Frieda Klein 2 - Tuesday's Gone Read Free Page A

and Yvette made their
     way to the door that wasn’t blocked off. They stepped inside, into a different
     universe of order: it was like being in a library, where everything was meticulously
     catalogued and stored in its allotted space. Three pairs of ancient shoes, on top of
     each other; a shelf of round stones; another shelf of bird bones, some of which still
     had matted feathers stuck to them, a tub of cigarette butts lying side by side, another
     plastic container with what looked like hair balls. He had time to think, as he passed
     into the next room, that the woman who lived here must be crazy. And then, for a while,
     he stared at the thing on the sofa, the naked man sitting upright, in a halo of slow,
     fat flies.
    He was quite slender, and although it was
     hard to tell, didn’t seem old. His hands were in his lap, as if in modesty, and in
     one of them was an iced bun; his head was propped up with a pillow so that his open
     sulphurous eyes stared straight at them and his lopsided, stiffened mouth leered. His
     skin was a mottled blue, like a cheese left out for too long. Karlsson thought of the
     acid-washed jeans his little daughter had made him buy for her. He pushed the thoughtaway. He didn’t want to bring her into this setting, even in his
     mind. Leaning forward, he saw vertical marks striping the man’s torso. He must
     have been dead for some time, judging not just from the way his skin had darkened where
     the blood had puddled on the underside of his thighs and buttocks, but also from the
     smell that was making Yvette Long, standing behind Karlsson, breathe in shallow, hoarse
     gasps. There were two full cups of tea by his left foot, which was curled upwards at an
     unnatural angle, the toes splayed. He had a comb stuck into his light brown hair, and
     lipstick on his mouth.
    ‘Obviously he’s been here some
     time.’ Karlsson’s voice sounded calmer than he had expected.
     ‘It’s warm in the room. That hasn’t helped.’
    Yvette made a noise that might have been
     agreement.
    Karlsson forced himself to look more closely
     at the mottled, puffy flesh. He waved Yvette over. ‘Look,’ he said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘At his left hand.’
    The tip of the middle finger was missing
     from above the knuckle.
    ‘It could be a deformity.’
    ‘It looks to me like it’s been
     cut off and the wound hasn’t healed properly,’ said Karlsson.
    Yvette swallowed before she spoke. She
     absolutely wasn’t going to be sick. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.
     ‘It’s hard to tell. It looks a bit mushy but it could be …’
    ‘General decomposition,’ said
     Karlsson.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Which is happening at an advanced
     rate because of the heat.’
    ‘Chris said the bar-fire was on when
     they arrived.’
    ‘The autopsy should tell us.
     They’ll need to get a move on.’
    Karlsson looked at the
     cracked window and its rotting sill, the thin orange curtains. There were things that
     Michelle Doyce had collected and ordered: a cardboard box of balled-up, obviously soiled
     tissues; a drawer full of bottle-tops, colour-coded; a jam jar containing nail
     clippings, small yellowing crescents. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he
     said. ‘Talk to her and the woman who found him. We can come back later, when
     he’s been taken away.’
    As they left, the forensic team arrived,
     with their lights and cameras, face masks, chemicals and general air of professional
     competence. Karlsson felt relieved. They would take away the horror, turn the ghastly
     room boiling with flies into a well-lit laboratory where the objects would become data
     and be classified.
    ‘What a way to go,’ he said, as
     they went back outside.
    ‘Who the hell is he?’
    ‘That’s where we
     start.’
    Karlsson left Yvette talking to Maggie
     Brennan and went to sit in the car with Michelle Doyce. All he knew about her was that
     she was fifty-one years old, that she had recently been discharged from hospital after a