Going Under Cover

Chapter 10

10

 

The smell was, if I dare say, more pungent than the first time, as if it was more fresh, recent. It really stuck up your nostrils, refusing to move, making itself comfortable for a long stay. It was repulsive. Absolutely horrid. But the longer I stood there, the more I found it impossible to leave.

The sight was just as bad as the first time too. The corpse was mangled, cut up in all the wrong places. From its naked body, I quickly found out that it was a man, a man lying in my bed. I had never thought that it would be the case since I arrived here in Longhall. It was almost as if I had promised myself that I would be celibate, that I swore off sex for life.

I had to take a closer look to see who it actually was. His face had been turned away from me, I only had a view of a slashed and cut up back with blood oozing out everywhere and onto my plush carpet. No matter what I would use, I knew that the stain would never remove itself. I would be forever haunted by that reminder.

The man's right ear was cut off, it was one of the first things that registered in my mind and I had to take a couple of steps back to physically vomit. It wasn't pleasant, but compared to what was lying on my bed at that particular moment, it was a fucking bed of roses and unicorns, all rolled up into one.

It took a second or two before I gained the courage to go and look again. It seemed to myself that what I was doing was foolish. I should have, like any other normal citizen, called up the police and informed them of the brutality that had occurred in my house just hours earlier.

But that courage did come and I took some hesitant steps forward and leaned over, plugging my nose under my heavy jumper. Still I could only see the corner of the ruined face so gently I nudged it over with a sleeve covered hand.

I nearly cried when I saw his face.

Murdered and ruined, lay a Frenchman below me.

Mr Smith was gone and with him everything that was in my stomach.

I hurled again.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

I sat on the landing of my stairs, my knees curled up into my chest. I was shaking, not because it was cold but because, basically, I was freaking out.

My boss was on my bed.

And he was dead.

Murdered.

My hand clumsily left its previous position and quickly, I located my phone which had been stored in the front pocket of my shorts. I called the first number that came to mind, the only person that I knew could help me out.

Steve Golden.

He may not like me, for all I know he loathed my very existence. But this is what he does, this is his job. He would know what to do with the body. Shit, he would know what to do with the whole bloody thing, no pun intended.

"Hello?"

"Steve Golden?"

"Yeah, whose this?"

"Uh, Cassy Richards."

I could nearly hear the sigh of disappointment as soon as he heard my name. He probably had thought that he would never have to put up with me again - the crazy bitch. But here I was calling him up, just hours after seeing him last. If I wasn't so desperate, I would have hung up there and then, if only from complete embarrassment. He didn't want to hear from me just as much as I didn't want to. But it had to be done, there was, after all, a dead body on my bed that needed to be sorted out. And fast. Preferably.