale sticky beer on my boots picking up fluff from the carpet, looking for something routine and mathematical to blot out the memory of what I actually do to earn the figures.

  I don’t know what I would choose, given a chance to sit down minus the blood and really decide on what I liked and didn’t like, what I would do or not do, who I would talk to or avoid. What kind of lifestyle I would pursue, how I would socialize or what hobbies I would take up. What I would complain about or sympathize with other people over. What I would expect of a partner, and consider a cause for grievance or concern to share with friends, or in contrast, to gloat about. I really don’t know. I’m only just learning that it’s okay to flirt.

  I wonder if James Bond went through this, before he became the suave and inscrutable spy of Ian Fleming’s creation. Whether he had to find role models or flirt coaches, tailors, personal grooming tips, and etiquette tutors, before he emerged from his adolescent post-youth chrysalis into non-mid-life-crisis confidence and charisma. I wonder how many earlier incarnations of Bond were resigned to the wastepaper basket or bonfire of Fleming’s imagination.

  I’m not the world’s accepted ideal of a Hollywood-polished assassin - no matter how historically inaccurate the word ‘assassin’ is, according to Connor. Widely-travelled, suave, sane, literate in all vices from narcotic to sexual deviant, with a personalised cocktail you can order anywhere in the world - it
’s not me. I have the personal demons. I have the dark side (so dark, even I don’t see what’s in it). I can’t walk out of the surf in a bikini without hitching it back up into place, and scratching where things have bitten or stung, or given me an allergic reaction.

  My private life is part blank canvas, part loose ends flying around dangerously with unearthed voltages, like the concepts and observations in my brain. I don’t recall Bond ever judging a cheese toastie by how gay its presentation looked. Although I have found that ‘Gin & Tonic’ is about as multi-lingual as you need to be in the modern world. I pick up languages socially - enough to make foreign students unwise to talk cavalierly in front of me in the toilets, but not enough to pass myself off when speaking as a native of anywhere other than a loony planet, as some would suggest. Except for the Oriental languages. I was probably the only non-Oriental in my University class, and it just became easier to converse in a mixture of Mandarin/Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, by the end of two and a half years.

  Maybe charisma is just about making choices, like the shaken Martini, and adhering to them religiously until others respect you for it, regardless of what the choice is. People respect the pious continuity, the determination and how you justify it. Not what it is. Whether it’s an annual preference for Beaujolais Nouveau, or using a sniper rifle rather than a baseball bat. People like stolid and fearless, the strength of personality, and loyalty to values. Not double standards, fickleness and unpredictability.

  I realise, thinking about snipers, that Connor’s the steely determination type that I’m not. Partly because I’m on the receiving end of it. He hasn’t put me aside, or dropped me, or left me uninformed in any way that’s been within his power to demonstrate since taking on the job. Maybe it’s Connor’s life I should be comparing to the Hollywood characterization, not my own. He seems to have the key ingredients that I lack.

  I wonder also if he has the equally stereotypical detachment to walk away, once he’s got what he requires out of the situation.