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Hide the Dead Girl

The plan is simple. Stay in one piece, stay out of jail, and hide the dead girl.

By Joe RobinsonPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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Detective James Matthews steps out of his car onto the rain-soaked pavement.

The flashing blue of the police sirens reflect in the gathering puddles as James forces his way through the amassing crowd of neighbours and bystanders towards the house.

He ducks under the police tape and takes a moment to survey the property, to try and get a feel for the situation inside.

A medium-size, shabby-looking end terrace with a scruffy crazy paving court yard in desperate need of weeding, crumbling brick work and a peeling front door. James was not one to judge a book by its cover, but his first instinct was usually the correct one. “What a shit hole” he thought to himself.

James approaches the front door; the young uniformed officer guarding the entrance nodded respectfully to the detective. James ignored his gesture as he passed through the doorway, leaving the office to look away sheepishly. James did not enjoy being an arse hole but knew his reputation for being a no-nonsense hard-nosed copper preceded him. He had worked hard to gain it and had every intention of maintaining it.

James stopped in the entrance hall and looked around. The interior was very much in keeping with the exterior. A thread bare carpet littered with suspect stains lead James eye up a stair case to his right. He peered up the stairs to the dimly lit landing. The upstairs seemed more depressing then down. “Always trust your instincts” he thought to himself.

A flash from a doorway to his left catches James attention.

He takes a few steps towards what once ironically would have been the living room. The carnage in front of him would suggest that nothing would have lived after what had taken place inside.

Every square metre of the room seemed to be covered in either blood or bullet holes.

Even the lampshade on the ten-foot-high ceiling was covered in what James could only assume was brain.

Bodies covered in white sheets stain with blood littered the floor, thick dark pools gathering around them as forensic men in white overalls take many photographs. One of the men looks up at James. “Can you believe this?” He says. the man’s tone and body language suggest that they may have met before. If they have, James cannot remember.

“What happened?” James asks.

“Fuck knows,” says the man as he snaps another photo. “Probably gang related,” the man continues. “It usually is.”

James squats down next to a bloody sheet and lifts it slightly to reveal a man in a police uniform, who seems to have suffered a broken neck.

“One of ours?” James says without looking up.

“No one we recognise,” replies the forensic man, “but we’re running checks... We’ll find out.”

James lowers the sheet and stands. “You ever seen anything like this before?” The forensic man asks. James says nothing as he slowly scans the room. Sadly... he has.

“Any witnesses?” James says eventually.

“Yeah, three of them,” the forensic man answers, relieved that the silence has been broken. “They’re in the next room.” He points with his thumb to the adjoining wall.

James takes one last look around the room before turning and leaving the forensic team to it.

James stepped into the back room. Somehow this room is even more of a state than the rest. It appears to be where all the junk and clutter from around the house goes to die, piled high with boxes full of magazines and DVD’s, a rusty bike, golf clubs, out dated electronics. “This is worse than the room next door,” James says with a dead pan tone to the two-stony faced uniformed police officers stood either side of a very warn and tatty sofa bed. The offices smile briefly, before returning to their default setting.

James half smiles before looking down and fixing his gaze to the three young men squeezed nervously onto the tatty sofa.

They all look up sheepishly at the detective. His smile fades as they make eye contact. Their expressions soon turn to that of fear and they quickly look away.

“So,” James says after a few seconds of agonising silence. “Which one of you is going to tell me what happened here?”

He slowly looks from one man to the other. The young men look nervously at each other. The two younger looking men of the trio look longingly to their selected spokesman perched uncomfortably between them. He looks auxiously from one man to the other before turning to face James.

“You won’t believe me!” he says quietly.

“Try me!” replies James firmly.

The young man swallows hard and says dryly, “It all started... with the dead girl!”

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