‘How’s it going?’ said Wozza.

‘All quiet here.’ Randall stretched his arms and yawned. He’d done a quick changeover and copped an afternoon shift.

A doctor passed us and opened the door to Bunting’s room. I leaned over for a look and as the door slowly closed itself, I caught a glimpse of him. His right arm was bandaged like a mummy, propped awkwardly in front of him on several cushions. His left leg lay on top of the sheets. It too was heavily bandaged, courtesy of Waffles.

When the doctor came out, Wozza flashed his badge. ‘How is he, doc?’

The doctor looked at us, then at Randall. ‘He’ll live. His arm’s broken and he’s suffered dog-bite wounds to the leg which we’ve repaired. He will be here for another couple of days at least.’

If it was up to me, I would have gone in and demanded to know what the hell the guy was doing on my property, but I fought my natural inclination. I knew from experience that a righteous spur-of-the-moment demand for answers could—later on in court—be labelled bullying, coercion and witness-tampering.

I was saved from temptation by the pinging of my phone. Wozza’s pinged too.

A body had been found.

CHAPTER 19: DEAD MERV

CHAPTER 19

DEAD MERV

At death, a body begins to break down. Blood pools to the lowest sections, so in places the skin looks either ghostly white or a vivid splotchy purple. Rigor mortis comes and goes, and in this case it was gone.

In a small kitchen at the back of an old stale-smelling house, a man lay sprawled on the floor, face down, milky eyes open. Blood had pooled on the part of his face touching the floor, marking the indent from the lino pattern onto his skin.

‘Do we know who he is?’ asked Wozza, staring down at the dead man, then snapping on a pair of gloves. I pulled a pair from my pocket and did the same.

Jane adjusted her police radio to turn down the volume. ‘According to the neighbour who put in the concern-for-welfare check, he’s Mervin Geoffrey Evans.’

‘Well, Mervin Geoffrey Evans, how did you die?’ said Wozza, trying to sound like Vincent Price, but sounding more like the Count from Sesame Street.

Mervin Geoffrey Evans did not answer.

I checked the back door. Locked. ‘Was the front door open when you got here?’ I asked Jane.

‘No,’ said Jane. ‘We got a call from the woman next door. She had a key. When she hadn’t seen him’—Jane nodded towards Mervin Geoffrey Evans, dead on the floor—‘for a couple of days, she called us. I got the key from her and found him. She reckons she saw the newspapers stacking up. Car in the driveway. Bins left out.’ Again, Jane looked over at the body.

‘How many newspapers?’ I asked.