Dead or Alive by Ken McCoy

shoes?’
    â€˜Jesus, man! You’re wearin’ bogtrotter boots. These cost me four hundred notes. Surely I can clean a few spots o’ blood off.’
    â€˜I see a lot more blood than leather. Ye might tink ye’ve cleaned off all the blood but if any o’ dem forensic fellers get their hands on ’em wid their magic fuckin’ microscopes, ye’ll know different soon enough.’
    â€˜Well I think they’ll clean up good.’
    â€˜Man, we just got us a future lined up and you wanna risk it fer a pair o’ fuckin’ shoes! Just burn the bastards ye big black gobshite!’
    â€˜OK, OK! No need to go all fuckin’ racist on me. It’s against the law that! You start talkin’ like that on our Fiji island and they’ll string you up by your Irish bollocks!’
    â€˜I’m not a fuckin’ racist. I’m an ethnic minority, same as you.’
    â€˜An’ yer’ve got no business telling them people I’ve got thin legs! A man’s legs are his own private business!’
    They cleaned any possible fingerprints off the Mondeo and removed any possible DNA evidence; then they left in another car, never to visit the garage again. They headed towards the eastbound M62 and towards Hull where they both lived. But not for long.

SEVEN
4 April

11 p.m., Ackroyd Street, Leeds
    T he whole street had been cordoned off. The house itself was taped off and a plastic canopy had been erected over the front door. The press had arrived, as had TV cameras. Curious neighbours were conspicuous in their absence – none of them wanted their faces to be seen on TV by whoever had done this. None of the house’s occupants had called the police. That was left to a neighbour who’d heard sufficient screaming and wailing coming from the house to last her a lifetime, but even then she rang from an untraceable pay-as-you-go mobile and didn’t leave her name.
    â€˜I think the police had better go to number 17 Ackroyd Street. It all kicked off about an hour ago. I don’t know what’s gone on there but it’s not good. I think they might need an ambulance as well.’
    Detective Inspector Lenny Cope had arrived with a detective sergeant after being alerted by the two uniformed officers first on the scene. One of them, a sergeant, stepped up to appraise him of the situation.
    â€˜It’s like a charnel house in there, sir. Two dead of gunshot wounds, four in a state of shock. There’s blood, brains, ears and eyeballs all over the floor.’
    Cope winced. ‘Great. Is the forensic medical examiner here?’
    â€˜She’s here with a photographer.’
    â€˜She? Is it Jane Duffield?’
    â€˜It is, yes sir. And there’s a forensic team on their way.’
    â€˜I assume no one’s contaminated the crime scene?’
    â€˜
We
haven’t, sir. But the occupants stayed in the house for about an hour before we got the call. Even then it wasn’t any of them who called us. We’ve got them all in cars right now.’
    â€˜Do we have names of the deceased yet?’
    â€˜A man named Lee Dench and a woman named Christine Prisk who calls herself Chantelle when she’s working the streets.’
    â€˜Both known to us?’
    â€˜They are, sir.’
    â€˜And did the four occupants witness this?’
    â€˜Well, I assume so, but we can’t get a word out of any of them. They’re too shocked to talk.’
    â€˜Right. We need to take them all in for questioning and we need to do a house-to-house to find out what the neighbours saw.’
    â€˜We’re already doing that, sir, but there’s no one behind most of the doors.’
    Cope glanced up and down the dilapidated street. ‘Hardly surprising. Anyway, we’d better take a look at the crime scene. Bad, is it?’
    â€˜Dench had the top of his head blown off, probably with a shotgun. Most of the mess comes from him. There’s