Broken Homes

river.
    Not that a Sprinter van full of TSG would make much difference. Nightingale had been certain that only he could take the Faceless Man in a fair fight. ‘Not that I have any intention of offering him such a thing,’ Nightingale had said.
    But I couldn’t wheel out Nightingale every time I wanted to enter a suspect house, otherwise what was the point of me? And I couldn’t hang around outside until one of the neighbours got suspicious enough to dial 999.
    So I decided to make a forced entry. But just to be on the safe side I’d phone Lesley to let her know where I was and what I was doing.
    This is what we in the job call ‘making a risk assessment’.
    Her phone went straight to voicemail so I left a message. Then I turned off my phone, checked no one was watching, and blew the Chubb out of the door with a fireball. Nightingale’s got a spell that pops out a lock much neater, but I have to go with what I’ve got.
    I waited for a moment in the doorway – listening.
    Ahead of me stairs went up, to the right open doors led to the living room, another door at the rear of the house and beyond the bead curtain at the far end, I assumed, the kitchen.
    ‘Police,’ I shouted. ‘Is anyone in the house?’
    I waited again. When you go in mob-handed you go in fast to overwhelm any resistance before it can get started. When you go in alone, you go slowly with one eye on your line of retreat.
    Another vestigium – a burnt meat, rusty barbecue smell overlaid with another whetstone scrape of the blade and a flash of heat.
    Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t hang about in the doorway all day. I darted across the hall and checked that the living room was clear. Then, going as quietly as I could, I slipped back out and into the back room.
    What had obviously once been a dining room had been transformed into a de-facto workroom. There was an antique drop-leaf table that had been colonised by a key-cutting machine and boxes of blanks and French windows that looked out over a patio and sodden strip of lawn. An old-fashioned mahogany sideboard with a framed imitation Stubbs hung above it – horses in a brittle eighteenth-century landscape.
    The room had the scent of metal dust but I couldn’t tell if that was vestigia or the aftermath of key-cutting. The silent hallway behind me was making me nervous so I moved on quickly to the kitchen.
    Clean, old-fashioned, a couple of mugs and a single blue china plate on the yellow plastic drying rack.
    The burnt-meat smell was less evident here and when I checked the cupboards and the upright fridge they were well stocked but nothing had spoiled.
    I was getting a feel for the house. A single man rattling around in a family-sized home – his parents’? Or was there an estranged wife and kids? My mum, had this been her house, would have filled it with relatives or rented out the rooms or probably both.
    I went back out into the hall and stood at the bottom of the stairs.
    The rusty barbecue smell was stronger and I realised that it wasn’t a vestigium at all – it was a real smell.
    ‘Mr Mulkern,’ I called because at some distant point in the future a defence barrister might ask me if I had. ‘This is the police. Do you need assistance?’
    God, I hoped he was out visiting his sick mother or down the shops or getting a curry.
    At the top of the stairs I could see the top of a half-open door that, barring a radical departure from typical design, would lead to the bathroom.
    I put my foot on the stairs and flicked out my extendable baton to its full length. It’s not that I don’t trust my abilities, particularly with impello , but nothing says long arm of the law like a spring-loaded baton.
    I went up the stairs slowly and as I did the smell got worse, the coppery overtones mingling with something like burnt liver. I had a horrible feeling I knew what the smell was.
    I was halfway up the flight when I saw him, lying on his back inside the bathroom. His feet were pointed at me, black leather shoes, good quality but worn at the heels. They were turned outwards at the ankle in a way that’s very hard to maintain unless you’re a professional dancer.
    As I climbed the final stairs I saw that he was staring straight up. What bare skin showed on his face, neck and hands was a horrible pinkish brown like well cooked pork. His mouth was wide open and stained a sooty black and his eyes were a nasty boiled white. Even this close up, though, the stench remained just bearable – he