‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t … be nice to me, I can’t handle it.’
‘What?’ He put his most affronted face on. ‘I’m always nice to you! You’re the mean one!’
She considered this for a moment.
‘OK, fine, black with two sugars then, please.’
He stood up and walked over to the machine; within seconds he had a steaming hot cup of what looked like watered-down mud. After smelling it, he decided against getting himself one. He put the sugars in and took it back over to Imogen, who was just taking a file from Denise Ferguson, the desk sergeant.
‘We have a case!’ she said, taking the coffee from him and sniffing it, before putting it on the desk as though it was a urine sample. ‘I’ll get us some coffee on the way.’
‘What’s the case?’
‘Triple homicide.’
‘Whoa! Do you think that’s a good idea?’
‘They can’t hurt me, Miley, they’re dead.’
‘I know, but wouldn’t you rather start out with something a little less gruesome?’
‘It’s sweet of you to be concerned,’ she said sarcastically. ‘But I want to work, I want to catch the bad guys before they catch up to us.’
‘As long as you’re OK.’
‘I will be. Believe it or not, I’ve been through worse.’
‘I know you have. I wish you’d talk to me about it, Imogen. That stuff you said … About what happened before you transferred from Plymouth – I’m here for you, if you want to talk.’
‘Miley, drop it, please. Fraser is waiting for us at the crime scene.’
‘OK, I’m dropping it. Let’s go.’
The road was cordoned off outside the house when they arrived. Adrian parked a few streets away, nearer to Exeter prison. He was glad it wasn’t night time. The darkness carried the sounds from inside the jail and left them whispering in the air. At least in the daylight you could pretend you weren’t standing so close to all that scum. Imogen was looking up at the prison windows, almost in a trance. Adrian thought he could see tears as she stared at the formidable red brick structure.
‘You OK?’ he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. She snapped her head round and looked at him; he moved his hand immediately and they set off for the crime scene.
As Adrian walked into the flat, he could tell it was some kind of brothel. He saw the blonde girl first; she was translucent and her skin looked almost wet. It must have been some kind of body glitter designed to make her glow, but on the dead skin it looked like the silvery sheen found on rotten meat. With her short, sparkly blue dress and her white legs covered in red, it was like some kind of horrific superhero costume. He thought of his battle-ready, limited-edition boxed Wonder Woman toy and his throat constricted.
He stepped over her and into the bedroom. There was a man in what appeared to be an adult babygro with a ladies’ comb sticking out of his neck, the long metal spike at the end jammed firmly into his jugular with several other puncture marks surrounding it. A vision was thrust upon Adrian: someone rapidly stabbing the man in the neck with great force. He had seen enough to know there were no hesitation marks: whoever had done this had killed before.
‘Are there any IDs on the bodies?’ Adrian asked DCI Fraser.
‘They took the man’s car already. We managed to trace him through the registration; he didn’t have any ID on him. His name is Edward Walker. As for the girls, we think the one out there lives in the flat upstairs.’
‘There’s another girl?’
‘Yeah, Estelle Jackson. She’s in the other room. It’s not pretty.’
Adrian followed DCI Fraser back past the blonde and into the bathroom. His hand immediately went up to his mouth.
‘What the hell?’
‘Jesus Christ.’ Imogen was standing beside him.
Adrian wanted to step in front of her to block her view but he knew it wasn’t his place. He just looked to see if she was OK. If she was shaken, she was hiding it well, but she couldn’t quite disguise the shallowness of her breath.
The girl lay in the bathtub, her face caked in blood, her stomach open and her guts piled up in her lap. Her eyes were wide open, which was probably the most disturbing part. Like one of those paintings where the eyes follow you around the room. She had obviously tried to stand up at some point; the shower curtain was on the floor and the tiles were covered in desperate handprints.
‘According to the coroner she was still alive when … this … happened. She bled out in the night. She probably tried to get up which is why … those bits have fallen out.’ Fraser gagged as he said it and turned away so that he could no longer see the girl. In all the time Adrian had known Fraser, he had never reacted like that to a crime scene.
‘Why would they do this to her specifically, and not to the others?’ Adrian peeled his eyes away from Imogen, who hadn’t once taken hers off the body.
‘Well, she was obviously the main target of the attack, or at least the closest thing. Judging by the nature of her injuries, she was tortured, my guess is they were after information on something, or someone. There’s another girl who lives here, her name is Bridget Ford, apparently. She isn’t anywhere as far as we can tell,’ DCI Fraser said eagerly.
‘Do we know what she looks like?’ Imogen piped up, her eyes firmly fixed on Estelle’s body.
‘Yeah, there are some photos of them together, and the Ford girl’s handbag is still in the bedroom. The guys are looking upstairs, apparently the hot water wasn’t working down here so we think Ford went upstairs to take a shower and when she came back she found all this.’
‘And we have no idea what happened to her after that?’ Adrian asked.
‘No.’
‘You think she got away?’ Imogen said.
‘Or she was involved. I mean, why hasn’t she called the police?’ Fraser said.
‘Or she could be dead some place else?’ Imogen offered.
‘Well, until we know differently, she’s a suspect, I guess,’ Fraser said.
‘Innocent until proven guilty? Do we not do that any more?’ Imogen seemed to be annoyed. She stomped out of the flat.
Adrian sighed. Even he found it hard to look at the girl in the bathtub. He stepped outside after Imogen, and smiled at the familiar sight of her sucking on a cigarette.
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Hey.’ She pulled out her packet of cigarettes and offered him one.
‘I’ve given up.’
‘Sure you have.’ She continued to hold the packet and he took one. Today didn’t feel like the right time to argue.
‘Are you OK?’
‘I thought we talked about this, Miley? Ask me if I’m OK one more time, I dare you.’
‘I’m not OK,’ he said, lighting the cigarette, ‘so I was just guessing that you probably aren’t either.’
She turned to him with a consolatory smile and put her hand on his shoulder.
‘Miley, I am OK, but I really don’t want to look at that poor woman in the bathtub again. We should talk to the neighbours.’
‘Fine with me.’
After hours of no useful responses from the neighbours, Imogen drove Adrian back to the station.