“Oh, cheers, Sarge,” Maya said, hefting her own case into Blake’s hand.
“Right,” Wallace said, handing Pember a set of waders. “Pem, you’re working on the body with Dunny. Maya, you’re with me on the periphery.”
Maya let out an exasperated sigh. “Oh, come on, Wal. Seriously?”
Wallace shrugged and handed her a camera. “What? The lad’s got to get exposure somehow.”
The noise outside evaporated as they stepped into the forensic tent. The body, the fountain and the discarded vent-aid kits all looked like they’d been laid out in a really shit version of a whodunit. It was a strange feeling, standing in the same space as a dead man, and although Blake had seen many a corpse, the surreality of it never changed.
Everyone remembered their first body—how it felt walking into the same room as death for the first time. The extraordinary made ordinary in the context of the job. Blake’s had been during his second ever shift as a uniformed officer. He’d still been in his probation period, and he recalled just how appalled he was at his mentor for sitting and having a cup of tea with a woman who had just become a widow.
All that would have been fine—normal, even—except the widow’s recently deceased husband was sitting in between them with his cock out, death erection on full display. He’d discovered porn at the ripe old age of seventy-three, and the poor widowhad found him the next morning following a wank-induced heart attack. Blake had tried to cover the man’s modesty with a tea-towel, but death erections were persistent bastards, even in the elderly.
Nothing had really changed in the twelve years he’d been doing the job, and as he gazed down at the body of the recently deceased alpha, evenhelooked like a wax exhibit in Madame Tussauds.
Blood pooling suggested the male had been on his front when he died. Face down, body fully submerged in the fountain, giving him a floppy quality. His forehead was peppered with little penny-shaped divots, suggesting he’d had his head forced down or fallen face first with his own body weight behind him. A drowning, one might guess, were it not for the way his jaws were split wide open in a horrific Chelsea grin. Blake shivered at the sight of his caved-in teeth splintering through his gums. His fangs were absent amongst the bloody mess of his mouth.
His body was on the cobbles now—pulled from the fountain by another shifter during the early hours of the morning. Thankfully the fountain hadn’t been on, otherwise it’d have made one hell of a mess.
“Poor bugger,” Duncan said, snapping open the briefcase. “Do we know anything about him?”
Blake nodded. “His driving licence says he is Robert Green, thirty-six years old, of 22 St Edmonds Drive, High Enfield. But we’ll need—” He was about to say they’d need dental records to confirm it, but that horse had already bolted.
“Robbery gone wrong?” Duncan continued.
“It’s possible. There’s no cash in his wallet and his phone is missing.”
Blake knew that wasn’t the case. Smashing an alpha’s fangs was… degrading. Calculated.Personal.Even Val, an alpha in her nineties, kept her fangs, despite all her other teeth coming loose.He shuddered at the thought, but quickly trained his face back into neutrality.
“What about his family?” Pember said, appearing at his side. “Did he have a mate, or children?”
Blake nodded. “Family Liaison are with them now.”
Pember’s eyebrows pulled into a mournful arch. “Poor man.”
Duncan shuffled over, patting Pember on the arm. The small touch made Blake’s jaw clench and his wolf snarl.
“Try not to worry. We can’t help him where he’s going. It’s his family that’ve been left behind.”
Pember nodded solemnly. “Who’s the Family Liaison Officer?”
Blake cleared his throat, striding past Duncan to smooth out a wrinkle in the tent and not-so-subtly knocking his hand off Pember’s shoulder. “DS White.”
“Oliver? Oh Jesus…” Duncan replied. “I hope you’ve got damage control lined up.”
Blake huffed, scrubbing a hand over his chin. “He’s fine for jobs like this. He might be abrasive, but he’s mellowed a bit since having the kids.”
Pember chuckled, pressing his lips together. “You sure? Hedidthreaten to run my mum over.”
Blake inclined his head. “Fair point.”
The awkwardness melted away as all three of them discussed the forensic strategy, and Duncan eventually left them to it, opting to make conversation with a pretty little response officer instead. Blake wasn’t complaining.
“When you were a kid,” Pember said, swinging a leg over the lip of the stone fountain, which was easier said than done in thigh-high rubber wellies, “did you just stop and think one day—I know, I’d like to wade knee deep in corpse juice when I get older?”
Blake huffed out a laugh, catching Pember’s arm as he struggled to keep his balance. “No, I can’t say I did.”
Pember bent down and dipped a series of test tubes into the water. “Oh. Surprising. I thought maybe it was your calling or something. Here.” He shook three filled tubes in Blake’s direction.
