The police were called in as matter of course but the uniformed officers who attended were not about to launch an investigation for one dead tramp. As far as they were concerned the spilt booze, tin of tobacco and dog-eared book of matches found told the story.
After a cursory examination by the pathologist the body was scraped up and removed. A lone constable was left at the scene with the task of trying to track down the owner of the building—some faceless development company.
The following morning he eventually managed to find a number for a real person instead of an answering service and received assurances that somebody would be down immediately to secure the building.
By 8:30 AM upper management had been copied in on an email regarding the damage.
At 9:00 AM, after consulting with the development company’s parent corporation in Sweden, a recommendation for a firm of specialist cleaners was passed down.
At 9:15 AM the phone on Ray McCarron’s desk began to ring.
23
“Bloody hell, how can you not notice you’ve set yourself on fire?” Tyrone wondered aloud as Kelly indicated and turned into the approach road leading to the trading estate.
“People fall asleep and start fires with dropped cigarettes every day,” she replied. “And when you’ve pickled yourself in industrial-strength alcohol beforehand . . .”
“Yeah but if he was so drunk he was like, passed out, how did he manage to be lighting up a cigarette when he went boom?”
He glanced across from the passenger seat of the McCarron van and noticed Kelly frowning again the way she had done when she’d first looked at the bathroom at the Lyttons’ country place.
She pulled up outside the old warehouse where the dead guy had been found and leaned forwards to gaze up at the largely glassless windows. “Maybe we’re about to find out.”
They climbed out, suited up and gathered their gear.
As they walked in, began to climb the stairs to the upper floor, Kelly asked, “How was footie practice last night by the way?”
“Stormin’. We’re gonna murder them next weekend I’m telling you,” Tyrone said turning back to flash a satisfied grin down at her. He paused, took a breath. “Hey Kel, you should maybe come and watch.”
“Be some kind of cheerleader you mean?”
“Oh yeah!”
She gave a self-deprecatory snort. “I think I’m a bit old for a short skirt and a set of pompoms, don’t you?”
“No way!” Tyrone protested unable to entirely keep the longing out of his voice. “You’d look well spanking.”
Kelly grinned back at him, a kind of teasing sexy grin. “You say that like it’s a good thing.”
“’Course it is.” Tyrone felt his ears heat and was glad she couldn’t see it. He’d had more than one little daydream fantasy where Kelly came and watched him score the victory goal from the touchline and he got to take her home on the back of his bike after.
OK so that wasn’t going to happen he thought ruefully, shouldering open a fire door on the landing. The closest he’d got to her was a slow dance at the office Christmas party. But it would still be cool if she could make it to a game. In fact the only reason it might not be a good idea was because he’d never keep his mind on the ball. Saying that, none of the opposing team would be able to either, so—
The blow took him completely by surprise. To begin with he wasn’t even aware of being hit, only a fierce jolt of some kind and the bare concrete floor coming up fast to smack him across both knees.
He felt something serious give way inside the left joint and his only thought was, Ah bollocks. There goes Sunday’s match.
Then he was down on his side, grit scouring his cheek. The whole back half of his skull felt as if it had shattered and the pieces were pressing into his brain, building up into pain so bad it paralysed his limbs.
He blinked slowly and saw a world operating at ninety degrees out of kilter. It looked like Kelly was standing on the wall like in some bizarre sci-fi movie. She was locked in dirty hand-to-hand with a couple of guys who also seemed to be wearing Tyvek suits.
This puzzled him. Surely the only people who wore those disposable suits were the good guys? He knew Kelly shouldn’t be fighting with them or they’d never get the job done and then the boss would be annoyed. And Mr McCarron was definitely one of the good guys.
He wanted to yell at the men that he and Kelly were the good guys too but his voice was outside him, too far to call back.
Either way they had her on her knees now and he could see her mouth working but could hear no sound coming out. He saw one of the men rip back her sleeve baring her arm and if anything Kelly’s thrashing increased. Tyrone was aware of admiration despite his haziness. She was a tiger all right was Kel.
But even as he silently cheered her on she seemed to fade, losing coordination and focus, the fight going out of her.
Come on Kel, don’t let the bastards beat you!
A pair of Tyvek legs and bootie-clad feet momentarily blocked his view and Tyrone even found himself feeling vaguely annoyed about that. Then he noticed the blade of the knife lying flat against the newcomer’s leg. His gaze swivelled sluggishly upwards and saw a distant face above. A cold calm face that he knew would show no mercy.
Tyrone felt tears of fear and frustration burn his eyes, tried to get his hands underneath him to press upwards and found nothing worked.
As the man with the knife stood over him the others dragged Kelly over, her feet bumping loosely against the concrete. They put her on her knees alongside him, hands slack in her lap.
Tyrone’s eyes sought her face in desperation but the Kelly he knew wasn’t inside the face anymore. There was nobody he recognised behind those glazed golden brown eyes.
Terror clawed into Tyrone’s chest scraping it raw from the inside out, bubbling up his throat, but there was nothing he could do.
The man with the knife bent over him and Tyrone discovered right in his last moments that death did faze him, after all.
24
Kelly woke to the smell of blood, a knife in her hand.
25
“Emergency services. Which service do you require?”
“Police,” said a man’s voice. Voice analysis experts would later identify his accent as Russian. “There has been a death—a man has been stabbed.”