Blood and Bodies

“So, Steve, what’s this tip you’ve got?”

He downed his pint before he answered. Somewhere in his heart, Stephen knew that Juno had only agreed to meet for the sake of the information he’d promised, but he hid the thought away and tried to delay for as long as possible the moment he would have to come clean.

“It might be nothing,” he said, “but on the other hand, it might be a story. I’ll get another one in, then I’ll tell you.”

Juno smiled, not at the prospect of another tepid chardonnay, but at the transparency of his plan to detain her. If he managed to drag it out until ten, they’d definitely be in date territory. He’d ask if he could take her home, emphasising the dangers faced by young women walking alone at night, and there would be an awkward moment when she wouldn’t invite him in. Stephen was a useful source, and if she wanted to keep him that way she had to leave the door ajar, rather than slam it in his face. She saw him coming back from the bar and opened her notebook on the table.

“Come on, Steve, don’t play hard to get.”

She glanced at him over the rim of her glass and saw his sudden, almost shy smile. He took a provisional sip of his pint, determined not to drink it too quickly.

“We got a call from Silver Street last night. There’s often trouble down there, but this was a bit… unusual.”

“How come?”

He fiddled with a beer mat, gazing across the bar as if he were searching for words to describe the scene while basking in Juno’s full attention. It didn’t happen often, and he was determined to make the most of it.

“I didn’t actually see it myself – I was breaking up a fight in the High Street. I heard about it afterwards, though. Something happened in one of those houses, the big ones split into flats and bedsits. Apparently there was blood. And bodies.”

“Bodies?”

“All over the bathroom floor. Some of them had been cut in half. The lads said there were guts everywhere.”

He glanced at her to gauge her reaction. She seemed curious rather than horrified, but any sign of interest – in the story, and by extension, in him – felt like a victory to Stephen.

“You’re not having me on, are you? Blood and bodies, in Silver Street?”

“Straight up, Juno. That’s what the lads said.”

He picked up another couple of beer mats, aligning their edges precisely as he wondered how to drag it out further. Eventually he sighed and gave up.

“They were only mice, but still…”

“Dead mice?”

“He was hoarding them in his bathroom. The lads found a load of traps in the wardrobe, and a slab of stinky cheese.”

“Who’s he?”

“The young bloke who lives in the flat. Apparently he’s a bit of a loner.”

Juno relaxed and sat back in her chair. A pile of dead mice in Silver Street would hardly qualify as news to readers of the Chronicle. She was ready to put her notebook away, and place a mental question mark against Stephen’s value as a source, when he drew his chair closer and carried on.

“Here’s the thing, though. When they searched the flat, they found a brand-new VCR. It looked a bit suspicious, given the state of everything else in the place, so they decided to take it in. When they got it back to the station they found a video already inside, so naturally they checked it out. Apparently it was pretty spicy…”

He gave Juno a significant look.

“The VCR was probably pinched. We’ll know more in a couple of days, but Rob thinks it might be connected to that gang hijacking delivery trucks. They’ve done three or four in the last few months, and we never laid a finger on them. Just thought you might be interested.”

She turned the idea round in her head. At least a hijacking gang was news, unlike the jumble sales, amateur dramatics and community centre open days that were all Allan allowed her to cover. And who on earth collected mouse bodies?

“How come your lot were involved? A tip-off?”

“We got a call from the landlady. Some girl went up to the flat and found him. She said she’d just popped in for a chat, but Rob reckoned it was a… professional visit.”

Juno hid her irritation as he tapped the side of his nose and winked.

“Anyway, she got the shock of her life. He was standing half inside the bath, wearing nothing but a frilly pink shirt. The bodies were spread around his feet, and he looked a mess – black eye, cut lip, and a lump the size of an egg on his head. And he was holding a razorblade. You’ll never guess what he did next…”

Stephen scraped his chair sideways, next to Juno’s. She flinched as he cupped his hand round her ear, but gritted her teeth and endured his moist breath while he whispered for longer than necessary.

“He did what?” she said as she turned towards him, dislodging his hand from the side of her face. “You don’t mean…?”

“Sliced off. Clean as a whistle.”

Stephen smirked and sat back in his chair. Although the ear-cupping hadn’t quite worked – his next move was intended to be the slide of the hand around her shoulders, gliding across her naked neck – at least this time he’d got a reaction.

“I ask you, what kind of weirdo does that? Rob says they do it for the attention, wasting everyone’s time when there are people who are actually ill. But slicing it off? That takes the biscuit. I mean, if he wanted to top himself, he could have…”

“Okay, I get the picture.”

Juno swallowed a large mouthful of wine and fingered the silver charm round her neck, an intertwining double J.

“Which house was it?”

“Number thirteen, top floor. D’you reckon there’s a story in it?”

“Maybe. If Allan will let me do it. I’ll need more information, though.”

“No problem. I’ll keep you in the loop.”

The story Juno had in mind was not the stolen VCR, but the figure in the frilly pink shirt, surrounded by dismembered mice and brandishing a razorblade. Who was he? What could have made him do it? Why did he collect mouse bodies? Though this was not what Stephen intended, had he known, he wouldn’t have cared. All he wanted was to see Juno again. As he downed more beer with the satisfied air of a man who’d just achieved a result, she slid her notebook into her bag and stood up.

“Thanks for the tip, Steve. And the drink.”

At nine fifty-eight precisely she left, leaving Stephen to drink his beer alone and stroll unsteadily back to his mum’s.

Juno woke up next morning in the house she shared with Ben, Andy and Glynis. The first thing she heard was a blackbird singing its heart out in the street outside, and for a moment she thought she was back in the country. She lay in bed and listened, until the birdsong was obliterated by the sound of Andy being sick. Evidently he’d had a good night.

Andy claimed to be a biology student, though no-one had ever seen him study. His room was full of bottles and tanks tucked into corners and lining the walls, housing specimens of God knows what. The only creatures Juno had seen were the giant snails beside his door, ten times the size of ordinary snails, that stuck to the sides of their tank like glue. He’d invited her in to look at them once.

“They’re hermaphroditic,” he said. “They all have male and female bits. When they want to have it off, they rub against each other till these slimy white stalks poke out of their heads. They’re kind of like beansprouts, only stiffer. Then they have to shift about until they get everything in the right place. It takes hours. When they’ve finished, they slide down the tank and collapse in a heap at the bottom. Sweet.”

That was the first and last time she’d been in his room. It wasn’t Andy himself who disturbed her – he was more interested in reptiles than girls – or even the massive molluscs dragging their shells up and down the walls of the tank. What made her skin crawl was the rustling in the shadows that gathered beyond his bed.

When Andy had finished being sick she got up and drew the curtains, revealing rows of shiny rooftops stretching out beneath a dull, grey sky. She turned away from the window and sighed. Though she’d lived in the city for a while, she still hadn’t quite got used to it. It was a long way, in every sense, from the small town in Russetshire where she grew up.

She had no regrets about moving away. When she left school she’d stayed at home, working part-time in the local pub while she decided what to do next. It was supposed to be university, but her parents didn’t like the idea and she was happy to put it off. So she took the plunge and moved to the city, working in a shop for a while till she saw the ad in the Chronicle. On the spur of the moment, she applied. She was pleased to get an interview, and amazed when she was offered the job. After moving out of her bedsit, she began her new life as a trainee reporter.

Juno had been surprised to find that in some ways, the city was like the country. Everybody had their own patch, with its pub and park and community centre, and felt a little uncomfortable if they strayed too far away from it. The city was a collection of villages, like Leddington or Hope-under-Brindley, but without the fields and hedgerows between. Although in Leddington, she reflected, there was less chance of finding a half-naked man surrounded by the bodies of mice about to mutilate himself. Deciding to avoid the bathroom until the stink of vomit had cleared, she went downstairs.

Glynis was in the kitchen already, poking a knife in the toaster in an effort to retrieve her burnt breakfast.

“Bloody thing,” she said as Juno walked in. “You turn your back on it for a second… We still okay for this afternoon?”

Every other Sunday they would pick a different part of the city, hop onto Glynis’s yellow Lambretta and visit a number of pubs before they weaved their way home in the early evening to slump in front of the house TV.

“Sorry, Glyn, got stuff to do. How about a quick one in the Fish tonight?”

The Fish and Bicycle was their local, patronised by Juno and Glynis because it was small and comfortable and served a decent pint of beer.

“What are you up to?”

“On a job.”

“But it’s Sunday…”

Partly to hide her disappointment, Glynis gave up wiggling the knife and turned the toaster upside down. As she gave it a vigorous shake, a shower of blackened crumbs fell out and lay like gravel on the floor.

“Steve gave me a lead last night. And before you even ask, the only thing he got in return was the pleasure of my company. Although he did slobber in my ear…”

Glynis laughed as she scraped black crumbs from her toast and spread each slice with butter and jam.

“Sounds disgusting! What was the tip?”

“Something strange happened in Silver Street. I’m going to nose around today.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“I want to get on with it. If I leave it till Monday I’ll have to ask Allan, and he’ll say I’m not quite ready yet but he’ll ask bloody Daniel to follow it up, and maybe if I’m very lucky I might get a mention in type so small you can’t read it without a magnifying glass. So I’m going today. If I’ve started already, it makes it harder for him to say no.”

“Mind if I tag along?”

“Be my guest.”

Glynis slid her plate towards Juno.

“Get outside of that,” she said, nodding at a slice of sacrificed toast. “I’ll make us a cuppa.”

Fifty minutes later, after a couple of stops to ask for directions, the yellow Lambretta pulled up beside a parade of shops and a tower block. Among the shops were a convenience store, a café called the Dewdrop Inn and a butcher’s where a plastic pig smirked at them through the plate-glass window, wearing a boater and blue-striped apron and brandishing a carving knife. Opposite the butcher’s was a junction and a sign: Silver Street. They turned the corner and parked the Lambretta beside the gate of number thirteen.

The house, like most of those in the street, was tall, dark and imposing. Once a desirable residence in a respectable part of town, it now looked tired and decrepit. Paint peeled from its window-frames, and a straggly, overgrown hedge enclosed the cracked tiles in its tiny front garden.

While Glynis loitered by the gate, Juno knocked on the door and waited. She knocked again. The door opened a crack, and a pair of piercing eyes peered out from beneath an exuberant set of rollers.

“Yes?”

“Hallo, my name’s Juno Jones. I was wondering if I could talk to you.”

“What about? If it’s God, I’m Church of England.”

“It’s nothing to do with God, Mrs…?”

Though Juno had seen no wedding ring, she’d heard the squawk of children and chose Mrs as the safest option.

“Flynn.”

“Mrs Flynn. I’m glad to meet you.”

Juno held her hand out, and a wiry arm swathed in quilted pink nylon was thrust through the gap in the door to meet it. As they shook hands, she tried to assume her you-can-tell-me-anything look, the combination of calm and compassion she normally used for funerals. But Mrs Flynn was not easily moved. She carried on staring at Juno with the steely-eyed suspicion that had dominated her face from the start.

“So what’s all this about?” she said.

Though one hand remained firmly clamped to the door, Mrs Flynn metaphorically folded her arms.

“I heard there was… an incident.”

“Oh you did, did you? You’ve been misinformed. We don’t have incidents in this house.”

“On the top floor? Last Friday night. I was told…”

“I’ve nothing more to say. And if there was something, I wouldn’t say it. Have I made myself clear?”

“Of course. It’s just that we’re old friends of his, and we wondered…”

She glanced over her shoulder towards the gate, but Glynis was nowhere to be seen.

“Nothing happened, like I said, so there’s nothing for you to wonder about. Now if you don’t mind, my greens are boiling.”

Mrs Flynn drew her head back into the hall like a tortoise retreating into its shell. As the front door was about to close Juno thought about putting her foot in it, but decided not to risk breaking a toe. Instead she tried a different tactic, one she’d picked up from a TV detective but rarely had the chance to use.

“Just one more thing, Mrs Flynn.”

“What’s that?”

“Was it his girlfriend who found him?”

The gap in the front door widened a little as Mrs Flynn gave a derisive snort.

“Girlfriend? Little tart, more like. If it’s not for sale, keep it out of the window – that’s what my old mum used to say, and she knew a thing or two, I can tell you. Mind you, in the case of that baggage…”

“But he had a girlfriend, didn’t he?”

As Mrs Flynn paused to recollect, her steely-eyed look began to soften.

“Five years ago, when he moved in. Nice girl, she was. Too good for him. She had a foreign-sounding name, not that I held it against her, of course. Suzette? No, that’s a pancake… Suzanne!”

“You met her, did you? What was she like?”

Mrs Flynn was about to answer, when suddenly she remembered herself.

“Are you one of those bloody reporters? Snooping around on a Sunday morning, poking your nose into people’s business. Whoever you are, you don’t fool me. There’s only me and Sandy here now, and we don’t have incidents, like I said.”

Juno opened her mouth to speak, but Mrs Flynn had read her mind.

“And there’s no point asking to talk to Sandy – she won’t say any different from me. So if you don’t mind, I’ll get back to my greens.”

After closing the door decisively, Mrs Flynn returned to the kitchen where her greens were almost reduced to pulp. Juno walked down the path to the gate, where Glynis was waiting on the pavement.

“Where did you slope off to?”

“Thought I’d slip round the back and check the bin. They eat a lot of cake, don’t they? And tinned fruit.”

“Glynis! You’ll get me shot.”

“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? If you’re hot on the heels of a scoop, I mean.”

“No, it isn’t. And stop talking like that. People only say scoop in films.”

Glynis gave a superior kind of smile.

“So you won’t be interested in this?”

She reached into her bag and produced a newspaper dated Thursday the twelfth, with MM written in thick red biro in the top corner of the front page. She’d also found some notepaper headed Beech Brothers Printing and Packaging, followed by a printed address and what seemed to be a shopping list.

“Glynis,” said Juno, “you’re a star!”

Eager to get the evidence home they clambered onto the yellow Lambretta, made a wobbly U-turn and sped down Silver Street towards the junction. They didn’t notice the straggly-haired figure, dressed in a black, old-fashioned suit and a collar-less shirt frayed at the cuffs, who leaned from the attic window to watch them. As the Lambretta disappeared, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. She was on her way, he knew.