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EIGHT

GARETH

‘Maybe das unbehagen ? It’s a feeling you can’t quite put your finger on, that mixture of uneasiness and discomfort all mixed up into one.’

‘Ahhh, see, I just knew the Germans, of all people, would have a word for it,’ I said, tilting my chin toward the car microphone above me.

I heard Fran chuckle to herself down the other end of the line.

‘You know there’s literally a word for every kind of weird niche feeling in German,’ she said.

‘There’s Sehnsucht , which means like a longing and yearning for something unknown and unsaid.

There’s Heimweh , which is the feeling of homesickness and nostalgia, and of course, my personal favourite: Backpfeifengesicht . ’

I remembered that one. The literal translation was an insult meaning ‘punching-bag face’ – particularly apt after yesterday’s events.

‘So, what now? I guess I’ll be interviewed with the rest of the neighbourhood at some point? You can’t just bring out a notepad at dinner and ask me some questions then, I suppose?’ Fran asked.

‘Well, actually we all use recording devices now.’

‘Really? Gosh, how the police have moved with the times.’

‘What do you mean? We’re always modern and up to date in all aspects,’ I remarked glibly.

‘So, you’re not really going to be involved much with this case at all?’ Fran asked.

‘No, not really,’ I said, glancing at Mr O’Neill’s house from the car window. I could see the unmistakable clinical white of the forensic team’s suits moving around inside, and the long wads of paperwork I had to sign off in the passenger seat.

Deep down in my psyche, I was trying to forget the story of Ananias and Sapphira from Sunday school. Long story short: lying in front of the Holy Spirit strikes you down dead as dead can be.

‘Makes sense. Guess it could be considered a conflict of interest or something. So, who will be interviewing me? Please don’t say Darren,’ Fran groaned.

‘Probably Steve, I imagine. Darren isn’t allowed to do witness interviews after he had four different complaints about making people cry. One of which was a six-year-old girl.’

I had decided not to tell Fran about the lasagne incident either, for two main reasons. The first was that I didn’t want her to worry about me at work. She’d go full lioness and start hunting for balls when really, I kind of just wanted to forget it had ever happened.

The second was, for the sake of my own ego, I didn’t want her to think I was unliked at the station.

Maybe it was narcissistic, but I wanted to maintain the image that I had worked for years to build up in my last role.

It had been a great feeling to have her come to visit the station then.

As we’d walk through the hallways, everyone would be saying hi or hello to me.

‘Right, I’d better get back to work, my love. So, love you lots, and I’ll see you tonight for date night,’ I said.

‘Amazing, thanks, my love.’

‘Did you book in Mep’s check-up by the way?’

‘Yes, absolutely,’ she replied, less than confidently. Fun Detective Observation: no one telling the truth replies with ‘absolutely’ to a ‘did you…’ question.

‘Okay, just remember we need him on that new prescription,’ I said, slightly raising the pitch of my voice to illustrate some sense of urgency to her.

I could almost hear the frantic tapping of keys in the background as she scrambled across the web for the vet’s telephone number.

‘I’ll see you tonight at eight. Love you! Enjoy Pilates!’

‘Love you more! I won’t!’

I took a moment to myself in the car, running my hands through my hair.

I hadn’t eaten breakfast today, but I still wasn’t particularly hungry.

Over the past few days, my stomach had been constantly churning and groaning.

I wondered if this was the first telltale sign of the mental breakdown that Cis had warned me about or – more likely – if hiding all this from Fran had literally made me sick to my stomach.

I couldn’t help running the mental litmus test of how I would feel if I were to walk away from the case, and instantly, I could feel my stomach begin to steady.

But then again, my late-night shish from Marmaris Kebab last night had tasted a little dodgy.

I could recognise Cis’s bulky form from the way the muscles seemed to pop out of her unflattering white forensic suit as she opened the door to Mr O’Neill’s house, tapping away on her tablet. I realised I should probably stop holding a little pity party for myself and do the work I was paid to do.

Forensics, more than any other department in the police, was somewhat of a circus.

After the photographer and the sampling expert had performed their duties, a wide array of people would flood in and begin to check, analyse, and scrutinise everything.

From preserving and protecting the crime scene, to capturing fingerprint evidence, DNA samples, and collecting traces, it was all a pandemonic flurry of silent and carefully enacted activity.

For a detective, there was not a whole lot to do other than provide moral support for the forensics team and see if you could find some kind of task that made you look somewhat important.

For me, it was bringing the coffee. The only problem I had been grappling with on this particular task was whether to say the coffees were my treat, or to very politely tell each specialist my account code and sort number and ask them to transfer me the required ￡3.

50. I wanted to seem like the cool police detective, but I wasn’t made of money.

Frankly, being a detective wasn’t all that lucrative.

I sometimes wondered if I should have followed my dad’s advice and joined the navy – better pension, too.

I braced myself, steadied my gurgling stomach, and left the car, snatching up the coffees as I did so.

I could see the neighbours congregating in their gardens, moaning about the sudden increased police presence on the street.

But I knew that deep down, they all loved that this was happening.

I imagined it was the most drama that had occurred in the neighbourhood since some old grandad had put the wrong bin out on rubbish day in 2006.

The curtain creepers were murmuring exclamations to themselves in their front gardens while people walking their dogs purposefully slowed down to try and peer inside the house.

It was nothing I hadn’t seen before; as soon as the white tent went up outside someone’s house, it was like the bat symbol to the nosy neighbour brigade.

I walked across Mr O’Neill’s front lawn, yanked up the tape, and entered the small tent that had been set up as a base of operations.

There was a long, neat row of small transporter cases, where evidence was being hastily packaged and thrown in.

The doors to the swab safe were constantly being yanked open and closed as countless samples were tossed inside in a scene of pure organised chaos.

Cis, now on her laptop, reviewing footage that her team had recorded earlier in the day, was seated squarely within the madness.

I knew better than to disturb her when she was in the focus zone, so I plucked up her latte from the cardboard holder and placed it silently next to her.

‘Ahh, Detective, thank you very much,’ a specialist said as they trotted over to me and yanked a coffee from the holder without changing their pace.

They jerked off their face mask and strolled away, guzzling the drink furiously before I could even open my mouth about the possibility of them paying me back.

It was a domineering attempt on their part that had ended any conversation before it had even begun. Lord above, what a power move.

‘Ah, Gareth, my darling,’ Cis said, finally breaking out of her focus mode, closing the laptop, and standing up to give me a hug.

Enveloped in her giant nylon marshmallow, I prayed she wouldn’t hug me too hard and cause a devastating accident with the coffee.

‘Good morning, nice of you to finally join us.’

‘Ah well, I thought it was good for me to show up and make sure that you’re not wasting too much time doing whatever forensics do,’ I said, gently pulling myself away from her iron grip. ‘How is it all going? Found anything?’

Cis looked over each of her shoulders. The tent was still a flurry of activity, so she gestured for me to take a walk down the street with her.

Before leaving, she pulled herself out of her disposable white suit to her rather casual gym base-layer as I placed the remaining coffees on the table.

As we walked away, I watched out of the corner of my eye as the white-clothed vultures begin to pounce on the coffees I had left behind. That was ￡24.50 down the drain.

‘So, we’ve been looking a lot at the bedroom, which we’ve established as the focal point of this whole crime scene,’ Cis explained, hands tucked into her armpits as she quickly scanned around the houses to make sure no neighbours could overhear.

‘And?’

‘Aisha noticed that there had been a recent change to the carpet’s texture. When we sent it back to the girls in the lab, they instantly found traces of blood, milk, and some kind of carpet cleaner. We think we also found traces of bicarbonate of soda.’

‘Strange,’ I remarked, wondering if I was being a hypochondriac or if I could feel a sudden bout of clamminess beginning to emanate from my palms.

‘Right,’ Cis affirmed. ‘So, looking more at the sample analysis, all three of those texture changes happened in the last week or so, which, of course, would place it right at the same time that Mr O’Neill disappeared. Meaning, naturally…’

‘Foul play, surely?’ I said. ‘Blood was spilt. Someone cleaned it up, and it seems awfully convenient for it to be at the same time he goes mysteriously missing without a trace.’