Chapter One
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Sergeant Wilkins stood outside the office door, breathing deeply. Behind him, he could hear the normal buzz of the office of phones ringing and printers spewing out printed paper. Why he was feeling anxious, he wasn’t sure, probably because DCI Fenton didn’t like being disturbed when his office door was shut, but Wilkins had been sent by the desk clerk with the call-out message. Feeling that his breathing was under control and that he was calm, he knocked on the door.
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‘WHAT?’ The voice from within shouted, irritably.
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‘Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I’ve been sent to inform you of a report of an offensive smell coming from a storage locker at Metcalf’s Storage Solutions.’
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‘For heaven’s sake, that’s a beat bobby’s job. Why don’t they contact the owner of the locker?’
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Fenton wondered to himself why Wilkins had disturbed him with something so stupid?
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‘I agree, but apparently, they have made numerous attempts to contact the owner, and are getting no response. They’ve asked for someone from the station to come out and had no response, so the owner thought if he asked for someone higher up in the chain, he’d get somewhere.’
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‘Who does the locker belong to?’ Fenton asked resignedly, his elbow resting on the table, which in turn supported his face on his fist.
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Wilkins checked the paper he held in his hand. ‘A Miss C Reynolds.’
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‘And you’ve come to me because?’ He yawned.
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‘We’ve been asked to attend, and they don’t want a police constable, they want an Inspector.’
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Fenton sighed heavily, pushed his chair back and stood up.
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‘This had so better not be a wind up. Let’s go. You can drive.’
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Kevin Fenton had the reputation of his bark being worse than his bite. He was in his mid-thirties, married with a four-week old baby. He was tired; the bags under his eyes were testament to the lack of sleep he was experiencing. The baby cried every night, as did his wife, who felt she was a failure for not being able to placate the baby and allow her husband to sleep. Kevin tried his best to reassure her that she was being a brilliant mother, but it seemed to fall short of his wife’s hearing.
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Kevin’s brown hair was kept short; normally impeccably dressed, he was looking more and more unkempt with his shirts not being ironed since the birth of his son. He could have ironed the shirts himself, but he wouldn’t know where to begin putting up the ironing board, let alone ironing a garment. His tie was loosely tied, and his suit gave the appearance of being slept in.
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While on paternity leave, he hadn’t shaved and on returning to work, decided that the beard gave him more gravitas; it certainly made him look more his age, rather than the twenty something most people guessed. He thanked his mother for inheriting her youthful genes, but it wasn’t always useful in his job.
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The car came to a halt.
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‘We’re here, sir.’
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Kevin Fenton opened his eyes. He’d enjoyed a fifteen-minute snooze.
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‘What, already?’
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He got out of the car, lifted his elbows, pushed them backwards as if he was imitating a chicken, and stretched.
‘I suppose we should find the office first. Lead the way Wilkins.’
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Nathan Wilkins (Nate to his friends), was thirty-five years old, six feet five inches tall and weighed close to fifteen stone. A first sighting of him by anyone, saw him as being quite intimidating. He sported a black beard, and very short hair, almost a crew-cut. He was often told to ‘go back home’ as people thought he was from the middle east. His stock phrase was ‘I’m as English as you are, you muppet.' It didn’t help that his skin had an olive complexion inherited from his Spanish mother.
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Nate located the office and knocked on the door and was greeted by a man in his late-twenties, wearing torn jeans and a hoodie advertising an American university.
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‘Hi, I’m Craig Metcalf, owner, can I help you?’
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‘We’ve had a report from you about an offensive…’
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‘Oh god yeah. It’s awful. It’s like rotten meat mixed with cheap perfume that’s fermenting. We were alerted to it by one of our clients. I’ve closed the whole floor off. It’s bloody awful, but the stink is making its way down here. I’ve opened all the windows in the corridor, but it ain’t shifting that pong.’
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‘Do you have spare keys?’
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‘No.’
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‘So how do we gain access?’
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Kevin rolled his eyes. He really disliked one-word answers. It was like the person couldn’t be bothered to speak, so they found the shortest answer possible.
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‘Locksmith.’
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‘Wilkins, call a locksmith out. I’ll be in the car, let me know when he arrives.’
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Kevin hoped to nap and catch up on some of his missing sleep. He couldn’t fathom how one little person could cause so much havoc in another person’s sleep. Half an hour later, Nate knocked on the car window, startling Kevin out of his slumber. Nate pointed to his chin and then at Kevin, who realised he must have dribbled saliva out of the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and got out of the vehicle.
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‘I have one piece of advice for you Wilkins. Never have children, or at least if you do, let the missus take care of it, leave home and return once the child is in control of all its faculties.’
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Nate laughed. ‘Now I know you don’t mean it.’
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‘No, I don’t really, though right at this moment it is a tempting thought.’
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‘Anyway, it’s too late sir, I have three kids, all under five. I know what you’re going through, and I can assure you it will get better.’
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‘Really? Three under five years old?’ Kevin shook his head in disbelief, he couldn’t cope with one, let alone three. ‘I don’t think I’ve slept since Ollie was born.’
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‘By my reckoning, you’ve had forty-five minutes this morning, which is pretty good going.’ Nate laughed.
‘If you breathe a word of this…’
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‘Don’t worry sir, you’re not the first and you won’t be the last to nap on duty. The locksmith has arrived. I’ve been up to the third floor and it is pretty bad. Something has definitely met its end in the unit. It’s anyone’s guess as to whether it’s human or animal.’
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Kevin grimaced. He’d grown almost immune to death, but not the smell of it.
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‘I hope you don’t think it was too presumptive of me, but I’ve called out the forensic pathologist.’
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‘No… no that’s good thinking. Is the smell really that bad?’
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‘Worse. Rotten eggs and faeces. I’ve smelt something like it before and it wasn’t good.’
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Nate and Kevin climbed the stairs, thirty-nine in total, not counting the square that connected each set of steps, up to the third floor where the locksmith, Bob Keyes, was starting work on the locks. He was a tall, skinny man in his mid-forties and wore skinny jeans, a red check shirt, and bright yellow doc martens with red laces. His hair was reminiscent of the punk rock era of the 1970s, spiked up with hair gel. He was wearing a mouth mask which gave off the aroma of lavender.
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‘Not the first time you’ve done this then?’ Kevin asked him, his eyes watering from the odour.
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‘No, that’s why I’ve got the lavender oil. If you want to put a couple of drops on one of these tissues, there, it will help with the odour.’
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Kevin and Nate both grabbed a fistful of tissues on which they dropped lavender oil, and held them over their noses.
‘This should be part of every copper’s equipment.’ Nate exclaimed, relieved that the oil was helping to mask the smell, though not completely.
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The locksmith had managed to unlock the door just as the pathologist arrived.
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‘Hmmm,’ the voice wheezed, ‘if I’m not wrong, that smells like human decomposition.’
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Kevin turned around.
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‘Blair, good to see you, and just in time for the unveiling.’
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Blair Jones was forty-nine, five feet three inches tall, and just as wide. He had curly red hair, which, with his ruddy complexion, made him look quite clownish, not helped by his size fourteen feet. He took an inhaler out of his jacket pocket and breathed in as he released the plunger, holding his breath for ten seconds before speaking.
‘Congratulations on becoming a father. How’s he settling down?’ He asked before repeating the procedure.
‘Thanks. He doesn’t settle at night at all. It’s as if he hasn’t been programmed with that circuitry. Nobody tells you how bloody hard it can be, but he’s a lovely little chap, four weeks old and it feels like we’ve had him forever.’ Kevin smiled.
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‘How’s Di?’
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‘Knackered. We both are.’
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‘I can see that,’ he nodded at Kevin, ‘I didn’t want to mention the bags under your eyes.’
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‘They’re not bags, they’re bloody suitcases packed and stuffed.’
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Nate stifled a laugh. ‘My wife was the same with our first one, but one of her friends dragged her along to one of those mum’s and tot’s groups where she found she wasn’t alone, they were all going through it, or had been through it. Perhaps something like that would help your wife. They share tips of what’s worked between them. Some of them actually work.’
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‘Thanks Wilkins, I’ll mention it to the missus.’
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‘Would you like me to go in first?’ Blair asked, zipping up the white forensic suit which made him look more like a giant snowball.
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‘Not a bad idea.’ Kevin quickly replied with a sense of relief.
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Blair held out a couple of forensic suits. ‘You’d better put these on.’
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The locksmith stood back to allow them all to enter the unit.
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‘I’ll change the lock cylinder for you and leave you the key, then I’ll be on my way. Do you want me to send the bill into the station?’
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‘Please. Mark it for my attention will you, name of Fenton.’ He ducked as a swarm of flies flew out. ‘Oh god this was worse than he thought.’
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Blair pushed the door open and switched on the light. The air was warm and a low hum could be heard. The room was empty apart from a chest freezer which was open, and a fan heater, which was plugged in and working. Blair stepped over to it and switched it off.
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‘Ugh that’s gross. Why the fan heater?’ Nate asked. He felt like being sick. He closed his eyes and gulped down the lump of saliva that was gathering at the back of his throat.
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Blair was surveying the contents of the freezer as he answered. ‘Helps speed up decomposition.’
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‘How long do you think the body has been here?’ Kevin enquired peering into the freezer, holding his face mask firmly over his mouth and nose. The body, he presumed from the clothing, was a woman, though he couldn’t be totally sure as the skin was slipping from its skeletal frame. The clothing looked like a black jacket, skirt and possibly, high heeled shoes. There were flies and maggots all over the body.
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‘Hard to say. I’d say anywhere between four weeks and a week. Hopefully I will have a better idea when I do the autopsy.’
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‘Is there anything left to do an autopsy on?’ Kevin spluttered.
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‘Yes,’ Blair answered, confidently, ‘plenty, you’d be amazed.’
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Kevin closed his eyes, and held the mask tight over his mouth and nose, muffling his voice. ‘I don’t think I’ll attend this one, if you don’t mind.’
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‘Sir, there’s something under the freezer.’ Nate pointed.
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Kevin lifted the corner of the freezer just enough to allow Nate to retrieve the object, turning his head away and screwing his eyes shut, in the hope that it would block out the smell.
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‘Looks like a mobile phone. The screen is cracked.’
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‘Hardly surprising if it’s been under the freezer all this time. Bag it, Wilkins, we’ll get forensics to look at it. Blair, I’ll leave the key with you, so you can get your team in to check the room.’ He couldn’t get out of their quick enough.
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‘Thanks Kevin, I’ll get a report to you as soon as I can.’