Page 296 of The Hallmarked Man
‘No, but he gets an extra fiver,’ said Strike.
‘Awright then, I’ll stay,’ said the boy.
So Strike traipsed back upstairs, the two white boys and the two South Asian boys following in his wake.
‘That was Baggy,’ he heard one of the boys saying to another, pointing at the curry or vomit splattered at the foot of the stairs, and they all chuckled.
Strike knocked a fourth time on Nancy’s flat door without result, so he inserted the key in the lock and turned it. No inside chain had been put up, so he wasn’t obliged to shoulder the door or break any part of it.
‘What’s that fucking smell?’ said the bearded youth, pushing forwards, but finding himself impeded by the arm Strike had just thrown up.
‘Stay here,’ said the detective firmly. ‘Donotcome in.’
The unmistakeable, sickly sweet smell of decaying flesh had just assaulted his nostrils. He could hear the buzzing of flies.
‘Stay,’ he said firmly to the youths, and he proceeded down thenarrow hall to look through the open door to his right, where the lamp was still switched on and where an incredibly emaciated cat let out a piteous miaow, trotted past him and escaped onto the balcony.
The bodies of Jim Todd and a woman Strike assumed to be his mother, Nancy, were lying on the dirty carpet in a foul miasma encouraged by the gas fire that continued to blaze. Todd, who was fully dressed, had been stabbed multiple times. His now black blood had soaked his shirt and the floor beneath him. There was evidence that the starving cat had chewed off part of his face. Nancy, a small, slight woman in a nightdress, had been killed with a single knife wound to the chest. Thetache noire, a horizontal stripe, was visible in her dull, staring eyes, in one of which a maggot was wriggling.
‘FUCK!’
Strike turned: the youths had, of course, disregarded his instruction to stay put. The boy with acne had clapped a hand over his mouth.
‘Out,’ said Strike. ‘Out!’
Three of the youths blundered backwards but the bearded boy remained, apparently unable to move. Strike took him roughly by the shoulder of his jacket and marched him out onto the balcony, too late to stop the boy in the Millwall strip yelling down to his mate, who was watching Strike’s car,
‘They’ve been fucking murdered!’
‘Shut up,’ snarled Strike. ‘This isn’t a fucking game.’
The door of flat 38 now opened and a woman with a heavily lined face, dyed red hair and a tattooed throat came outside in dressing gown and slippers.
‘Woss going on?’ she demanded angrily.
‘With you in a minute,’ said Strike.
He turned to the boy with acne, who looked very sick and seemed less excited than the others, which Strike felt indicated a level of maturity.
‘Call the police. Tell them—’
‘I said,what’s going on?’
‘Just a moment, madam—’ Strike lowered his voice. ‘Tell them two people have been murdered and give them the add—’
‘I ain’t stayin’ if the police are comin’,’ said the boy in the WACKEN hoodie, and he set off at a jog, pushing the neighbour aside as he went.
‘Oi!’ she said, glaring after him. ‘What’s that smell?’ she added, striding closer.
‘Give the police the address,’ Strike continued, still talking to the boy with acne. ‘Then go down and wait, so you can show them up here –do not fucking tell anyone else,’ Strike added, seeing the other two boys were already busy with their phones. ‘We don’t want fucking sightseers and you don’t want to be charged with obstruction of justice.’
This, of course, was an entirely empty threat, but it did the job; both boys shoved their phones back into their pockets.
‘Isaid—’ began the neighbour ominously.
‘There’s been an accident,’ said Strike, as the three youths headed back towards the stairs. ‘The proper authorities are being notified.’
‘But—’
