Murphy debated whether to give him a telling-off just to kill a bit of time, before deciding against it. He yawned instead, waving away his apology with one hand. ‘Where’s the other one?’
‘Not sure,’ Harris replied, removing his black Superdry jacket. Murphy had priced one of those up in town a few weekends previously. Decided a hundred quid plus could be put to better use.
‘Doesn’t matter. Not like I’ve got anything for him to do.’
‘Still quiet then?’
Rossi winced and turned in her chair, almost knocking over the single plant they had in the office. ‘What did you say?’
Murphy leant back in his chair, smirking as he watched the young DC as he realised his mistake.
‘Er … nothing. I mean … nothing new?’
Rossi moved towards Harris, ‘You said the fucking Q word, che cazzo? Say it again, I dare you. Cagacazzo.’
‘What? I don’t … I didn’t mean …’
Murphy sat forward, palms out. ‘Calm down, it’s just a stupid superstition. No reason to start anything, okay?’
Rossi turned towards him, her features relaxing as she saw his face. ‘Va bene. It’s okay.’ She sat back in her chair and went back to her computer screen.
Murphy worried that Rossi calling a DC a dickhead in Italian was going to be the height of excitement for the day.
He needn’t have.
A few minutes later the other DC who was sharing the office with them came bursting through the door. New guy, just transferred. Murphy had enough problems remembering the names of those who’d been there years, without new ones being thrown into the mix.
‘We’re on. Body found in suspicious circumstances outside the church in West Derby.’
Murphy jumped up out of his seat at about the exact moment Rossi turned on Harris.
‘What did I tell you? You had to say the word, didn’t you. Brutto figlio di puttana bastardo.’
Murphy knew Harris had understood only one of the words Rossi had spat at him as she grabbed her black jacket from behind her chair. ‘Knock it off, Laura.’
Rossi muttered under her breath in reply to him. He had to hold back a laugh. ‘Come on. Let’s just get down there. You know how these things can turn out. It’s probably nothing.’
Which was perhaps a worse thing to say than the Q word.
Dead bodies. Decayed or fresh. Crawling with maggots, flies buzzing around your face as you examine them in light or darkness. Or, a serenity surrounding them, framed in a pale light as if time has come to a stop for them. There’s no tangible difference, really. They’re all the same, each with their own tale to tell, how the end has come.
It doesn’t matter how many times you see one, it never gets easier. Not in reality. You can kid yourself; pretend that you’re immune to it, that it doesn’t affect you any more. That’s all it is though – a pretence, a deception. A way of getting through it.
There was a simple answer in Murphy’s opinion. Seeing death makes you contemplate your own … and most people spend their lives actively trying to avoid their own death. Even those risk-takers jumping off cliffs with a tea towel as a parachute are only giving themselves the thrill of cheating death. They’d leave the tea towel behind if they really wanted to die.
Once the initial shock kicks in, an unconscious mental process clicks into place and professionalism takes over. Makes you forget about what it is you’re dealing with. That’s the way Murphy thought of it. He imagined a shutter going down in one part of his mind, thoughts and feelings closed away and a detachment appearing.
The only time it took a bit longer for that process to occur was when they were below a certain age.
This one was on the cusp.
West Derby is a small town just past Anfield, around fifteen minutes from the city centre. Only a few minutes away from the more infamous estates of Norris Green and Croxteth, it was also the home of Alder Hey Hospital and Liverpool F.C.’s training ground, Melwood.
Now it would gain its own little piece of notoriety.
Murphy stood in the gravel entrance to St Mary’s Church in West Derby – Croxteth Park off in the distance – having arrived a few minutes before the forensic team and pathologist, by some miracle. On the steps leading into the church lay what they’d been called for. A young white boy, or maybe a man. He could never tell age these days. Laid on his side, one arm tucked beneath him, the other draped across himself. Eyes closed over a destroyed face. A mask of smeared blood – an attempt to wash it off, perhaps? – which did little to deflate the impact. Open wounds on the cheeks, skin splitting on numerous areas. Red flesh on show above his mouth, his nose misshapen and swollen. Eyes puffed up under the swelling. A faded scar just below his eyebrow was noticeable only as it seemed to be the lone part of his face that was untouched. The grey-silver of healed skin stark against the surrounding reds, browns and blacks.
Rossi finished talking to a uniformed constable and walked back towards Murphy. ‘Well?’ he said as she reached him.
‘Two twelve-year-old lads found him. They were walking through the park to school and spotted him. Thought it was a tramp at first, but looking closer they saw his face and realised he wasn’t breathing. They pegged it, right into the vicar, or whatever they call them, who was arriving for the day. He was the one who called it in.’
‘They notice anything?’
‘They’re a bit shaken up, but adamant they didn’t see anything else. They walk past here every day apparently.’
Murphy finished snapping on a pair of latex gloves, his faded black shoes similarly covered, and bent down to look at the body closer up, wincing as he looked at the victim’s face.
‘How old do you reckon?’ Rossi said from above him.
‘Not sure. Can’t really tell with these kinds of injuries to his face. All these kids look much older than we ever did at that age.’
‘That’s probably just us getting old.’
Murphy grunted in reply and went back to studying the face of the male lying prostrate on the ground. A thick band of purplish red around his neck drew his attention.
‘Fiver says it’s strangulation.’
‘I’m not betting on cause of death, sir.’
Shuffling shoes and shouted orders interrupted Murphy before he could respond. He looked up, trying to effect a look of innocence as Dr Stuart Houghton, the lead pathologist in the city of Liverpool, bounded over. The doctor had grown even larger in the past year, meaning he moved slowly enough for Murphy to pull away from the body before Houghton arrived on the scene.
‘You touched anything?’
‘Morning to you an’ all, Doctor,’ Murphy said, avoiding meeting the doctor’s eyes.
‘Yeah, yeah. What have we got here?’
‘I thought you could tell me that.’
A large intake of breath as Houghton got to his haunches. ‘We’ll see.’ He snapped his own pair of gloves on and began examining the body.
‘How long?’ Murphy said after watching Houghton work for a minute or three.
‘Rigour is only just beginning to fade. At least twelve hours, I’d say. Body has been moved here.’ Houghton lifted the man-boy’s eyelids, revealing milky coffee eyes