The Dead Place. Stephen Booth

       1

      Soon there will be a killing. It might happen in the next few hours. We could synchronize our watches and count down the minutes. What a chance to record the ticking away of a life, to follow it through to that last, perfect moment, when existence becomes nothing, when the spirit parts with the physical.

      The end is always so close, isn’t it? Fate lurks beneath our feet like a rat in a sewer. It hangs in a corner of the room like a spider in its web, awaiting its moment. And the moment of our dying already exists inside us, deep inside. It’s a dark ghost on the edge of our dreams, a weight that drags at our feet, a whisper in the ear at the darkest hour of the night. We can’t touch it or see it. But we know it’s there, all the same.

      But then again … perhaps I’ll wait, and enjoy the anticipation. They say that’s half the pleasure, don’t they? The waiting and planning, the unspoiled thrill of expectation. We can let the imagination scurry ahead, like a dog on a trail, its nostrils twitching, its tongue dribbling with joy. Our minds can sense the blood and savour it. We can close our eyes and breathe in the aroma.

      I can smell it right now, can’t you? It’s so powerful, so sweet. So irresistible. It’s the scent of death.

      Footsteps approached in the corridor. Heavy boots, someone pacing slowly on the vinyl flooring. Here was a man in no hurry, his mind elsewhere, thinking about his lunch or the end of his shift, worrying about the twinge of pain in his back, a waistband grown too tight. An ordinary man, who rarely thought about dying.

      The footsteps paused near the door, and there was a rustle of papers, followed by a moment’s silence. An aroma of coffee drifted on the air, warm and metallic, like the distant scent of blood.

      As she listened to the silence, Detective Sergeant Diane Fry rubbed at the black marks on her fingers with a tissue. The fax machine invariably did this to her. Every time she went near the damn thing, the powder ended up on her skin. There always seemed to be a spill from a cartridge, or fingerprints left on the casing. But tonight she felt as though she were trying to wipe a much darker stain from her hands than fax toner.

      ‘He’s seriously disturbed,’ she said. ‘That’s all. A sicko. A Rampton case.’

      But she didn’t expect a reply. It was only a tactic to delay reading the rest of the transcript. Fry scraped at her fingers again, but the marks only smeared and sank deeper into her pores. She would need soap and a scrubbing brush later.

      ‘Damned machines. Who invented them?’

      On the other side of the desk, Detective Inspector Paul Hitchens waited patiently, rotating his swivel chair, smiling with satisfaction at a high-pitched squeal that came from the base at the end of each turn.

      Fry sighed. Waiting for her in the CID room was the paperwork from several cases she was already up to her neck in. She was due in court tomorrow morning to give evidence in a murder trial, and there was a conference with the Crown Prosecution Service later in the day. She didn’t have time to take on anything else, as her DI ought to know.

      She’d also slept badly again last night. Now, at the end of the day, her head ached as if steel springs had been wound tight across her forehead and driven deep into the nerves behind her eyes. A growing queasiness told