Broken Homes

probably be wise to avoid southeast London for a bit.
    ‘I can live without Bromley,’ I said out loud.
    ‘Did you say something, Peter?’ asked Dr Walid, who was kneeling by the body and shining a light down its mouth.
    ‘Just mumbling,’ I said.
    Chainsaw guy was lying on his back, still in his biker jacket which was unzipped and splayed open to reveal a grey, white and black checked shirt soaked around the neck with what Dr Walid assured me was water. I asked Dr Walid whether he had any idea of the cause of death.
    ‘I’m fairly certain he drowned.’
    ‘So this is the dump site,’ I said.
    ‘No,’ said Dr Walid. ‘I think he drowned right here.’
    ‘On dry land?’
    ‘His lungs seemed to have filled up with fluid – can’t be certain it’s water until I’ve done tests – and he drowned.’
    ‘From the inside out?’
    ‘That’s my hypothesis,’ said Dr Walid.
    Probably better if I just avoided south London entirely for a year or two, I thought.
    ‘Are you doing the post-mortem on Sky?’ I asked.
    ‘Later today,’ he said. ‘It should be very interesting – would you like to attend?’
    I shivered. ‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll give it a miss.’
    Outside the tent, the sun was bright and the air smelled of petrol. I walked up the scrubby grass slope to where Traffic had established a safe parking zone for emergency vehicles. Lesley was there, fast asleep in the passenger seat of the Asbo. I left her to it while I called Nightingale and confirmed the identification – he could pass on the bad news to DCI Duffy. He suggested we wait where we were in case they could get a lead on the van, so I climbed into the driver’s seat and tried to get comfortable. Lesley opened her eyes and took off her mask to rub her face.
    ‘Well?’ she asked.
    ‘Chainsaw guy,’ I said and explained Dr Walid’s theory.
    ‘That was murder,’ said Lesley. ‘By your little friend.’
    ‘You can’t prove that,’ I said.
    ‘Oh, wake up, Peter,’ she said. ‘He drowned by the side of the road. You heard her say it – “one for one” she said and Oberon didn’t have an answer to that. “One for one.”’ She pointed down the slope at the forensic tent. ‘That’s one right there.’
    ‘Okay, you want to go back and arrest her?’ I asked. ‘She’s what – nine years old?’
    ‘Is she?’ said Lesley. ‘I don’t know what she is. I know one thing – the law doesn’t seem to apply to her, or to her mum or to any of these fucking people.’ Lesley closed her eyes and sighed. ‘And if it doesn’t apply to them, then why does it apply to us?’
    ‘Because we’re the police,’ I said.
    ‘Is Nightingale police?’ she asked. ‘Because he’s not beyond the occasional human rights violation when it suits him.’
    ‘Oh well, that separates him from the herd, don’t it?’
    ‘It’s not like we’ll ever prove it’s her,’ said Lesley.
    ‘It could have been the Faceless Man,’ I said. ‘He’s got a thing for weird deaths.’
    ‘Why would the Faceless Man kill chainsaw boy?’ asked Lesley.
    ‘Why did he kill Patrick Mulkern?’
    ‘Patrick Mulkern fucked up,’ said Lesley. ‘He got greedy and tried to sell a book he wasn’t supposed to. Setting his bones on fire was a deliberate statement. Fuck with me and really horrible things will happen to you, like the guys who had their dicks bitten off and the amputated head of Larry the Lark.’
    ‘That was Faceless Man senior,’ I said.
    ‘Yeah, but the principle’s the same,’ said Lesley. ‘And when he just wants someone out of the way he does it very quietly like with Richard Lewis. If Jaget hadn’t spotted it, then it would have been just another “person under a train” wouldn’t it? Or he uses a proxy like Robert Weil to apply a shotgun to the face.’
    ‘I don’t think he’s the killer,’ I said. ‘I think he was brought in to dispose of the body.’
    ‘Can you prove that?’
    ‘Nope.’
    There was a bottle of Evian on the back seat. I tried it, but it was warm.
    ‘Give me some of that,’ said Lesley and I handed it over.
    ‘You know we’ve left Zach alone in our flat,’ I said. ‘What do you think the chances are of there being anything left inside when we get back?’
    ‘It’s not our flat,’ said Lesley after she’d finished the last of the water.
    ‘It’s my telly,’ I said. ‘I paid two hundred quid for it.’
    ‘That just makes you a handler of stolen goods,’ said Lesley.
    ‘Not