Halfhead

Halfhead by Stuart B. MacBride Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: Halfhead by Stuart B. MacBride Read Free Book Online
Authors: Stuart B. MacBride
Tags: Fiction
place wasn’t creepy enough.
    DS Cameron stepped off the escalator ramp, took one look at the shabby hallway, and summed up all that human misery and squalor in five words:
    ‘Can you smell cat pee?’
    Stein and Beaton were hauling their scanning equipment along the threadbare carpet, swearing their way towards the late Allan Brown’s last known address. Past them Will could just make out the faint glimmer of a Whomper’s telltales: that would be Private Wright, standing guard. The sinister shape of Private Dickson and her Bull Thrummer lurked down the other end, cordoning off the whole area. Anyone wanting to cause trouble would end up missing a large part of their anatomy.
    From the outside, flat 47-126 didn’t look like much: just another shabby brown door in a long line of shabby brown doors. Nairn motioned Floyd and Rhodes into position on the opposite side of the passageway, their weapons trained on the flat’s door at chest height. The sergeant reached into his mouth and pulled out a wad of chewing gum, rolled it into a sticky ball, then pressed it over the spyhole. He flattened himself against the wall next to the door, nodded at everyone, then reached out and knocked…
    No reply.
    Nairn pointed. Rhodes?’
    The trooper clicked a button on the chunky oblong strapped to the barrel of his Thrummer, peered into the weapon’s sight. Pulled his head back. Frowned. Slapped the oblong twice. Then went back to the sight again, sweeping the Thrummer back and forth. ‘No sign of movement.’
    Nairn turned to Will. ‘You want us to force it?’
    He was about to say yes when DS Cameron walked overand crouched down in front of the keypad lock set into the wall beside the door. She popped the cover off with a pocket knife, pulled a thin piece of bent wire from her asymmetrical hairdo and stuck it into the circuitry. As she fiddled about, the display panel flashed warning red. Then ten seconds later a small bleep sounded and the lights went as green as her suit.
    ‘Open Sesame.’ She pushed the door open on silent, plastic hinges, revealing a small, dark hallway.
    Will stared at her. ‘I don’t believe you just did that. A hairgrip?’
    ‘Yeah, well.’ She stood and worked the impromptu lock pick back into place above her left ear. ‘That’s technology for you.’
    ‘Unbelievable…’ He stepped into the tiny hallway, opened the door on the other side, and walked into a nightmare.
    A fug of hot air washed over them, bringing with it the stench of rotting garbage. Like a bin bag left in the sun. The windows were covered with broad straps of black plastic. Slivers of light found their way through the gaps, falling across the cramped space in horizontal bars. One wall was given over to a collage made up of little bits of paper scrawled with dense handwriting, all glued together to form the life-size silhouette of an angel. Only this angel didn’t have a harp, it had a sword. A big red sword that dripped blood. But that was nothing compared to what sat in the middle of the room.
    The paper angel stood guard over a pile of severed heads. Severed halfheads to be precise.
    ‘Oh—my—God.’ Jo Cameron stared at the mound. ‘So that’s where they all went to!’ There were at least fifteen of them, possibly more, all neatly arranged in a heap.
    Will dug a reader out of his suit pocket and pressed it into her hand.
    ‘Get the barcodes.’
    Biting her bottom lip, she reached forward and slid theelectronic eye over the nearest disembodied head. The reader gave a disapproving clunk. She scowled at the display. ‘Non sample error. Must be all the wrinkles: thing looks almost mummified…’ Jo snapped on a pair of thin, blue plastic gloves and tried smoothing out the skin on the forehead. Then had another go with the reader. Clunk. ‘Come on you little sod…’
    Will left her to it, picking his way through the rest of the squalid flat. Rubbish spread out from huge piles in the corners of every room, hiding the floor

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