Ruthless - страница 4

She’d not been out of hospital long then and social situations were still awkward. She’d feel people’s curiosity, sticky and keen, could hear their unspoken comments and questions as they swapped glances, she’s a psycho, a nutter, been in the loony bin. Did they strap her down, shock her? Do we need to hide the sharp objects? And their fear, as if having a breakdown might be catching and distress was an airborne virus. Keep your distance.

Not Ade though. God knows where he got that compassion, that understanding, mature beyond his years – but it wasn’t much in evidence nowadays. Maybe it had all been used up, burned out. Maybe Ade was spent. He’d said at Rachel’s wedding perhaps they should get divorced. That it wasn’t really working, them sharing the house, putting it up for sale and not expecting to sell, stuck there. Had they just run out of steam, of passion, of love? Didn’t the years of backing each other up, of pulling together, of routine and quiet affection, didn’t they count?

Twenty-six years. She owed it to him to hang on. It was Janet who had risked it all for a few snatched nights with another man. Janet who had brought mistrust and jealousy and disruption into the marriage. The least she could do now was bide her time, see if it really was possible to salvage anything.

She looked at the back of his head, the hair thinning, and the folds of skin where his neck had thickened over the years. The warm flush of nostalgia evaporated.

Janet picked up her keys and bag and left for work.

The Old Chapel reeked. DCI Gill Murray could smell it as soon as she parked, even before she opened her car door. And once she’d been logged in and admitted into the scene, the acrid smell filled her nostrils and clawed at her throat.

Not the worst smell at a crime scene, the worst were the corpses left undiscovered until nature had its way. Decay blooming like green and black flowers on the skin, body fat and fluids breaking down, melting, leaking from the corpse, flesh rotting, home to blowfly and their maggots. That truly was the most god-awful reek. This was simply unpleasant.

The fire service had alerted the Major Incident Team earlier that morning, when officers doing a sweep of the Old Chapel had recovered human remains half buried among the charred debris of the fire.

On the threshold, where the main doors had once hung, Gill surveyed the building. Or what was left of it. Above her, open sky, blue and streaked with thin clouds, was framed by the jagged remnants of roof beams. The centre, the spine of the roof, had collapsed taking many ribs with it but others, broken, split, now ringed the gaping hole like so many blackened, jagged teeth.

The place was simply designed, a rectangular prayer hall with a rounded apse. Small anterooms off to either side of where the altar would have been. She could pick out several lumps of beams, charcoal now, among the ash and smashed roof tiles that covered the floor. The brick walls had withstood the ferocity of the fire though they were coated black with soot. Here and there were holes on the ground where the wooden floorboards had burned away.

‘Theresa Barton, crime scene manager,’ the plump woman introduced herself.

‘Trevor Hyatt, fire investigation,’ the man with her said. He was tall and bald with a red face and a nose that looked like it had been broken.

‘Body’s over here,’ Barton said, pointing. Gill followed her, taking care to tread only on the stepping plates. The figure, burned black, was partially concealed by a timber. Face and shoulders exposed, lying on its side, fist and forearm close to its neck. Pugilist pose – a side effect of the fire, the intense heat causing the muscles to contract. The wreckage covered the torso and abdomen but poking out below were the legs and feet, the feet curled like claws. No clothing remained.

‘No shoes?’ Gill said. ‘They’d burn?’

‘Yes,’ Hyatt said.

Here and there the scorched skin was split to reveal seams of meat. The lips had shrivelled back to expose long, discoloured teeth, an uneven skeletal grin. It was impossible for Gill to tell from the remains whether this was a man or a woman, to determine age or ethnicity. All questions for the pathologist.