Dead at First Sight

108 Friday 12 October

Two ambulances were now on the scene, as well as several police cars. Vultures were holding cameras up with outstretched arms, recording whatever they could, to post on whatever social media trash they followed.

Tooth climbed to his feet, feeling better after throwing up. Thinking more clearly. He’d missed his opportunity and now he had no idea where Jules de Copeland was headed. Or when — or even if — he would return here.

A thought struck him. One that should have occurred many hours earlier, if the insides of his head weren’t so messed up.

A crowd had gathered behind the blue-and-white tape sealing off the three wrecked vehicles. Leaving the van and striding around them, he crossed over to Marina Heights, walked up the driveway and rang the intercom button for the caretaker.

After a pause, the man answered through the crackly speaker in a grumpy Irish accent.

‘I’ve a Fed-Ex delivery for Mr Jules Copeland that requires his signature. Can you tell me where I can find him?’

‘Flat 507,’ came the curt reply.

Flat 507, Tooth thought. That was the one where the woman’s voice had come from, when he’d rung the front doorbell last night. Now he rang the intercom bell. Silence. He tried again. Still silence.

Good.

He punched in the door code and entered. The intercom panel said the caretaker was in Flat 2. He’d just answered so Tooth presumed he was in residence. Very good. He could get two bits of business done in one visit.

Following the numbers along the corridor, past the lift, he saw the door to Flat 2 facing him at the end. There was a smell of burnt toast. He stopped in front of it and glanced behind him, checking there was no one, then pressed the buzzer. There was a sharp rasping sound. After a few seconds Tooth heard the man call out.

‘Hold on a sec, I got fecking toast on fire here!’

It was another minute or so before the door opened and the stench was much stronger now. Wisps of smoke drifted out. The shaven-headed caretaker, barefoot in a T-shirt and jeans, peered at him, bolshily. The flat looked typical of the poky little ratholes they gave caretakers — he’d been one himself for a couple of years after he left the military. He could see a kitchen just beyond with smoke wafting in it.

‘My hours are eight thirty to five, it says so outside, come back in half an hour.’ He was about to shut the door in Tooth’s face, when he peered at him more closely, with recognition. ‘I know you, don’t I — we met before?’

‘Wednesday night, seven thirty. Out of your office hours. You must have been putting in overtime — saving up for some dental work?’ Tooth replied, rapidly trying to assess whether anyone was here with him. From the slovenly look of the place he doubted it. ‘You’re going to have to save a bit harder.’

‘Huh?’

Tooth headbutted him, straight in the mouth, relieving him of the teeth either side of the missing one, sending the man staggering back across his small hall and crashing against the wall.

As the caretaker groaned, covering his bleeding mouth with a tattooed hand, Tooth shoved the door shut behind him, simultaneously launching himself forward and aiming a disabling kick at the man’s groin, instantly shooting all the wind out of him. The man doubled-up in agony, gasping. As he did so, Tooth seized his forearm and threw him over his shoulder, still gripping the arm, which snapped clean in two.

The caretaker lay on his back on the carpeted floor, staring at him fearfully, blood over his chin and neck, half his radius bone sticking out through the skin of his forearm. Gasping in agony, he cried, ‘What is this, what do you want?’

‘I don’t like you.’

‘Huh?’

‘You’re a very rude man.’

‘Rude... ah... ah... you’re the fekker that was parked outside.’

Tooth saw what he needed, hanging on the wall by the door. No need for the caretaker any more. He knelt and put a hand under the base of the man’s chin, staring him in the eyes. ‘If I was a politer guy than you, I’d apologize for what I’m about to do. But I’m not and I don’t like you, so I won’t.’ He jerked the janitor’s chin up sharply with his left hand, simultaneously smashing a karate chop with his right into his neck, shattering his windpipe. As the man’s head slumped forward, his throat rattling in his struggle for oxygen, Tooth cracked the side of his hand into the rear of his neck, severing the spinal cord.

The caretaker spasmed, then lay still.

Tooth stood back up, went over to the board by the door, which looked like it had keys to every flat in the building hanging on numbered hooks, and found No. 507. As he removed the key and pocketed it, the doorbell rasped.

He froze, thinking. Waiting.

It rasped again.

A resident — or police? There was no damned spyhole to look through and see.

Shit.

He knelt, grabbed the dead man under the armpits and dragged him through into the little kitchen. Then he went back out into the hall and closed the kitchen door, softly. He stood waiting. One minute. Two. Three.

Was someone still out there? He pulled out his gun, removed the safety catch and put it back in his pocket. He waited a short while longer, then, braced to take down anyone standing there, he pulled the door wide open.

The corridor was empty.

But as he stepped out and closed the door, a man in a business suit, holding a smart laptop bag, appeared at the end of the corridor and strode up to Tooth, smiling.

‘Hi, are you the caretaker?’ he asked politely in a South African accent. Tooth nodded. Ready to tackle him if he needed to.

‘I’m Dave Allen — my partner, Nicky, and I have just moved into No. 402. The hot water’s not coming on — could you see if you could fix it or let me know the name of a plumber?’

‘Sure,’ Tooth said, disarmingly pleasant. ‘I’m just dealing with a problem in another flat. Can you give me half an hour?’

‘We’re both just off to work — I think you have a key?’

‘I do. Flat 402. I’ll go and investigate, Mr Allen, and if I can’t find the problem I’ll call the plumber in right away.’

‘You’re American?’

‘Uh-huh, but I’ve been here a long while.’

Dave Allen thanked him, then went through the door to the underground car park.

Tooth took the fire-escape staircase up to the fifth floor.