paint.
Now that I knew what to look for I could see the trail along the carpet. I followed it into the living room where I had once spent the night on the sofa. I clicked on another light.
This room had been Claire’s sanctuary. It was filled with keepsakes and dark-wood furniture. Some of that furniture had been hacked to pieces. Other pieces were smashed. The sofa I had slept on was slashed so that the stuffing bulged out in white tufts.
Someone had swept blood in spatter-lines up the walls and across the carpet. There were trails of blood everywhere.
Blood spatters onto the glass wall as Raffmir’s sword slices the head from the nurse who brought us the key to the cells. Her head bounces down the corridor. Lines of black blood run down the glass leaving a dark smear in their trail. The smell of fear and death is in my nostrils…
I shook myself, trying to push the memory from beneath Porton Down Research Centre back down. It was too much. I turned and ran for the fire escape, bursting through the door onto the balcony and throwing up over the railing into the alley below. There was little enough in my stomach, but that didn’t stop the dry heaving.
I already knew I was going to have to go back into the flat.
The kitchen seemed a good place to start. The bedrooms were what I’d been dreading. I’d seen too many bodies in the last year or so, and it never seemed to get any easier. I wondered how policemen coped, which set me thinking about Sam Veldon. Depending on what I found, I would decide whether Sam would have to be told.
I stood in the small galley kitchen and tried to piece together what had happened. Part of the smell was the slowly rotting red peppers on the chopping board and the chopped tomato in the pan on the stove. She had been in the middle of preparing a meal and then… what? Just left it? Heard a noise? There was a knife rack on the worktop. One of the knives was missing. It wasn’t on the worktop or in the sink where grease had congealed around the edge of the murky water.
I turned back past the fire exit and looked at the streak down the wall. It was blood – you didn’t need to be a forensic scientist to see that. Had she fallen? It looked like she’d pressed her hand to the blood and then collapsed, smearing it down the wall. There was blood soaked into the carpet. That didn’t make sense. Surely you fell first and then bled all over the carpet, so how did the blood get on the wall? The living room didn’t answer the question. It looked like someone had gone berserk, strewing mayhem around the room. But why attack the sofa? What had it done to deserve being hacked to pieces?
The front door was as I suspected. An iron horseshoe was hanging on a hook on the back of the door. I didn’t get too close. It would prevent anyone with fey abilities opening the door, though, which meant that whoever had gained access had come through the back.
I went back through the living room, heading for the bedroom, readying myself for what I might find. An image from my past of a woman lying on a bed with her throat ripped out was at the forefront of my mind. I pushed the door open gingerly. The bedroom looked curiously untouched. The bed was made, the covers pulled over. I checked the far side of the bed, half expecting to find a body. There was only a patterned rug.
That left the bathroom.
I pushed the door open with my foot. There was a shower curtain drawn across the bath, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. The sink was stained with blood. The mirror was streaked with it. The tiles had droplets that had run until they dried. There was a facecloth dyed brown with it. I stepped inside, being careful to avoid treading in the bloodspots on the floor and drew the shower curtain back in one fluid motion.
The bath was empty. Not only that, it was clean. I drew the curtain across again and noted the blood spots on it. They had come into the bathroom and sprayed blood across the sink, the floor
Now that I knew what to look for I could see the trail along the carpet. I followed it into the living room where I had once spent the night on the sofa. I clicked on another light.
This room had been Claire’s sanctuary. It was filled with keepsakes and dark-wood furniture. Some of that furniture had been hacked to pieces. Other pieces were smashed. The sofa I had slept on was slashed so that the stuffing bulged out in white tufts.
Someone had swept blood in spatter-lines up the walls and across the carpet. There were trails of blood everywhere.
Blood spatters onto the glass wall as Raffmir’s sword slices the head from the nurse who brought us the key to the cells. Her head bounces down the corridor. Lines of black blood run down the glass leaving a dark smear in their trail. The smell of fear and death is in my nostrils…
I shook myself, trying to push the memory from beneath Porton Down Research Centre back down. It was too much. I turned and ran for the fire escape, bursting through the door onto the balcony and throwing up over the railing into the alley below. There was little enough in my stomach, but that didn’t stop the dry heaving.
I already knew I was going to have to go back into the flat.
The kitchen seemed a good place to start. The bedrooms were what I’d been dreading. I’d seen too many bodies in the last year or so, and it never seemed to get any easier. I wondered how policemen coped, which set me thinking about Sam Veldon. Depending on what I found, I would decide whether Sam would have to be told.
I stood in the small galley kitchen and tried to piece together what had happened. Part of the smell was the slowly rotting red peppers on the chopping board and the chopped tomato in the pan on the stove. She had been in the middle of preparing a meal and then… what? Just left it? Heard a noise? There was a knife rack on the worktop. One of the knives was missing. It wasn’t on the worktop or in the sink where grease had congealed around the edge of the murky water.
I turned back past the fire exit and looked at the streak down the wall. It was blood – you didn’t need to be a forensic scientist to see that. Had she fallen? It looked like she’d pressed her hand to the blood and then collapsed, smearing it down the wall. There was blood soaked into the carpet. That didn’t make sense. Surely you fell first and then bled all over the carpet, so how did the blood get on the wall? The living room didn’t answer the question. It looked like someone had gone berserk, strewing mayhem around the room. But why attack the sofa? What had it done to deserve being hacked to pieces?
The front door was as I suspected. An iron horseshoe was hanging on a hook on the back of the door. I didn’t get too close. It would prevent anyone with fey abilities opening the door, though, which meant that whoever had gained access had come through the back.
I went back through the living room, heading for the bedroom, readying myself for what I might find. An image from my past of a woman lying on a bed with her throat ripped out was at the forefront of my mind. I pushed the door open gingerly. The bedroom looked curiously untouched. The bed was made, the covers pulled over. I checked the far side of the bed, half expecting to find a body. There was only a patterned rug.
That left the bathroom.
I pushed the door open with my foot. There was a shower curtain drawn across the bath, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. The sink was stained with blood. The mirror was streaked with it. The tiles had droplets that had run until they dried. There was a facecloth dyed brown with it. I stepped inside, being careful to avoid treading in the bloodspots on the floor and drew the shower curtain back in one fluid motion.
The bath was empty. Not only that, it was clean. I drew the curtain across again and noted the blood spots on it. They had come into the bathroom and sprayed blood across the sink, the floor
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