Cucumber Coolie (Blake Dent Mysteries Book 2) Page 3

  But most of all, he shows off the mouth.

  His gaping, toothless work of art that is her mouth.

  “Don’t worry, my dear. Your husband has failed. He has failed, but he teaches a lesson to the next husbands, the next wives, the next partners. This is what failure looks like. This is what happens when you don’t fight hard enough.”

  The words roll off his tongue. Improvised, unscripted. He is a star himself.

  “This is what happens when you fail to please Hose,” he says.

  He holds the camera still for a few seconds. Holds it, as the lens clouds up with Subject A’s breath.

  “The journey is over for you, my dear. But thanks to your husband’s ineptitude, it is just about to begin for someone else.”

  He lifts the hosepipe.

  Shoves it down her trachea until she pukes.

  He smiles. Holds the camera as still as he can.

  And then he turns the nozzle on and lets the water flow into her body, into her lungs, full blast.

  FIVE

  The smoothie business was never roaring when it was pissing it down.

  And today, it was pissing it down harder than ever.

  People were crammed under the entrance of the town hall. Across the cobbled town square from me, Ben Best’s jacket potato van had its windows covered and its doors locked.

  Ben Best was probably rubbing his hands, the fat bastard.

  Or rubbing his dick while he got a chance.

  I checked my watch. Almost one p.m. I couldn’t wait to get off today. Just had to stick around for the inevitable two p.m. rush of schoolkids on their summer holidays, then I could get out of here. Prepare for a boozy night at Martha’s.

  I pictured all the things I could be doing instead of drinking beer at Martha’s tonight and my heart sank.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t like my best mate. Just I needed some alone time. Danielle was very… constrictive. Always liked being around people. Probably something to do with her job at Spaces call centre, where she was on the phone yapping away all day. Needed to carry that level of interaction over into her personal life.

  Me? Serve three smoothies a day, force a smile or two, and I was burned out.

  But hey. There were always other days for GTA Online.

  A gust of wind sprayed a wall of rain into my face. I cursed, wiped it from my eyes.

  When I looked down Friargate, I saw somebody coming my way.

  I squinted. Squinted in sheer disbelief.

  That dark hair. That annoying smile.

  And those sunglasses, even though it was darker than the average bloody night with the thick grey clouds above.

  Lenny.

  “Oh shit. Oh shitting shit.”

  I went to reach for the barrier to pull over the window but I knew I was already too late. Lenny had seen me. And there was no way the bastard wouldn’t persevere.

  Detective Inspector Lenny Kole was pretty much the definition of an idiot. He was a walking example of why natural selection just wasn’t a thing. Up until a few months ago, he thought Al Qaeda was a type of food poisoning acquired from “trips over to those funny Arab places.”

  I’m honestly not kidding.

  But he was also, somehow, one of the top detectives at the Preston police station. Not that it said much. He sponged off people like me. Bounty hunters and private investigators who had contacts in the criminal underworld. He’d paid me to do jobs many times in the past. Any job that he was just too lazy and dumb to go ahead and investigate, he’d throw loads of money at me.

  And of course, he’d take the credit for the job.

  “Blakey!” he said. His bleached white smile got even whiter as he waded through the torrential rain, his clothing dripping like a drowned desert rat.

  “Lenny Kole. Pleasure to see you.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. He plonked the soaked arms of his suit jacket on the metal counter of Groovy Smoothie. Sent a mini waterfall dripping into my stall. “Ever the flatterer, Blake. Ever the flatterer. So, how you keeping? Keeping good? Bad? A little in the middle?”

  “I was doing good,” I said. “Then I saw you.”

  He burst out laughing. Slapped his hands against his knees. “That’s… God, you’re comic gold, Blake. If you weren’t some kind of local Batman or Superman, you could go into comedy. Actually, Spider-Man was a pretty funny guy. In the comics. I swear he was a stand-up comedian or something. Wasn’t he?”

  I held a straight face. “I don’t think he was, no.”

  “Ah, whatever. Anyway, what can you get me?”

  I looked around at my fruit and veg. Tried to figure out the most disgusting but most expensive concoction I could hand over to Lenny. A man who just didn’t have the balls to admit anything was “too disgusting” or “too expensive.”

  “Cucumber Coolie’s good for a day like today,” I said.

  “Cucumber?” Lenny said. He moved his glasses away and wiped the sweat from the bridge of his nose. “They do cucumber smoothie mix?”

  I stared at him and a little piece of me died inside.

  I chopped up some cucumber. “So what brings you here?”

  “Ah, you know. Just in the area.”

  I plopped the cucumber into the blender. Added a pinch of sugar. “In the area? You work in Preston, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’re always in the area. Technically.”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded and started the blender after adding a few more ingredients. “O-kaay.”

  Lenny scratched at his nose. Looked from side to side. “Yeah, I er. I thought I’d pop by to tell you some good news.”

  “Oh really?” I tried to figure out what good news Lenny might have for me. “You’ve got a terminal illness?”

  “Harsh, Blake.”

  “I guess that was a bit harsh. Sorry. Go on.”

  He loosened his collar, seemingly oblivious to the rain. “No, I er… Well I’m up for a promotion! A promotion to a DCI role!”

  I finished blending and poured the coolie into a clear plastic cup. “You… And that’s supposed to be good news?”

  “No, Blake, I said I’m getting a promotion,” he said. “Me. I’m being promoted.”

  “Oh I heard you loud and clear. And I repeat my question: Lenny Kole being handed more responsibility is supposed to be good news?”

  “Oh, ha, ha,” he said. He grabbed the Cucumber Coolie and slapped some coins down on the counter. “Thought you’d be pleased for me. Especially being unofficially promoted to guardian of the city recently yourself.”

  His smile dropped when he said this.

  My moderate fame as a YouTube celebrity after stopping a serial killer a few months ago had really got to Lenny. He’d been paying me to catch the killer so he could take the credit. But he didn’t count on a standoff between the killer and me on the top of Preston bus station.

  He didn’t count on the showdown, which resulted in me booting the killer to his death and saving his young son, ending up all over YouTube.

  “Well, you know. I try to keep things humble.”

  “I’m sure,” Lenny said. He slurped up some more Cucumber Coolie. The bright green liquid covered his upper lip, giving him a ‘tache. “Say this is… this is really interesting, Blake. Very interesting beverage.”

  “Interesting? Or not to your tastes?”

  “Both. I think.”

  “Excellent. So why are you here, Lenny? And don’t tell me you’re here just to have a little boast about your promotion.”

  Lenny slumped his shoulders. “Blake, you really don’t have much respect for me, do you? Really don’t believe I’d just drop by and give an old friend some good news?”

  I wiped the counter down. “No. I really, really don’t.”

  “Well shame on you, you miserable old mare.”

  “I think I’m younger than you.”

  “Younger at heart, maybe.”

  “No. I’m actually younger than you.
And that doesn’t even make sense—”

  “Need a little favour, Blake.”

  He scratched at his neck. Put his sunglasses back on so he could avoid eye contact.

  “Oh, really?” I said. “Well isn’t that a surprise?”

  “It’s this promotion, mate. I’m up against this McDone chap. You remember McDone, don’t you? Big bloke? Funny breath that smells like onion gravy.”

  “I thought you liked McDone?”

  Lenny wafted his hand in my face. “Ah, like, dislike. Same thing really.”

  I considered this theory in terms of my own views on Lenny. “No, I don’t think it is. Dislike is pure dislike.”

  “Well he’s going for the same job as me. And I just… well, I really want it. And luckily I’m working on a big case at the moment. So that should help.”

  “Excellent,” I said. “Then you’re sorted then.”

  “Ah, well that’s where you come in. I could do with you looking at a few things for me.”

  I stopped cleaning down the counter. Smiled, and leaned against it. “No chance. You’ve got nothing on me anymore. I’m not falling for your little blackmail games again.”

  Lenny raised his hands. “Jesus, Blake. So doubtful. So cynical. I wouldn’t blackmail a friend like you. I wouldn’t even know how to blackmail.”

  I shrugged. “Fair point.”

  He reached into his pocket. God, his TARDIS like pockets. How I hadn’t missed those. “It’s just a couple of things. A letter and two tapes,” he said. “Well, that makes three things. I always say a couple for more than one thing, then someone told me a couple actually just means two. Did you know that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Blew my mind. Anyway.”

  He planted a pile of papers down on my counter. The first one was a black and white picture of two Mini DV tapes. The next was of a letter, too grainy to make out the writing from this scan.

  “Bloke called James Scotts was found hanging from his belt this morning.”

  I turned over the paper and almost jumped on the spot when I saw the next photograph.

  “Found him dead with a suicide note in his possession. The ol’, ‘Sorry, I tried, blah blah,’ same old sentimental shit as usual. Anyway, we found another note too. A note signed by someone called ‘Hose.’ And, er. We found these tapes, too. And that’s what you’ll, er… that’s what I’d like you to take a look at. Blake?”

  I could hear Lenny speaking. I could hear the words coming out of his mouth. And I understood them too.

  But the hairs on my arms were rising. I could feel my jaw starting to shake.

  The guy in the photograph, James Scotts. Belt around his neck.

  “Blake? You there?”

  James Scotts was the guy who’d pestered me for help yesterday.

  The bloke I’d turned away.

  SIX

  Of all the places I expected to be today, the lost property closet at the police station definitely wasn’t one of them.

  “Swear we’ve got a VHS around here somewhere,” Lenny said.

  I sighed. Rubbed my arms and looked around the dark, grey room. It was stacked with all kinds of dated electronics. The air reeked of dust, like an old second-hand shop I used to trade unwanted gear into before I became a borderline hoarder.

  They say acceptance is the first stage of recovery.

  But acceptance didn’t stop me sticking more old electronics under the sofa, that was for sure.

  “It’s not a VHS we want,” I said. Lenny was rustling around at the other side of the room. I half-hoped the huge silver CRT television would tumble down and crush his skull, but then again I’d probably get done for murder so perhaps not.

  “Well… DVI, then. Whatever it is.”

  “DV,” I said. “We need a camcorder with a Mini DV player. Anyway, how did you watch these tapes in the first place?”

  He struggled around. Sweat coated the pits of his blue shirt.

  “It’s… We have—have equipment in the offices.”

  “So wouldn’t it be easier if you just took me through there?”

  He turned to me. Shook his head. “No, Blake. Not if I want this department taking my promotion bid seriously. Can’t be seen gallivanting around with you anymore.”

  I stepped around the lost property closet. “Gallivanting. Charming. And if someone finds us in here?”

  Lenny shrugged. “I dunno. Pretend we’re shagging in the closet or something.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  Lenny struggled around for a few more seconds.

  “A ha! Mini DV. Gotcha.”

  He pulled out a huge black camcorder that didn’t even have a brand on it. It had more wires than the underside of my computer desk.

  And the underside of my computer desk had a lot of wires.

  “Knew we had one of these things lying around,” Lenny said. He plugged in the wires, willy nilly. “The fun you can have with camcorders. Tricked my boys with one once. Went around recording them and asking them silly questions without them knowing. Hilarious, I tell you.”

  “You have kids?” I asked.

  Lenny frowned. “Why so surprised, Blakey? Not all of us are commitmentphiles like you.”

  I shook my head. “Commitmentphobes. Philes sounds like pedophiles or something like that. No I… I dunno. I just guess I never had you down as the… as the ‘dad’ type.”

  Lenny opened up the camcorder. Stuck the first of the Mini DV tapes inside. “Yeah, well. Every box of chocolates has a surprise.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the right metaphor.”

  “Whatever. Do you want to see this or what?”

  I stepped closer to the camcorder. Truth was, I didn’t really want to see the tape. Lenny had told me that a guy called James Scotts was found with a belt around his neck this morning. In his possession, he had these two tapes, as well as a letter.

  Oh, and James Scotts was the guy who’d pestered me for help yesterday. The guy I’d told to get stuffed. There was that, too.

  I figured at least a passing interest in the circumstances of his death might make me feel a little less guilty. Might make me realise there was nothing I could’ve done for him regardless.

  “This is the letter Mr. Scotts received,” Lenny said.

  He handed me a crumpled envelope.

  Inside, there was just one sheet of paper. A red stain rested in the top right corner.

  And on the paper, there was a note written in handwriting.

  I have your wife.

  I will kill her in twenty-four hours if you do not save her.

  If you go to the police, I will kill her.

  I am making her life a misery. I am torturing her.

  I will torture her even more if you do anything stupid.

  Twenty-four hours started at 1a.m.

  Look around.

  The route is nearby.

  Use your mind.

  —Hose.

  I closed the letter and put it back in the envelope. Felt sick to the core. James Scotts came to me for help. He was being serious when he said he couldn’t go to the police.

  “We can safely assume Mr. Scotts here didn’t save his wife,” Lenny said.

  He pressed play on the camcorder.

  “And we can safely prove that he didn’t save his wife after watching these tapes. Go on.”

  I got a nasty taste in my mouth of regurgitated Cheerios. I wasn’t sure I wanted to look into the eyepiece of the camera. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what was on the tape.

  But I owed it to James Scotts. I owed a shit ton more to James Scotts, sure, but this was the least I could do.

  I pressed my eye to the eyepiece and watched.

  The tape was of the inside of a house. All dark and grainy. Someone was walking through the dark, looking through a black-painted door, then looking at a mantelpiece covered in rusty photo frames.

  And then this camcorder holder started climbing the stairs. On the tinny speakers, I could hear wind, a
s well as the creaking of the stairs.

  They made their way up.

  Looked inside a bathroom, a Donald Duck towel resting over the rail.

  Then looked inside a kid’s bedroom, with teddy bears lining the bed.

  My stomach turned. What was this shit?

  I forced myself to keep watching as the camera drifted into a master bedroom.

  I watched as this first person viewpoint approached the bed. As it held out a rope, or something like that, over this brunette woman’s sleeping face.

  And then I watched as the camera was placed on the side and the camera-wielder rammed something—a syringe—into the woman’s neck.

  I was stunned. So stunned I was barely breathing. I’d tried to get a look at the camera-holder, but all I’d seen were black gloves and a black coat.

  The camera-holder lifted the camera again. Turned it around to their face.

  And then the tape cut to static.

  I kept on staring at the static. “That’s… that’s it?”

  “That’s the tape that James Scotts received with the letter yesterday morning, we believe.”

  He hit eject. The tape popped out, and he put the second one inside.

  “Have you eaten today, Blakey?”

  “I, erm… You’re not asking me for lunch, are you? Just I’ve—”

  “No. I’m asking you whether you can stomach this next tape.”

  Oh, great. Just go and make me feel even more guilty for turning James Scotts away when he really needed help.

  I took a few deep breaths. A few deep breaths in through my nostrils.

  And then I nodded, and moved back in towards the camera.

  A different room this time. A bigger room. A cellar, some kind of warehouse by the looks of things.

  Dead centre, there was a big black object. A black, rectangular box.

  The camera moved towards it.

  I could hear something through the tinny speakers. Mumbling, or a drill screeching, something like that.

  I fast realised that these were the sounds of screams.

  The camera wormed around the room. Looked at some old tap, some tools. But always, it returned to this metal container, where the screams were coming from.