walked over to the back window and peered in through the rain-flecked glass.
Inside, the car was a mess. Not just the usual burger wrappers and sweetie papers, but splashes of paint and crusts of what looked like plaster dust. A tool bag lay in the rear footwell, next to two drums of flooring adhesive and a packet of slate tiles.
A voice behind them: ‘HOY!’
Callum turned.
A young bloke in uniform was stomping his way across the field towards them, one hand holding the peaked cap on top of his head. ‘YOU! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING? GET AWAY FROM THERE!’
Franklin waited till he was six feet away, before hauling out a standard-issue warrant-card holder. ‘Constable. Care to explain why I’m wasting my time with a road traffic collision?’
PC Shouty peered at her warrant card, then pulled a face. ‘No offence, but could you not have introduced yourself back at the roadside and saved me a trip down …’ The expression on Franklin’s face must have finally worked its magic, because he shut his mouth with an audible click. Blushed. ‘Sorry?’
Her voice got even colder. ‘I’m listening.’
‘Yes. Right.’ He pointed at the car. ‘Someone called it in this morning, no sign of the driver or any passengers.’
She stepped closer, looming. ‘And I give a toss, because?’
‘The boot! There’s a body in the boot and we thought … well, I thought – thinking isn’t exactly Tony’s forte – but—’
‘There’s a body in the boot?’ Her eyes widened. ‘YOU BLOODY IDIOT! Why haven’t you cordoned off the scene? Where’s the common approach path? Why aren’t you logging visitors? And where the buggering hell is the SEB?’
He backed off a couple of paces, hands up. ‘Whoa. It’s not like that. I mean, it’s not fresh or anything, it’s just, you know, dead, and we—’
‘THERE ARE HUMAN REMAINS IN THAT CAR, YOU MORON! Call the pathologist, now!’
‘No, it’s like … Look.’ He sidled around to the boot of the car and popped the hatchback lid. Swung it up with a gloved hand. ‘See?’
Callum leaned forward and frowned.
There, nestled in amongst the dustsheets and a bucket full of plasterboard fragments was a human body. It lay on its side, arms folded so the hands were pressed against its chest, knees hard up against the hands, feet hard up against the bottom. Head bent forward sharply, so the face was almost completely hidden by the knees. Skin shrunken and wrinkled, the colour of ancient leather.
He groaned. ‘Not another one.’
Franklin bared her teeth. ‘Is this supposed to be a joke, Constable?’ She poked Callum in the shoulder with a rock-hard finger. ‘A bit of a laugh at the new girl’s expense?’ Gearing up for a good bellow. ‘WELL, IS IT?’
And there it was again, that smell. Much stronger here than it had been back at the tip, where it had to fight with the stench of a hundred million rotting bin-bags. The rich, warm, but slightly bitter tang of wood smoke, so strong you could taste it at the back of your throat.
‘Constable! Constable MacGregor, I’m talking to—’
‘Will you shut up a minute?’ He snapped on a pair of blue nitrile gloves. Reached in and prodded the body. Solid, as if it’d been carved from a chunk of oak, then dipped in the peatiest whisky in the world.
When he straightened up, Franklin’s eyes were wide, her whole person trembling as if she was about to pop.
Before she could get started, he dragged out his Airwave handset and called Control. ‘Aye, Brucie? I need a check on a Kia Picanto.’ He rattled off the registration number and colour, then clunked the boot shut in the intervening silence.
Franklin squared her puffed-up shoulders. ‘Now you listen to me, Sunshine, I will not be spoken to like that! How dare—’
‘Okeydokey.’ A thick Dundonian accent crackled out of the Airwave’s speaker. ‘Yer car’s registered to a Glen Carmichael, eighteen Walsh Crescent, Blackwall Hill. Twenty-four years old. Ooh, looks like he lives with his mum. You wanting the postcode?’
‘Has he got prior?’
‘Couple counts of housebreaking-and-robbery when he was twelve. Suspended sentence. And an ex-girlfriend got herself a restraining order when he was fourteen. Sounds like a lovely wee lad.’
‘OK, thanks, Brucie.’ Callum put his Airwave away. Grinned at Franklin. ‘We turned up a mummy at the tip this morning, just like this one. Probably nicked from a museum. The Kia’s owner has form for breaking into places he shouldn’t and helping himself to things that aren’t his. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’
‘I see.’ She shot her cuffs again. ‘Well, don’t just stand there – let’s go pick him up.’
‘Shhh, you’re doing great.’
Is he? Then why does he feel so terrible? Why does he just want to lie down and die?
The water around him is cold, but that’s not why he’s shivering.
A sponge dips into the dark brown liquid, then runs gently across his chest, clearing away the thin white rime of salt. Dissolving the crystals back into the brine.
The wall whispers over the sound of trickling water. ‘They’ll worship you: you’ll be a god.’
Then the sponge dips into the water again, presses against his forehead sending rivulets running down his lined face.
‘They’ll worship you: you’ll be a god.’
‘Are you thirsty?’ The voice is kind, worried. ‘Do you want something to drink?’
He tries to shake his head, but can only tremble. No. No more of the foul water.
‘I know it’s bitter, but it’s good for you. Full of herbs and minerals. Here …’
‘You’ll be a god. You’ll be a god. You’ll be a god.’
A metal cup presses against his cracked lips, and he hasn’t got the strength to keep his jaw clenched shut. Sour liquid fills his mouth, catches the back of his throat. And he coughs, splutters the water out, feels it dripping from his chin onto his chest.
‘They’ll worship you.’
His body rocks back and forward, sending out little waves across the bath.
Why can’t he cry?
Only it’s not really a bath, is it? It’s a large metal trough, big enough for three people, let alone one living skeleton. All the joints are rusty, dark brown as if the thing is bleeding, rivets standing out like nipples on its cold metal skin.
Why can’t he just die?
‘You’ll be a god, and they’ll worship you.’
‘Shhh …’ A warm hand on his forehead. A gentle touch and a soft word. ‘It’ll all be over soon.’
Walsh Crescent curled in on itself like a snail shell. Mostly bungalows, but every now and then a second storey sprouted from a converted attic. Box hedges, gravel driveways, nameplates on the garden walls. Pretensions of grandeur. One even had a pair of three-foot-high lions perched either side of the drive, their whitewashed surfaces cracked