Page 19 of Sullied Saints

Small red lines, the starts of scars, crisscross randomly up, one ragged one even cutting across the seam of his elbow. They continue above that, to the tender skin of his armpit, even crossing to the side of his pec. The blanket, pulled against his chest, obscures anything more. I don’t know how far across they go, how many. But from what I can see of his forearm, there must be dozens.

A sharp stab of nausea sways me.Shedid that, bleeding him like that. Scars he'll have forever now.

His other arm is hidden under the pillow, but I know it'll be the same. I remember the blood coursing down his arms. I knew this had been done, and yet I'd pushed that detail away, hidden under the long sleeves he's been wearing since, and by darkness between.

Reaching out, I lightly touch the one on his wrist. I want so badly to make it disappear, to take what happened to him away. My fingertip barely brushes the pink ridge before his sharp intake of breath snaps my hand back, and Dirk is awake, looking up at me. His eyes take me in, dressed, mostly at least, and he runs a hand back over his hair, glancing towards the blinds.

"I was just…" I start.

"Leaving?" Dirk asks, voice hoarse with sleep as he pushes himself right, pulling the blanket against his chest as he does.

Was I? I suppose. I didn't mean to stay in the first place. I open my mouth to formulate some response, when a sudden ringing intrudes.

Sitting up now, Dirk squints at me as I pull the pager out of my back pocket. "You brought your pager?"

I want to ask him where his is, but then I'm taking in the read-out.

"Cocooner," I say. "There's a new body."

***

The two-week sunny respite of late autumn has turned early into a cold, sludgy winter with an overnight frost, somehow colder and brighter out in Crennik. This particular part of the row had been a residential suburb, caught too close to the explosion that poisoned the whole industrial zone thirty years ago.

We pass old houses, the wood dark and rotted, what ice has yet to melt off them brown and stained-looking. The roads are cracked, making my car bump as we turn into the carpark of what used to be a small shopping complex. The windows are smashed, the posters in them blackened and shrivelled but still leaving the occasional spot untouched—half a white-toothed smile, the tip of a glossy boot.

The washing machines are still stacked in the laundromat, and the dryers too with their hatches open into rusty darkness, looking a little like escape hatches out of a spaceship. The cement floor is littered with long-caked powder, now coffee-coloured, and more recent squatters’ rubbish.

The forensics team mill about, tracking from an interior which is somehow even colder than the car park where the sirens are flashing but silent.

He's in one of the plastic chairs, a crack in the brittle leg making the whole thing lean into the wall that props it up. Bundled, wrapped up like a pristine mummy, the body reminds me of the old men who sit reading the newspaper by the entrance of their business, and I wonder if that’s on purpose, some kind of ‘lifestyle’ take on this needless death.

Dirk steps in beside me, the shadows under his eyes seeming to deepen as he takes in the scene. I tried to question, in the car, whether he should come, but he stonewalled my concerns, and the drive here has been silent.

It’s not unusual for us to arrive at crime scenes together, one picking the other up, but this time, as we step among the others already here, I can't help but feel self-conscious. Like it’s written all over us that this time we werealreadytogether. But of course, it isn't, and Tawill steps up to us with a long look for Dirk. "Officer Lancaster. Should you be here?"

"I'm fine," he says tightly. Staring at him a moment longer, Tawill shrugs and appears to take him at his word.

Dean and Howie are already here, talking up at the other end of the laundromat, out of the way of the forensic team. Dean sees us, and without preamble, says, "It’s off. A chair? That’s not how Cocooner leaves her vics."

Howie mumbles, "Changed once, changed again."

"That was a copycat, not a change of the same person," Dean insists, and I get the feeling this argument has been going on for most of the morning.

"So, this is a copycat of a copycat?" Howie asks, sounding unconvinced.

"It is unusual," I put in, glancing around. I hadn't made a mental note of it before, but there’s plaster clumsily smeared on the chair, the walls, and even back here, it’s drying in smudges on the hatches, like a careless brush or slip, uncleaned. "Sloppy, usually she's not."

"Could have been rushed. Rattled, from last time." Howie glances at Dirk, but he pretends not to notice.

There's a bootprint in the plaster nearer the body. I tilt my head, using my torch beam as a pointer device, though it’s quite bright in here. Already the print has been framed by little yellow markers. "Bit big for a woman?"

"Could be wearing men’s boots. Wouldn't be the first woman to do that."

Dirk speaks. "But when we already know that she's a woman, and even know her name? Why bother?"

Howie opens his mouth, but Dean jumps in, uncharacteristically irritated, "Why are you being so stubborn about this? This is clearly not her! It’sanothercopycat."

Howie's jaw works. His words are almost too soft. "Because there can't be another one. There can't bemore."

---