The landing was lined with books, shelved around a windowseat looking onto the front garden. The nearest open door was a bedroom, Lamb assumed the old man’s; lining a corridor were three other doors, one closed, with, at the far end, another set of stairs: attics and boxrooms, one-time servants’ quarters. On the wall opposite one of the open doors was another bloody handprint. You didn’t have to be a detective. He took the cigarette from his mouth, wedged it behind his ear, and jammed his hands into his pockets.
Behind him, she said, “Lamb?”
He paused.
“It’s bad in there.”
“I’ve seen bad before,” he told her, and entered the bathroom.
The body lay on the floor, which was where bodies usually ended up, in Lamb’s experience. He’d seen them hung in trees too, and washed up on shorelines, and a few snagged on barbed wire, dangling like broken puppets. But by and large, when you had a body, the floor was where it was going to finish. A little of this one had washed over the bathtub, too: its face was a pulped absence, a reminder that flesh and bone were temporary at best, and prone to rearrangement. He was probably imagining the smell of cordite in the air. Blood and shit were more prominent: besides, the trigger had been pulled on this scene easily a couple of hours ago.
“He was carrying this.” Flyte handed him a laminated card, much like the one he’d shown the policeman, but fresher, newer. When he held it at the right angle, its hologram configured into something like River Cartwright’s face.
“Uh-huh.”
He crouched down for a closer look, without any of the creaking or visible effort he’d made when tying his laces. The body wore jeans, black boots, a black V-neck over a white sweatshirt. It had had teeth once, and a nose, eyes, all the usual stuff, but none of that was currently available for identification purposes. The hair was carrying a lot of evidential weight, then: this was fairish, leaning towards brown, though substantially bloodied up at the moment. Cut short, but not excessively so, which fitted Lamb’s memory of his last sighting of River Cartwright. There were no rings on the fingers, no jewellery of any kind. That, too, was a match.
“Did he have any identifying marks?” Flyte asked.
“He used to have a face,” Lamb said. “That any help?”
“Tattoos? Scars? Piercings?”
“How the fuck should I know? I make them wear clothes round the office.”
“We’ll do blood work. But the faster we can do this, the better.”
“A mole,” Lamb said. “He had a mole on his upper lip.” He glanced at the bathtub. “You’re gunna need a pair of tweezers and a sieve.”
“So this is him.”
“What do you think?”
“I’d appreciate a response.”
Lamb passed a hand across his face, but when he took it away his expression hadn’t altered. “It’s him,” he said.
“You’re sure?”
“It’s River Cartwright,” Lamb said, and rose easily and left the room.
She caught up with him in the garden. He was smoking a cigarette, though the one behind his ear was still in place. Way overhead, a tear in the clouds allowed moonlight through: this cast a silvery tint on damp grass and wet hedges. A set of cast-iron furniture was arranged on the crazy-paved patio. One of its matching chairs had toppled over: it lay in a mad position, legs in the air, like a stranded tortoise.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Bit of a head,” said Lamb. “I’m not normally a drinker, but I had a sherry before dinner.”
“I’ll skip the pastoral stuff then. He was shot twice. Both times in the face.”
“Seems excessive. Though he could be annoying, I’ll give you that.”
“You don’t seem too concerned.”
The look Lamb gave her was blandly unexpressive. “I’ve lost joes before.”
“You were an Active.”
“While you were still in mittens. The neighbours hear anything?”
“Not until we turned up.”
“So who called it in?”
“He had a panic button.”
“Police?”
“No. Us.”
“So what was the response time?”
She said, “We don’t come out of this well. He pressed it at 21:03. First responder got here at 21:49.”
“Forty-six minutes,” said Lamb. “Good job it wasn’t an emergency.”
“It was his third call in three weeks. The two previous occasions, he’d forgotten what the button was for. He’d pressed it to find out.”
Lamb tapped his temple with a finger.
She rolled her eyes. “His last medical checked out okay. He’d admitted occasional memory lapses, but nothing significant. He could remember the date, his phone number. Who the PM was.”
“Impressive,” Lamb agreed. “Could he remember what he looks like?”
“All I’m saying, there was no reason to think he was anything other than a bit scatty. And certainly none to expect this.”
“And here’s me thinking the panic button was for the unexpected.” Lamb squashed his cigarette end on the table. “If we were first responders, why are there woodentops here?”
“SOP when there’s a body.”
He whistled. “I knew we’d gone corporate. I didn’t know we’d been spayed.”
“You’re maybe out of the loop. These days, we try to operate within the law. Which means drink-driving’s a definite no-no, by the way. Did you not get that memo?”
