Chapter 4.01
A thin sliver of grey seeped around the closed curtains, but it was still nearly dark in here. Not dark enough, though. So she pulled both of Susan’s vacated pillows over her head, blocking it all out.
Could still hear the rain scrabbling against the window like rats.
The bedroom door creaked, then a soft voice cushioned its way across the room. ‘Robbie? Are you awake?’ Susan.
‘No.’
The mattress shifted as Susan sat on it, and a hand explored beneath the pillow fort, warm and gentle against Roberta’s forehead. ‘You still upset?’ A hmmph . . . ‘Which is a silly question – obviously you’re still upset, or you wouldn’t be sulking in here with the curtains shut.’
‘I’m no’ sulking. I’m . . . tired.’
‘Oh, Robbie.’ A long, sad sigh. ‘I’m sure they didn’t—’
‘Don’t you dare defend those traitorous bastards!’
‘I wasn’t going to.’ Could hear the smile in her voice now.
‘I’ve been putting up with your sulks for two decades, Roberta Alexander Steel – and your hangovers – I know how they work.
’ The hand moved down to cup Roberta’s face.
‘There’s plenty of stinky cheese in the fridge and pickled onions in the pantry.
If you’re going to make a bacon butty, there’s a pack of streaky that’s near its sell-by date, use that. ’
There was a lot to be said for marrying a good woman.
‘Is it smoked?’
‘Of course it’s smoked. We’re not animals.’ The hand disappeared, and Susan’s weight lifted from the mattress. ‘I can’t take Genghis today, so make sure he gets a good walk, OK? OK.’ The bedroom door creaked again. ‘Love you.’
Buried beneath her pillowy grave, Roberta grimaced. ‘Glad somebody does . . .’
The wind had died down a bit, but it looked as if that rain was settling in for the day.
Standing at the patio doors, Roberta took another bite of her overstuffed butty – all smoky and savoury and salty and buttery and sweet and spicy.
Because the trick to defeating a hangover was mixing a good dollop of hot sauce in with your ketchup.
And using a whole packet of streaky bacon didn’t hurt.
Genghis Khat sat at her beslippered feet, staring up in rapt adoration – hoping for a piggy windfall.
No sign of Mr Rumpole, but then he wasn’t a dafty, or a mooch, so he’d probably be curled up somewhere warm and dry.
Couldn’t blame him.
Roberta swirled the last dregs of coffee, then necked it. Third mug since getting up twenty minutes ago, so everything was beginning to vibrate. Didn’t help with the overwhelming crush of ennui, though . . .
And Genghis still gazed at her as if she were some sort of bacon-dispensing goddess.
‘They all turn on you in the end, little man. Every last one of the ungrateful bastards will line up to stab you in the back. And the front. And the sides too, if they can get away with it.’
She put on her patented Genghis voice: growly, but high-pitched – like a strangled weasel. ‘They’re a bunch of womble-funting spudge-nuggets right enough. You’re the best, Mummy Steel, and they should all snadge off and die!’
A bite. A chew. Then back to being Roberta again. ‘That’s a little harsh, Genghis. But I think you’re right: we should kill them all.’
All growly: ‘Before we go on our murderous rampage, can I have some bacon?’
Normal: ‘How could I say no to that angelic wee face?’
Crunch, crunch, crunch . . .
‘. . . it is as we feared, Inspector: the Whitechapel Werewolf has indeed, once more, struck!’
Roberta slouched on the couch, with Genghis curled up beside her, noodling about on her phone as the TV wanged away to itself in the background.
Sitting there, sending texts out into the aether. Even though, as Genghis said, they were all a bunch of womble-funting spudge-nuggets:
Come on, Veronica, don’t tell me you’re scared of a wanky bum-lump like Beattie!
The man has the intellectual capacity of a tumble drier’s lint trap.
SEND.
‘This foe we face is a man possessed of an all-consuming rage, Meadowcroft, so how is it that he so readily escapes our grasp?’
So far, not one of the buggers had replied.
She scrolled through her outgoing messages.
Hi Barrett, haven’t heard from you for ages. How are you getting on without me? They make you a full sergeant yet?
‘Perhaps, Inspector, it is because he is aided and abetted by some third party as yet unknown?’
Next:
I think you’re wise to keep your head down, Owen. Make that halfwit, hairy-faced titwank think he’s won, when we all know he’s just a massive tosser.
‘Someone for whom the death of these poor souls is neither a tragedy nor an inconvenience, but an outright boon?’
And right at the bottom:
What the hell were you thinking, clyping on me to bloody Beattie?!?
That farching twunt’s had it in for me for years.
HOW COULD YOU HELP HIM!?!
You two-faced, quisling, traitorous, wee dick!
Yeah . . . Maybe that last one to Tufty had been a bit harsh.
Even if he did deserve it.
‘You may be right, Meadowcroft, but who in this benighted maze of filth and horror could benefit from crimes as grotesque as these?’
She shut her phone and harrumphed. ‘Starting to think you’re on to something, Genghis: we should embark on a murderous rampage, and . . .’
Oh no.
Roberta coughed, spluttering as the smell truly hit – as if a slurry tanker had just collided with a ruptured septic tank – peeling the wallpaper, making the rug curl, blistering the leather sofas, burning the hair in her nostrils as the air fizzed . . .
Genghis grinned up at her, tail thumping against the cushions.
‘Gaaaaahhhh . . .’ She pulled the neck of her top up over her nose and mouth, flailing both hands about trying to waft the stench away. ‘No more bacon for you, you stinky wee monster!’
Five to five, and still no reply to any of her texts.
So Roberta stood in her barely furnished incident room, scowling at the murderboard for Operation Demogorgon. Squeezing Boris Johnson’s head.
He was looking a bit worse-for-wear now, like an undead Marty Feldman.
Pkongk-glonk.
Tempting to tear it all down. And the other cases too. Rip the whole lot off the walls and stick it in the recycling. After all, now she was officially frozen out of everything, what was the point?
Pkongk-glonk.
With Genghis banished to the back garden – where his stinky bum-farts could cause the least damage to human health – Mr Rumpole had appeared, commandeering the room’s only chair. Doing cat yoga as he had a bit of a wash. Keeping half an eye on proceedings.
Pkongk-glonk.
‘See, Mr Rumpole, trouble is: none of the buggers at Divisional Headquarters have a clue what they’re doing. Without me to lead the way, they’re gonna screw the whole thing up.’
She put on her cat voice, sleek and refined. ‘You’re probably correct, Mother, but what can you do if none of the aforementioned idiots will talk to you?’
True.
Roberta frowned at the collection of photos and notes and lines of red ribbon.
Pkongk-glonk. Pkongk-glonk. Pkongk-glonk.
Normal: ‘It would help if we knew who the victim is. Was.’
Mr Rumpole: ‘But you know who she is. That’s why you wanted Megan Lockheart’s hairbrush tested for DNA.’
Normal: ‘That’s not “knowing”, that’s suspecting. Different thing.’
Mr Rumpole: ‘Well, for the purposes of this thought experiment, let’s assume our Body-In-The-Bin is Megan Lockheart.’
Normal: ‘All right, Mr Rumpole, we’ll do it your way.’
Pkongk-glonk. Pkongk-glonk. Pkongk-glonk. Pkongk-glonk.
She narrowed her eyes, head on one side. ‘The obvious suspect is Sir Norman Wandering-Hands Fordyce. He has his greasy way with her, she gets pregnant.’
High-pitched, breathless, girly voice: ‘Oh, Sir Norman, isn’t it wonderful? Our love has been blessed with a miracle child!’
Mr Rumpole: ‘But there’s no way he can accept that. If his wife finds out, she’ll sue for divorce, and he’ll lose half his fortune. Just for fornicating with some stupid little girl who should’ve been on the pill in the first place? She’ll have to get an abortion.’
Girly: ‘But I couldn’t possibly kill our baby, Sir Norman!’
Mr Rumpole: ‘Then she’s left him no option. She simply has to die.’
Hmm . . .
Roberta moved closer to the wall, till the photo of their victim’s skeletal remains filled the world. ‘Bit dark, isn’t it? Killing Megan and her unborn—’
Ding-buzz.
Roberta dropped Boris Johnson’s head and lunged for her phone.
But it wasn’t Lund, or Harmsworth, or Barrett, or even Traitorous Tufty.
LOGAN:
I heard about Beattie.
You OK?
The man sucks lumpy farts from Satan’s hairy bumhole.
Her shoulders sank a bit.
But at least someone was still speaking to her.
She poked out a reply:
Course I’m OK.
It’s not like I’m going to let some halfwit like Beattie ruin my day, is it?
Screw him. I’m retired anyway.
SEND.
And her shoulders drooped a little more.
Mr Rumpole: ‘You should tell him, Mother.’
Roberta gave herself a shake. ‘Don’t be daft. I’m supposed to be the strong one, remember?’
Mr Rumpole: ‘You do realise you had a conversation with that halfwit stinky Yorkshire terrier this morning, don’t you?’
‘Oh . . . shut up.’ Thumbs working on another text:
How you getting on with your Ripper?
Going to send me those notes he wrote?
My Consulting Detective genius is still available at very reasonable rates . . .?
It was worth a try, anyway.
SEND.
Mr Rumpole jumped down from the seat, stretched, then sauntered over to scratch at the door. ‘If you’re going to be rude I shall take my leave of you, and see if I can’t find some mice to torture and consume instead.’ A sniff. ‘If you’re lucky I shall bring you the head and gallbladder.’
She bent down and stroked his beautiful fuzzy head. ‘Mummy’s little serial killer.’ Then opened the door.
He trotted off – fluffy tail in the air, waving like a plume of smoke.
At least it’d stopped raining.
Ding-buzz.
With any luck, that would be an invitation to join the investigation in Dundee – and Detective Inspector Beardy Beattie could go stuff a pie up his bunghole.
It wasn’t Roberta’s day, though.
SUSAN:
Heading home soon.
What a day!!!