‘Tina, it isn’t going to go away just because you’re staring at it,’ her mother said, shuffling across the carpet with her walking frame.
‘I know. It just annoys me that they do this all the time. I should start issuing fines and clamping them.’
‘Maybe we should quit renting the drive out to save our sanity,’ her mother said with a little laugh.
She fumed at the attitude of this Maura woman. Who the hell did she think she was? ‘We need the money, Mum. We’ve spoken about this before.’
Her mum’s smile downturned. ‘It’s my fault and I’m sorry. I know I fell but you can go back to work soon. I’m getting stronger every day and I won’t use silver foil in the microwave again, I promise. See, I’m not losing my mind. I know I put foil in the microwave.’
Maybe she could go back to work soon and leave her mum at home, just as soon as her mum’s leg had healed properly. She spotted a figure coming up the path. ‘This must be Mrs Entitled and I’m going to have serious words. She owes us forty-eight pounds so if she thinks she can get into her car and slink off never to be seen again, she’s got another thing coming.’
Leaving her mum in the living room, she hurried to the door and snatched it open whereupon the woman handed her a pizza menu from her bag. Tina screwed it up before the woman reached the end of the drive.
‘Was it her?’ her mum asked from the kitchen.
‘No.’ She checked her watch. It was now twenty minutes until the next arrival. She hurried into her house and slipped her shoes on, ready to move her car onto the road. After grabbing the keys, she stepped out and pressed the button to unlock her car. That’s when she noticed a haze of flies buzzing around the boot of Maura Pickering’s car.
She peered through the passenger window and nothing seemed out of order. An air freshener in the shape of a strawberry dangled from the rear-view mirror. A pen and a packet of mints occupied the central console and the car looked to be clean inside. A slight gust of wind blew a few oak leaves at her face. She exhaled, trying to get the debris away from her. Something was tickling her nose. She waved a hand at it and the fly flew away to gather with the others.
Tina hoped there wasn’t a dead bird around the back of the car. It wouldn’t be the first time she found something dead on her drive. There were a lot of bushes and trees and sometimes the foxes caught an animal and left the carcass behind. After taking a deep breath, she started walking towards the back of the car. Last time, she’d found a dismembered rat, another time it was a half-eaten pigeon. On both occasions, Tina had nearly thrown up.
‘Tina,’ her mum called from the door. ‘I’m doing brunch. Do you want some?’
‘I’ll get back to you on that in a minute, Mum.’
‘Is everything alright? Is it the foxes again?’
‘I, err, I don’t know.’ She peered around by the bumper, only looking through one eye in the hope that if death was lying on the ground, she wouldn’t see it in its entirety, but there was nothing. She opened both eyes and stood amongst the buzzing flies. What was going on? ‘Mum, do you smell that?’
‘Smell what?’
‘I don’t know, eggs, really bad cheese, drains, or the back of a bin lorry? Take your pick on any or all of the aforementioned.’
‘I’ve just whisked up some eggs. Maybe you can smell them.’
There was no way she’d be smelling eggs all the way from the drive when their kitchen was at the back of the house. She took a step closer to the car boot. As she inhaled, it was as if the rancid smell was coating her nostrils. She stepped back and dry heaved.
‘Tina, you don’t look well. What’s happening?’
She couldn’t help trembling. Something was off and it wasn’t a dead rat. She bent over to see a fly crawling out of the tiny gap in the boot, then another, and another. The overpowering stench hit her nostrils again. She moved back several steps and inhaled the clean air sharply. She knew that smell. She stumbled back, into her own car. ‘Mum, call the police now. Tell them to come quickly.’
‘What is it?’
‘There’s something dead in that boot. Tell them to get here now.’
‘Hey, are you going to move one of these cars? I can’t get my car on here and I’ve paid.’ The man made her jump.
‘Sorry, parking’s cancelled.’
Her mind drifted as the man started ranting. She didn’t hear a single word. All she could think of was her time working on the farm. Doing the admin for an abattoir told her that the smell coming from that boot was the smell of death. She couldn’t help but think of poor Maura, the woman she’d been angry at for the past few days. All that time Maura had been rotting in her own car boot.
TWO
DI Gina Harte sat in her office eating an apple. Her cholesterol was good and her doctor had told her to keep it that way and it would stay good, as long as she kept eating like a damn pigeon. The scent of last night’s pizza that the staff had been sharing wafted through the building. She’d never noticed it before but now she noticed it all the time and all she could do was dream of the cheese she shouldn’t have. Her healthy diet wasn’t really the cause of her frustrations, the main cause was the fact that Detective Chief Inspector Chris Briggs still wasn’t talking to her. Since the last case, he’d treated her like she was just another member of staff, not the woman he’d been in love with for years – not that anyone knew because they had done the right thing and kept their work romance a secret. They both loved working for Cleevesford Police so wanted it to stay that way.
She kicked her bin. Another miserable day of him ghosting her had gone by. Nearly three weeks had passed since the case that ruined what they had. How long was he going to punish her for? Scrap that thought, maybe she should stop caring and move on. She got why he was so angry – she really did. Gina had been stupid, she knew that now, but it was easy thinking that in hindsight. She gave her own collateral away on a memory stickto a dodgy reporter to save her own skin and she didn’t have time to regret it.
‘Gina.’ Briggs stood in the doorway. His hair was a little floppy, almost reaching his eyeline. She wanted to reach over to stroke it like she’d done in the past before kissing him, but he’d made it clear that he was her DCI and she was his DI. Despite what he thought of her now, she’d always love him. ‘How’s the paperwork going?’
