The Reckoning Read Free Page A

stay out of my way so you can watch and learn.’
    Just like that my enthusiasm for the new case, and my new colleague, slipped all the way down to zero.
    And things were only going to get worse.
*
    Barry Palmer had lived and died in a two-up, two-down redbrick cottage at the end of a long terrace of similar houses, the last survivors from rows of Victorian workers’ cottages that had been obliterated during the Blitz. Derwent found a parking space a little bit further up the street and I got out before he’d switched the engine off, desperate for even a few seconds of respite from the new DI’s company. On the pretext of checking out the area, I wandered away from him, scanning the surroundings. Industrial units and high-rise council flats flanked the houses on the streets on both sides, looming over the rooftops. Palmer’s house was on the corner and shared a wall with a large, noisy pub of surpassing grimness named the Seven Bells. I risked poking my head in and found an old Victorian pub that had lost all of its character in a series of refits, none recent. It now had too-bright lighting, filthy carpets and faux-leather seats. The music was played at headache-inducing volume and banks of games machines churned out electronic beeps and pings as the customers fed them pound coins. The pub fronted on to a busy road that thundered with buses and lorries. It was the worst sort of location for finding witnesses to a murder, even without considering whether anyone would want to help us find Palmer’s killer. No one would have heard anything strange, I was willing to bet. Even if he had screamed.
    The house itself was cordoned off with blue-and-white striped police tape looped around a pair of lampposts to create a rectangle where no one but those on official police business could go. On the other pavement, a group of neighbours were standing, watching. None of them even looked particularly shocked by what had happened. Certainly no one looked as if they were in mourning.
    A uniformed PC, square in his luminous jacket, stood by the front door of Palmer’s house. He looked more bored than I would have thought possible. They had already put up a blue plastic tent around the door to limit how much the onlookers saw. The windows hadn’t yet been covered. They were grey with dirt, but I could make out brownish net curtains that had a floral pattern woven into the lace and looked like they had hung there, unwashed, for decades. Behind them, movement, and the occasional flare of a camera flash told me the SOCOs were already working.
    A black van stencilled with the word AMBULANCE was parked right outside the house, ready to take the body away once Dr Hanshaw had finished his preliminary examination at the scene and Derwent had given permission for it to be removed to the mortuary. The mortuary vans always gave me the creeps. I went past quickly, holding my breath in case I caught a whiff of decay. I knew that they were kept scrupulously clean but I couldn’t forget what they routinely carried, or what was waiting for us inside the house. I shouldn’t really have been so squeamish; I was just as much a part of the death business as any undertaker. But at least I didn’t have to be hands-on.
    I took one last look around, then headed towards Derwent who was waiting for me, a sardonic expression on his face. He was holding the police tape over his shoulder so I could duck underneath, a simple courtesy that made me uncomfortable. I didn’t need his help, but turning it down would have seemed churlish. Then again, telling him to back off might have put a stop to the sweethearts and darlings.
    ‘Ready to join me in the house? Or do you want to have another look round first?’
    ‘Just getting a feel for the place,’ I said, not allowing myself to sound ruffled.
    ‘I’d have thought you’d be keen to get in there. See the body.’ He sniffed. ‘Probably won’t be stinking yet even though the weather’s been warm. But the