Displeasure Island (eBook)

1

A Crime Scene

The extraction fan whirred with gentle insistence. Claire peered into the bathroom from the doorway, leaning a bit awkwardly to avoid stepping over the threshold. It was quite a shocking sight. The bathroom was tiled in white over all four walls, the ceiling and the floor. Claire had always hated the claustrophobic design: it made her feel like she was inside a giant tooth.

But today every shining white surface was spattered with red. There were small dots, smeary streaks, little bits of spray that looked as if they came from an aerosol can. There were even long, elegant, looping lines that dripped down, like you’d see on the more lurid kind of police-procedural show (which were obviously Claire’s favourite kind). There were red spots on the bottles of shampoo and conditioner, on the white shower curtain pulled half around the bath and on the narrow mirror reflecting the scene back doubly. Everywhere you looked you saw more. The taps, the hand-towel, the soap. Like noticing an ant on a paving slab and, as you relax your eyes, suddenly becoming aware of dozens of them over the entire pavement. All the spatter in a bright, deep arterial red.

A body was lying half in and half out of the bath. Legs and a skinny bum in similarly skinny – and offensively lime-green – jeans were hanging out over the side and partially splayed over the fluffy white bathmat, while the head and torso were slumped on the inside, mostly held up by the body’s head being wedged against the bottom of the bath.

There was a rush of cool air as Sophie, Claire’s closest friend and constant companion for more than fifteen years, stepped past Claire and into the room. She whistled.

‘I’m impressed,’ she said. ‘This mess is, like, comprehensive. LOL.’ Sophie pronounced it el-oh-el. She looked round the bathroom with interest, the action setting the brown curls of her hair dancing in their tight, high ponytail.

Sophie wore a turquoise velour tracksuit of the kind that was popular among teenage girls in the early- to midnoughties, and the acid brightness of the colour against the white walls, the green legs and the red splatter made Claire wince. She’d finished off a bottle of white wine the night before, ploughing on despite the fact that it had started to go a bit vinegary. It wasn’t really an ideal morning to confront… this.

‘You need some of those little crime-scene booties. Come and have a look, Weirdo,’ said Soph, beckoning her in.

Claire stepped gingerly around the sticky marks on the floor. It was a small room and there was barely enough space for both of them to fit around the legs that cut across most of it. Claire looked into the bath and saw that the inside was almost completely red, turning rosy at the sides as it faded out against the white of the basin. A bottle of vodka was turned over next to a lifeless pale-pink hand.

Basher was still standing in the doorway. He had been a fairly seasoned police officer – a detective and everything – before quitting a couple of years ago. Now he held his hand over his mouth.

‘It is… just… barbaric,’ he murmured, in his peculiarly deep, soft voice. ‘I cannot even conceive how this happened. The white will never be properly white again.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Sophie. ‘It’s going to leave some stubborn stains, for sure.’

‘Yeah, this tooth… has got some serious gum disease,’ said Claire.

The other two stared at her.

‘Because… because the room is like… Er, never mind.’

‘Ohmigod. Every day I question the decision to let you out into public, Weirdo,’ said Sophie.

‘Well. Um. Anyway,’ said Claire. ‘Why did you call, Bash?’

‘Because,’ said Basher. He paused to sigh and rub his eyes in frustration. This was a habitual gesture, Claire had noted, as he spent much of his life frustrated in one way or another. ‘Because I tried a couple of times, but it seems I am not up to moving a dead weight by myself. Being completely honest, I found them slumped on the floor. They are only in the bath because I dropped them. You are the only person I could think of to call for help who would not be—’

‘Judgey?’ suggested Soph.

‘Too sensible to say no?’ said Claire.

‘You have to admit this is not the strangest thing we have dealt with together,’ Basher replied. Claire noted that there were dark hollows under his grey eyes. He looked more tired than usual.

‘Can’t we just leave them there?’ she asked. She was not a fan of physical activity, and this sounded suspiciously like it would require a lot of effort. Plus, she didn’t want to get red on her clothes. She was wearing the first new jumper she’d bought in ages and it was a pale-sage colour that wouldn’t do well, in the circumstances.

‘We cannot. Because that would be incredibly irresponsible. If you help me, you can have a cup of tea and a custard cream.’

‘Ugh! Two cups of tea and at least four custard creams.’

‘One cup of tea and two chocolate digestives.’

‘Yeah, all right. But I’m taking the legs.’

‘That seems fair.’

Claire and Basher manoeuvred around one another, so that he could grab the body in the bath under the armpits and she could hoist up the ankles. In this way they managed to roll the body over and out of the bath and then carry it down the hall, where Basher nudged a door open with his foot to reveal a room that was possibly a bedroom and possibly an explosion at a charity shop.

They alley-ooped the body onto the heap of clothes covering the bed. The body rolled over onto its side and started snoring.

Basher, quite tenderly, smoothed away the damp strings of newly red hair, revealing the pale, delicate features of Alex. Basher was Alex’s uncle, but had been in theoretical loco parentis since Alex had moved in with him in lieu of going to university. The position had been solidified recently, owing to the fact that almost all the rest of their family, the Wellington-Forges, had been arrested on suspicion of murder about six months ago. Basher and Alex had started going by the last name Forge to disassociate themselves from the whole thing, which was understandable.

Alex was only nineteen, but had inherited the fine, high-cheekboned structure that ran in their family, and the soft grey eyes that their maternal great-grandmother had also given to Basher. They still had growing to do, but Alex was already cultivating the kind of good looks that could be described by modelling agents as ‘ethereal’. The good looks were only partially diminished by the open-mouthed hangover drooling. Owing to Alex’s teenage propensity to get blackout drunk and to dye their hair whatever colour they wanted sometime around 3 a.m., they could also easily be pigeonholed as ‘alternative’.

Claire eyed Alex with a little concern. ‘Er, do we need to put them in the recovery position or something?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Basher. He leaned over and jabbed Alex in the side a couple of times. They made a noise that sounded like ‘geafucffzs’ and rolled onto their other side. ‘I think it would be all right to leave them be. I will check on them later.’

‘Okay. You owe me some biscuits.’

Basher raised his hands in a gesture of defeat, then stuffed them into the front pocket of his faded blue hoodie and sauntered off to the kitchen. Alex loved colour and unusual combinations in their clothes, but Basher dressed to disappear into the background, all sun-faded hoodies and tattered jeans. Claire’s own vibe was, she self-assessed, sort of scene kid in ’06 trying to fit in at the office: badly maintained bottle-black hair with about two inches of roots at all times, old boots, skinny jeans ripped at the knees, but amorphous sensible jumpers on top. She had a lot of warm jumpers.

Claire followed Basher, after beckoning Sophie away from peering at the new odds and ends on Alex’s desk. Their room was like a tidal pool for general art stuff, with new things appearing and disappearing all the time – although Alex stuck most faithfully to embroidery and altering clothes.

The three currently conscious occupants of the flat waited for the kettle to subside – an ancient and, Claire suspected, demonically possessed machine, which spat and roared, but which Basher insisted was very well made and would last for years, if he descaled it regularly.

‘Aw, look,’ said Sophie. She was watching Basher pour out two mugs of tea. ‘He’s using the one you got him. See, maybe he doesn’t actually think you’re the worst person in the world.’

Claire had found the mug in a charity shop. It said:

There was a picture of a mug of coffee underneath the quote. The little mug was smiling and blushing, and though it clearly contained coffee, there was also a teabag label hanging out of it. The label had a heart on it. The quote was from the character Sebastian in Twelfth Night. Basher – whose actual first name was also Sebastian – loved Shakespeare, which was why Claire had bought it; and it was a very confusing mug, which was the other reason she had bought it.

‘So, er, how is the sale of...