branches clawing at each other, fighting for space. Moss had colonized the pantile roof, lichen speckled the walls, and both front windows were jagged holes fringed with broken glass.
PC Clark hauled on the handbrake. ‘Not again …’
I climbed out into the cold morning.
A sign was bolted to the garden wall: ‘Freiberg Towers’. I pushed through into the garden and marched up the path as Royce called it in.
‘Sarge? Lima One Six: we’re out at the Forrester place … Yeah, looks like Burges has been at it again.’
The doorbell sounded a dismal two-tone chime from somewhere deep inside. I cupped my hands and blew into them, shifting from foot to foot. Then tried again.
‘… both windows panned in … Uh-huh … Uh-huh … Don’t know …’
I forced my way through the grabbing skeleton of a rose bush and peered into the lounge. A chunk of breeze block lay in the wreckage of a coffee table, carpet covered in glittering cubes of glass. ‘Henry?’
It was dark inside – no sign of life.
‘… has he not called it in? … Ah, OK. Well, I’ve got the camera in the car anyway. You want me to dust for prints too?’
I fought my way back to the front door – locked – then around the side of the house. The damp fingers of an ancient leylandii pawed at me as I waded through knee-high weeds to a tall wooden gate. The hinges squealed as I shouldered it open.
The back garden was a riot of thistles, docken, and grass. It followed the slope of the hill, the top corner just catching the first rays of dawn. A small pond choked with reeds, a greenhouse with no glass left in it, and an outbuilding that needed a coat of paint and a new roof.
I took the path along the back of the building to the bedroom window. Dark. Probably had the curtains drawn. The kitchen door was locked like the front one, but …
Up on my tiptoes, fingers spidering along the top of the architrave. Bingo: a little ceramic puffin, the black and white paint flaking and brittle. A Yale key was wedged inside. I pulled it out and unlocked the kitchen door.
‘Henry? Henry, it’s Ash. Ash Henderson? You in? You awake? You sober?’ Nothing but silence from the dead house. ‘Henry? You still alive, or have you pickled yourself to death, you daft old bugger …?’
No answer.
The kitchen was disappearing under a layer of dust. Piles of newspapers and unopened letters covered a small breakfast bar, four stools tucked beneath the worktop.
‘Henry?’
Through into the hallway, breath streaming out in a thin grey fog. It was colder in here than outside.
‘Henry?’
The stairs led up to a small landing, but I went for the back bedroom instead. Knocked, waited, then eased the door open. Darkness. The smell of rancid garlic and stale booze underpinned something foul and rotting. ‘Henry?’
I felt for the light switch and flicked it on.
Henry was lying on the bed, flat on his back, dressed in a black suit, white shirt and black tie. Grey hair made a rumpled tonsure around a bald crown speckled with liver spots. His face was slack, like a sock-puppet without a hand, his features too big for that little head. A bottle of Bells lay beside one thin hand, only a third of it left.
A small plastic bottle of pills sat on the bedside cabinet.
The silly old git … He’d finally done it.
I stared at the ceiling for a minute, then settled down on the stool in front of the vanity unit.
So much for getting Henry’s help catching the Birthday Boy: looked as if Dr McDonald was on her own …
Which wasn’t exactly fair. The poor old sod deserved better than this, rotting away in a cold and lonely house, until the booze, an aneurism, or hypothermia finished the job.
Let’s be honest, the end probably came as a bit of a relief.
‘Henry, could you not have waited till—’
A dry squeak came from the corpse, followed by the smell of death. Or rotten eggs. Or a mouldering otter … Not dead, just farting.
‘Agh, not you too!’ What was it with psychologists?
I stuck a hand over my mouth, marched over to the curtains and threw them open, then did the same with the window, letting the cold air in and the smell of whatever was festering in Henry’s bum out.
‘Henry!’
‘Mmmmmph … Nrm slppn …’ Pale gums in a slack mouth.
‘Henry, you manky-arsed bugger: up! You’ve got visitors.’
He cracked an eye open and blinked at the ceiling. ‘Sodding hell …’ His voice sounded like a handful of walnuts being slowly crushed, the Aberdeen accent twisting the vowels out of shape. ‘Fit time is it?’
‘Nearly eight.’
‘Tuesday?’
‘Wednesday.’
‘Near enough.’ He looked as if he was trying to sit up, then flopped back on top of the duvet. ‘Am I dead?’
‘You smell like it.’
‘Oh … In that case, give us a hand?’
I hauled him out of bed, and propped him up against the wardrobe, trying not to breathe through my nose. ‘God almighty, when did you last have a bath?’
‘You look like a punch bag.’ A long, rattling cough. ‘Where did I leave my teeth?’
The little plastic bottle of pills rattled when I shook it. A printed label on the side: ‘FLUVOXAMINE 50MG. TWO PILLS TWICE A DAY TO BE TAKEN WITH FOOD. AVOID ALCOHOL.’
‘You shouldn’t be drinking with these.’
‘Ah, there they are.’ Henry picked a tumbler off the windowsill – a set of dentures were floating in what looked like old urine. He fished his teeth out and popped them in, then drank the rest of the liquid, and sighed. The unmistakable reek of whisky. ‘Ash, much though I’ve missed you like an amputated limb, I’m guessing you want something …’ His eyes narrowed. Then closed completely. His shoulders slumped. ‘Of course, I’m sorry. Rebecca’s birthday was Monday, wasn’t it? I meant to call, but …’
‘It’s OK.’
‘No, it’s not.’ He clicked his false teeth together a couple of times. ‘I used to be a psychologist, not an idiot.’ He snatched the bottle of Bells from the bed and slouched through to the kitchen. ‘Put the kettle on,
