All Rotting Meat

by Maleham , Eve

  An odd pause settled between them as she and Cain stood staring at the man who looked incredibly unfazed, despite having been stabbed twice. Blood from his mouth still dripped onto the floor, though the wildness in his eyes was fading away. He took a cautious step forward, and the three of them flinched. He turned to the woman on the floor.

  ‘Just give me my goddamn bag back already, would you?’

  He had an eclectic, archaic accent made up of Scandinavian and American which flowed into each other with every syllable. The woman, huddled on the floor, gave a timid nod and gingerly lifted the rucksack up to him. The man snatched it out of her hands and roughly opened it until he was satisfied it contains were still inside. He turned and turned to the woman.

  ‘Sorry, I got carried away there,’ he said, vaguely gesturing to her still-bleeding neck. ‘Just don’t steal my shit.’ He turned to Cain and Khalida; Khalida tightened her grip on the knife. ‘I didn’t mean to break your door in either, so sorry about that.’

  Before either of them could recreate he stepped back through the doorframe and returned to the night.

  ‘What,’ Khalida breathed, ‘the fuck was that?’

  ‘No idea,’ Cain muttered. ‘Are you okay?’ he said, turning to her. ‘You’re not hurt?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nope.’ Khalida looked at the woman. ‘What about you? That cut looks like it needs seeing to.’

  The woman looked up. There was a bohemian look about her; she wore a pair of scruffy, peeling boots on her feet, baggy, colourfully-patched trousers, an indigo thickly knitted poncho, and a tie-dyed scrap of fabric, which was keeping her somewhat matted, mousy blonde dreadlocks back from her pointed face.

  ‘I usually self-medicate,’ she said, with a lisp.

  ‘I’m a paramedic,’ Khalida said. Her voice sounded loud and distance to herself over the blood pounding through her head. She gestured for the woman to sit down at the kitchen table, as Cain fetched the first aid box. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Gwen.’

  ‘I’m Khalida, and this Cain,’ she said, as she hurriedly washed her hands in the sink. She glanced cautiously into the garden but couldn’t see anything past a few feet of frosty grass, and her own reflection.

  She glanced around the newly refurbished kitchen. Apart from the broken in back door, and the blood on the tiled floor, it looked oddly undisturbed. She shook her head and perched on the chair next to Gwen, pushing back a few dreadlocks to get a closer look at the cuts around her neck. Up close, she had a certain smell of damp, toast, smoke, and weed.

  ‘It looks a bit of a mess, and you’re going to need stitches,’ said Khalida, as she cleaned the wound with a wipe. ‘But I think it looks worse than it actually is.’ Gwen flinched as Khalida dabbed at the cuts. ‘My biggest concern is inflection, especially considering he used his teeth to do the damage. But I can’t really do much but clean it here. Do you hurt anywhere else?’

  Gwen shook her head. Her face was deathly pale – she was shaking, and under her loose-fitting clothes, she looked very small and young.

  ‘Do you want us to call anyone for you?’ Khalida asked, ‘Someone who could help you?’

  Gwen shook her head again.

  ‘Nah, it’s okay…’ she said. ‘I was on my way back from my sister’s and we don’t get along. She had some friends over and I just decided taking that guys bag…He didn’t seem to need money. Sorry about coming here,’ she said. ‘I had mates who used to squat here…thought this place was still vacant. Sorry for bothering you…’ Her voice trailed off, and her bottom lip began to quiver.

  ‘Do you want a drink of something?’ Khalida asked.

  ‘Rum,’ Gwen muttered.

  ‘How about tea instead?’ she said.

  It took half an hour for two exhausted police officers to arrive, and after twenty minutes they called an ambulance for Gwen. Khalida and Cain were left to call a taxi for themselves to take them to their friends Ali’s house who lived nearby and had a spare room.

  Khalida and Cain had met in the same house a year and a half before at a party. They had mutual friends but had never met before until they found themselves in the kitchen together and ended up getting some chips together which they shared on their way back home. She had been taken to Cain’s peaceful demeanour and learning to read his expressions, his never-ending patience, his dry humour, how he hardly ever never raised his voice, how he always smelt nice and his clothes were always soft. Cain was a spot of pure calm to her, now needed more than ever. She curled up close to him under the duvet of the spare bed.

  Whether she slept at all or not was difficult to say. She had closed her eyes and a silence had lapsed over the room, but it seemed that only a minute had passed before the noise of Ali’s young children waking up filled the house. Not wanting to face the hectic school rush, which grew increasingly more frantic as the morning wore on, she and Cain stayed firmly in bed, with Cain calling his school to say that he had to take the morning off. Khalida faded in and out of a light sleep, disturbed by the sound of the morning news and a cartoon channel playing off against each other from two separate rooms, loud bangs from the kitchen, and Ali and his husband shouting various instructions to their children across the house. At eight Ali popped his head around the door to tell them that a couple of detectives would be coming by at nine. By half past eight the very last door had slammed shut, and they thought it was safe to leave the spare room and get some breakfast in Ali’s massive kitchen.

  ‘I feel dreadful,’ Khalida muttered over the creamy porridge Cain had made for them, taking a long drink of strong coffee. ‘Cannot believe I’m doing a nightshift today as well.’

  ‘Go back to bed for a nap after the police have been,’ Cain said, rubbing sleep from his eyes. ‘I wonder what more they’re going to want from us?’

  Khalida shrugged. ‘Well, the guys last night weren’t exactly thorough, were they?’

  As Cain cleared the bowls away into the dishwasher, there was a knock at the door, which Khalida got up to answer. She was faced with two detectives, who flashed their badges up at her as soon as she opened the door to them.

  One was a stocky man with a heavily lined face on leathery skin, a buzz cut of almost translucent dark blond hair, deep-set watery blue eyes, and wearing a cheap, crumbled brown suit. The female detective was almost the total opposite of him; a statuesque woman with neat blackish brown braids which ran past her shoulders, she had an elfin face, high cheekbones, and slanted, liquid brown eyes, which held an unreadable yet intense emotion. Her dark brown skin was flawless and smooth, it was nearly impossible to guess her age, though by her demeanour Khalida guessed that she was several years older than herself. She wore simple yet sophisticated clothing; Khalida caught a glimpse of heeled leather boots, long brown leather trench coat and a silver-topped cane before she brought her attention back to the both of them.

  ‘Are you Khalida Natakarn?’ the man asked. He looked as tired as Khalida felt. ‘We were told that you and your boyfriend were temporarily staying at this address. I’m DI Campbell and this is DS Stone. May we come in?’

  ‘Is this about the formal statement?’ Khalida asked. ‘The officers last night said I’d have to make one.’

  ‘If you could write a detailed letter fully describing the events,’ Campbell said. ‘But we’re not here for that. These are just some follow-up questions.’

  Khalida nodded and lead them through to the kitchen, DS Stone walked with a pronounced limp.

  ‘And you are Cain John Faye?’ Campbell said, ‘the owner of Thirteen Eastwood Road?’

  Cain nodded, and as the two detectives took a seat at Ali’s kitchen table, he turned back to busy himself with tea making. ‘Is this about the incident last night?’ he asked.

  Campbell nodded. ‘It is. We’d just like to ask you a couple of follow up questions. How are you guys doing, anyway? Are you holding up okay?’ he said, looking at Cain.

  ‘I’m alright,’ Cain said. Khalida turned to him and
saw, with fresh eyes, what she understood to be Cain’s morning look; tousled and somewhat greasy hair, eyes which seemed to have sunk into his head, and skin so unpleasantly pale that it raised medical concerns, giving him a look of death or shell-shock.

  ‘I’m doing okay,’ Khalida said. ‘It seems to be more of a dream.’

  Campbell gave a sideways look at Cain, then turned back to the both of them.

  ‘Would you mind if we record this conversation?’

  Cain nodded. ‘Sure.’

  Stone took out a recorder from her handbag and placed it neatly on the table.

  ‘Is there a forensic team at our house now?’ Khalida asked, pushing back the dull tiredness which lurked behind her eyes. ‘The officers last night said we could go back as soon as they were done there.’

  Campbell gave something of a smirk. ‘There’s a forensic investigator round there at the moment. As we said, we just want to ask you a few follow up questions to expand on what you told the officers last night.’

  ‘How is Gwen doing?’ Khalida said, accepting a mug of tea from Cain.

  ‘Fine,’ Campbell said. ‘None of her injuries were too severe, and she’s already been discharged from hospital.’

  ‘So, what happened to her?’ Cain said, as he placed a tray of tea down in front of them. ‘How did she end up at our house?’

  ‘She said she used to squat there,’ Khalida added, ‘or her friends did.’

  ‘She attempted to trying to steal the assailant’s bag,’ Campbell said. ‘However, we had a few questions surrounding the assailant; the notes we received from the officers last night were pretty sketchy.’ Khalida glanced towards Cain and nodded.

  ‘Now, Ms Cooper was unable to provide us with too much information,’ Campbell said. ‘We were hoping that you can help us a little bit here.’

  ‘Okay,’ Khalida said, ‘what do you want to know?’

  ‘Can you go over his appearance?’ Stone asked, speaking for the first time.

  ‘Khalida saw him best,’ Cain said, looking over to her.

  ‘Well…’ she began, looking up to the detectives for a clue as to where to start. ‘He was a white guy, I’d say somewhere between his mid-twenties to early-thirties. Pretty average build, he looked like he worked out but nothing special. A little over average height. He had red hair, not ginger,’ she said with a glance at Cain, ‘but like actual crimson hair, which came past his neck. And he was wearing coloured contact lenses, one of his eyes was red and the other yellow…’ her voice trailed off as the detectives exchanged a glance. ‘Is that enough?’

  ‘Any other distinguishing features?’ Stone asked.

  ‘He was wearing a ton of earrings,’ Cain said. ‘I remember that.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Stone said. ‘Any distinguishing dental features?’

  Cain’s brow furrowed. ‘You mean his teeth?’

  Stone nodded. ‘Yes.’

  Cain shrugged. ‘They looked pretty normal to me. None of them were missing or looked damaged.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Stone asked, her intense eyes burrowing into Khalida.

  ‘He had really long, sharp canines,’ Khalida said, ‘almost like fangs.’

  ‘And he was biting into her neck?’ Stone said. Deep in the back of her eyes, Khalida could see something glimmer. A small smile broke across Cain’s face.

  ‘Sounds like he thought he was a vampire.’

  ‘And can you please describe the bites?’ Stone continued

  ‘I don’t know, it all happened so quickly,’ Khalida said. ‘But he did clamp down on her neck with his teeth, and when he looked over to me there was blood running down his chin.’

  ‘Do you know if it’s a drug thing?’ Cain asked. ‘It sounds like he might have been high on something.’

  ‘That is a possibility we are looking into,’ Campbell said, taking a drink of tea. ‘After all, normal human beings don’t try to bite their throat out and remain mostly unresponsive to being stabbed twice.’

  ‘About that,’ Khalida said, ‘I, um, I did stab him twice. The officers from last night kind of brushed it off, but I’m not going to get into any trouble, am I?’

  ‘Considering you were doing it to try to stop a home invader from murdering someone by ripping her neck apart, I think it’s covered under the reasonable defence laws,’ Campbell said, as he looked back over his notes.

  ‘But I stabbed him,’ Khalida said, ‘twice. He could be dead.’

  ‘The new laws are fairly lenient,’ Campbell said, ‘so I’m confident you won’t face any legal repercussions, Ms Natakarn. From all accounts, it sounds like if you hadn’t acted when you did, Ms Cooper might be dead now. Also, as of yet, we’ve found no-one with two stab wounds who matches the description, dead or alive.’

  ‘Will you, though?’ she asked.

  Campbell gave a grim smile. ‘We hope so,’ he said. ‘And that, I believe, concludes our questioning.’ He looked over at Stone, who nodded and turned off the recorder. ‘Off the record,’ he added, as he gulped the last of his tea down, ‘we’re unlikely to arrest him. This was just procedure.’

  ‘It’s procedure for an Inspector and a Sergeant to ask follow up questions to a crime which most likely will not be resolved?’ Cain said. ‘And – ’

  ‘He tried to murder someone, and it sounds like everyone’s giving up on arresting him already,’ Khalida snapped, cutting over what Cain had to say. ‘It’s not even been twenty-four hours yet, for God’s sake!’

  Campbell gave them both a look of disbelief and annoyance as he got to his feet.

  ‘You,’ he said, pointing at Cain, ‘work in a state school, and you,’ he said, jabbing his finger at Khalida, ‘a free hospital. You both know how it is. Now, please,’ he said, pulling out an envelope from his coat, ‘follow the directions given in this enclosed letter in regard to the writing of and submission of your formal statement. Mr Faye, you will receive a phone call when the forensic investigator has finished with your house.’

  Stone’s eyes flickered between the two of them, her expression unreadable as she left behind Campbell. As the door shut, they both sighed.

  ‘Perhaps I should have really tried to kill him,’ Khalida muttered. ‘At least then we’d know for sure that he wouldn’t try to murder anyone again. I can’t believe that they’re not even trying to arrest him.’

  ‘You were fantastic,’ Cain said, putting an arm around her, ‘but if you had actually killed him then there would have to be an inquiry and god help you if he was someone important. Did you know that the King can hunt people for sport and no-one can arrest him?’

  Khalida raised an eyebrow, ‘are you saying that the guy was Charles?’

  Cain shrugged, ‘maybe, I mean, just look at what happened to Diana. Just try and get some more sleep in before your shift, okay?’

  ‘Still…’ Khalida said, ‘he had fangs, though, and he looked…well, he didn’t look human.’

  Cain kissed the top of her head. ‘I saw a man attacking a vulnerable woman. It was terrible, but not unhuman. Now, try and get some rest. Are you sure you still want to go to work tonight?’

  She nodded. ‘This won’t be the most exhausted I’ve ever been on a shift,’ she said, ‘and we’re short-staffed as it is.’

  She returned to the spare bedroom as Cain got dressed for work. Her tiredness had settled into a dull ache, and her eyes were dry, but sleep wouldn’t come. Her mind shifted back to the man’s teeth; his fangs, the blood, and that wild look in his strange eyes which seemed uncomfortably familiar.

  * * *

  Khalida leaned back against the brick wall of the warehouse and sighed, her breath steaming out in front of her face. The sky was a dull, dark grey, though she couldn’t see beyond a few feet before the world was lost to fog. An ice-cold mist had settled over London. She and her senior partner in the ambulance sipped at their coffee as they waited for their turn to be debriefed by the police about the patients which they and another crew had tried to save but had succumb
ed to their injures on scene. She wrapped her hands around her cup of coffee, which was burning the tips of her fingers, but she ignored it and let the warmth seep through her.

  ‘Pretty gruesome.’

  Khalida turned to see a familiar figure walking towards her, a lit cigarette held against the top of the cane.

  ‘You’re that detective…’ she said. ‘Stone, wasn’t it?’

  ‘DS Stone,’ she said, brushing back her braids behind her ear. ‘It’s a shame that we aren’t meeting again under better circumstances.’

  ‘You’re investigating these murders as well then,’ Khalida said, nodding to the collection of various police cars lining the street.

  Stone nodded; her eyes were glowing.

  ‘So, is Campbell here as well?’ Khalida asked.

  Stone nodded again. ‘He is. I’m sorry but these probably means your case will be shelved immediately.’

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ Khalida said.

  Stone took a long drag on her cigarette, ‘ah, how embarrassing,’ she said, the smoke billowing around her face, her eyes focused on the police station just visible around the corner. ‘Just wait until the press get hold of this.’

  ‘You won’t get in trouble?’ Khalida asked.

  Stone shook her head, ‘no, thank fuck, this is way above me.’

  Khalida took a sip of her coffee and turned her gaze back to the warehouse. Someone had found the bodies of three people in various stages of decomposition chained up in the basement alongside two people who died shortly afterwards. They had been eaten alive; their flesh stripped down to the bone. The smell of raw and decaying meat clung to the air.

  ‘What do you think happened here?’

  Stone looked up at the warehouse, her eyes blazing. ‘Something tremendously fucked-up.’

  ‘Will you catch whoever it was?’ Khalida asked.