For a moment, until a searing pain shot through my right shoulder.

  My instincts told me to let go.

  I told them to fuck off.

  They weren’t listening. They were having their way this time.

  I slipped away from the window ledge. Stared up at my flat as the smoke petering out of the window grew further away. I wondered whether this was what suicide felt like. This slow-motion tumble to the hard concrete below, watching the world slip by in reverse.

  And then the world stopped slipping by and I felt a hard crack against my back.

  People gathered around me. Gathered around me, pointed their phones in my face, asked if I was okay.

  I tasted copper in my mouth. Swallowed a whole bout of it. My back ached, my arms ached, my head ached.

  I looked back at my burning flat. My burning possessions, the burning purchases from my Fun Funds.

  That made me sick in my mouth a little.

  And then, as sirens approached, I thought about the note. Look Inside!

  I thought about the finger, and the bomb.

  The IED, intended for me. For me and for no one else.

  “I’m being… being targeted,” I said, to myself more than anyone else.

  Paramedics slipped a stretcher underneath me. Lifted me off the ground and rushed me out of the surrounding crowd.

  “I’m being targeted by… by the killer.”

  I pictured Gus’s static body lying in the middle of the A6, blood pooling out of his back, and I realised I was next.

  I sicked in my mouth a little bit more.

  NINETEEN

  I take back what I said earlier about police stations being my least favourite places on the planet. Hospitals definitely top them by a mile.

  I lay back in my hospital bed. Dull pain throbbed in my back and my shoulder. Even more annoying was the bleeping noise that had been going on and on and on all night. I couldn’t wait to get myself out of this smelly, over-warm craphole. It was light outside now, so at least I’d be able to get away soon.

  “Never thought I’d see you in a hospital bed again after Thailand,” Martha said. She sat at the chair beside my bed looking bleary-eyed, barely any makeup on.

  “Yeah, well,” I said. “Main lesson I learned back then was never trust a Thai restaurant in a dodgy Manchester side street called ‘Thailand.’ I mean, you wouldn’t call an Italian restaurant ‘Italy,’ would you? Surely there’s some kind of—of copyright… agh.”

  Martha leaned forward as I winced, the pain in my back intensifying. “Are you okay? Do you want me to get the nurse? Do you—”

  “I’m fine, Martha,” I said, raising my hand. “I just… these beds. Absolute nightmare to sleep on. I’ve slept on more comfortable hot coals.”

  “Oh yeah,” Martha said. “Just the bed, of course. Nothing to do with you leaping out of a first floor flat in the middle of the night. Nothing to do with that.”

  “I can take a fall—argh!”

  “Evidently,” Martha said, shaking her head. “Evidently.”

  I’d told Martha about the envelope. Look Inside! And I’d told her about what was inside it, too—the finger and the explosive. But she’d been weirdly dismissive. Like the case came second to my personal well-being, or something wacky like that. Truth was, I just wanted to get out. Get out, get working on the case again, then earning my money so I could add to my Fun Funds and buy a curved TV for the…

  My stomach turned. A curved TV for what? My lounge? My exploded, fried lounge?

  “You just need to take it easy for a while,” Martha said. She slipped a piece of chewing gum in her mouth and offered me some, which I refused. “Take it easy. Relax. Stop stressing about—”

  “About my collapsing business, my destroyed flat, and—oh, the small matter of a nutcase killer wanting me in pieces. Yeah. I’ll stop stressing.”

  Martha puffed out her lips. “I’m just saying, that’s all.” She looked to her right and I noticed her sigh. “Ah, shit. We’ve got company.”

  For a split second of sheer terror, I thought she might be suggesting that the perp was in the hospital. But when I looked to the left, I realised it was much, much worse.

  Lenny was sauntering into the ward, jokey smile on his face, bag of chocolate raisins in hand.

  “Blake! My man!”

  He jabbed me in my left shoulder.

  “Ah—I knew it was the right one you hurt! I knew it was the right one. How you hanging, anyway? Clinging on in there?”

  He looked at Martha, then at me, laughing at his own shit brand of puns.

  “Falling into a coma now you’ve arrived.”

  He howled even louder at this. Patted a hand on his blue-shirted belly. “Ah, Jesus. You do get me sometimes. Anyway, some breakfast for you.”

  He plonked the purple pack of chocolate raisins onto my belly.

  “Raisins?” I said. “Erm, thanks?”

  “Hospital tradition,” Lenny said.

  “Are they?” Martha asked. “Are they really?”

  “I think he means grapes.”

  Lenny shrugged. “Ah—grapes, raisins, wine gums. Same difference. Scoff ‘em up, you ungrateful bastard. And, um, help yourself, sir. Madame. Whatever.”

  Martha nodded, not biting at Lenny’s bait, if it even was bait and not unintentional dick-headery.

  “So, I hear our killer’s gone and found himself a bit of a mouse to catch,” Lenny said. Funnily enough, the beaming white grin hadn’t gone from his face. Just imagine if the tables were turned… I’d have plenty to smile about.

  “I got an envelope. An envelope with a finger and an IED in. An envelope with ‘Look Inside!’ written on it. I’d say I have an admirer, yeah.”

  Lenny lifted an apple out of his TARDIS pocket and crunched down on it. “Any proof?” Some of the apple juice splashed over my face.

  “Proof?” I made a point of looking around the ward. “Erm… I’m in a hospital bed?”

  “I mean actual proof,” Lenny said, crunching on the apple again. “Proof you didn’t just, I dunno, have a house fire. Gas explosion. Something like that.”

  If my back wasn’t aching as bad as it was, I’d have jumped up and grabbed Lenny by the scruff of his collar by now. “A gas explosion doesn’t push notes through your door with fucking severed fingers inside. How’s that for proof?”

  Lenny crunched his apple. Watched me closely.

  Then, he broke into his biggest smile of the day.

  “I’m just screwing with you,” he said, smacking me on the left arm like it was some kind of punchbag. “Should’ve seen his face. Did you see his face?”

  “I saw his face,” Martha said.

  “Beautiful. Beautiful moment that. Anyway, yeah—I’m sorry to tell you it probably wasn’t a gas explosion that blew your flat up, Blake.”

  “Thanks for the confirmation.”

  “No problem. I can, however, tell you, through the super high-tech means of CCTV, that a man in a black hoodtop was seen entering your block of flats with an envelope in hand at nine p.m.”

  “Black hoodie,” I said. “That’s… Gus was killed by someone wearing a black hoodie.”

  Lenny licked at the middle of the apple. “Either we’ve got a sudden spark in the popularity of black hoodtops—”

  “Hoodies,” Martha and I both cut in.

  “…Or we’ve got a match. And judging by the content of the envelope you received, I’d say it’s very likely we’ve got the same guy.”

  I wanted to applaud Lenny for stating the obvious, but hey—at least he was on the right track. Made a pleasant change.

  “So what now?” I asked. “Sit around and wait for him to try and kill me again?”

  “Something like that,” Lenny said, deadly serious. “We’ve got word of the black hoodtop—”

  “Hoodie!”

  “…out to the press. We’re working hard on identifying the girls, but we’re still finding it difficult.”

  “Nearly two days and you still have no idea who any of the three dead girls are?”

  Lenny shrugged. “Science stuff,” he said.

  Martha nodded as she chewed at her gum. “Science stuff. Right.”

  “But yes,” Lenny continued. “We’re making ground. Cutting the girls up today and taking a look inside ‘em. So you get back on your feet ASAP, soldier. Wouldn’t want another pretty girl going kaput now would we?”

  He patted me on my right shoulder, gently. I did my best not to wince with the discomfort. I couldn’t ever give Lenny the satisfaction.

  “Rest up. Enjoy your raisins. Then back to work. Laters, Blake. Steve.”

  He walked away. I looked at Martha and she looked back at me, frowning.

  “Steve?” she said.

  “Because Martha and Steve sound similar, don’t they?”

  “I’m not sure I can handle that bloke much longer,” Martha said. She rubbed at her temples. “You’ve no idea how many times I’ve come to kicking him in his wrinkly ballsack.”

  “Believe me, I have a very good idea.”

  Martha looked down at the white tiles as an old man spluttered in the hospital bed opposite.

  “Anyway,” she said. “We need to talk.”

  “You’re pregnant? You’re breaking up with me?”

  “In your dreams, honey,” she said, chewing away on a fresh piece of gum. “No, but your flat. What’re you gonna do about it?”

  I shrugged. I hadn’t really had the energy to think about it, in all honesty. “I dunno. Gonna have to see what happens with insurance. Find a hotel or something until then.”

  “You, erm… You’re not going to a hotel. I have a spare room. I can set you up there for a time.”

  I shook my head. “Martha, I can’t intrude on your—”

  “Bullshit, Blake. You’re my friend. And you are not sleeping in a dingy hotel when there’s someone out there trying to kill you.”

  I wanted to accept Martha’s offer, I really did. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t fair on her. “What about… What if he sends me another letter bomb? What if—what if he destroys your house? Your livelihood? I can’t put you in that situation.”

  Martha smiled. “Blake, you’re my friend. And a bloody good friend at that, even if you are a bit of a grumpy fucker. You’re staying at mine, even if it’s just for a few nights. And if the killer does send a letter bomb—shit, at least we’ll be having a blast… Oh God, that was too Lenny, wasn’t it?”

  “Way too Lenny,” I said.

  “Well look, you’ve got a choice. A dingy little—”

  Martha started coughing heavily. Leaned forward, spluttered and coughed, banging on her chest.

  I froze. A part of me thought somehow, the killer had got to her. Poisoned her. That he’d been watching her overnight and he’d found ways to pick us both off.

  Slipped cyanide in her milk delivery.

  Rat poison in her water supply.

  And then a little piece of chewing gum tumbled out of her mouth and into her hand in a salivary mess.

  “Frig’s sake,” Martha said. She tossed the chewing gum to the floor. “Last time I buy Wrigley’s fucking Extra. Y’know, it—it stays in your stomach for thirty days if it goes inside you. I saw it once. Had a look inside of someone who swallowed it, some kind of—of obsession they had. Harrowing, it was…”

  Martha carried on speaking but I didn’t process the rest of her words.

  I couldn’t think of anything but a few of the words she’d already said.

  “Had a look inside of someone who swallowed it…”

  Martha went on and on, coughing, clearing her throat, talking, but it was all just background noise to me. Background noise, as I added things up in my mind, let my theories play.

  The envelope. The envelope with the finger inside.

  Lenny’s words: “Cutting the girls up today and taking a look inside…”

  The IED. The explosive.

  I threw myself off the bed, no matter how bad my shoulder was aching, how bad my back was stinging.

  “Blake? Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  I ignored Martha. Stumbled out from behind the curtain, hobbled towards the ward door.

  Look Inside!

  The finger. The explosive.

  The bodies.

  “Blake, you don’t walk away from me like that. What’s—”

  “We have to warn them,” I said.

  “Warn who?”

  I yanked open the ward door, Martha holding onto my left shoulder.

  “Warn who—”

  “Look Inside! Martha,” I said. “The—the finger and the bomb in the envelope. I don’t—I don’t think that message was just for me.”

  “Blake, you aren’t making sense.”

  But it was starting to make perfect sense in my mind.

  “The… My note was a warning. A warning of… of what’s inside the bodies.”

  Nurses and patients looked at us funny as we power-walked down the corridor.

  “A warning of what?” Martha asked, as we got to the lift area, got to the huge windows of the hospital, which looked out all over Preston city centre.

  “A warning of…”

  I didn’t finish what I was about to say because I heard something explode outside. Felt it, too. The ground shook, like a small tremor had struck.

  I looked outside the massive windows. Stared out at the streets, listened to the car alarms sounding.

  And then I saw the smoke.

  The smoke rising, over by the police station.

  “A warning of that,” I said, as people gathered around and watched smoke plume into the sky.

  TWENTY

  “You should’ve seen it Blake.”

  “I saw it.”

  “I—I was driving right down this road and then—and then my car shakes and the ground shakes and… Man, you should’ve seen it.”

  “I saw it.”

  Martha and I stood opposite the police station. Lenny was with us, and even though he hadn’t even been inside the police station when it’d gone boom, he acted as if he’d had a near-bloody-death experience.

  “I could’ve—I could’ve been in there. I could’ve died in there.”

  “Hopefully the gods will grant us our wishes next time,” I mumbled.

  We stared at the fire teams as they sprayed their hoses at the evacuated police station. There was yellow tape all around the area, which media, passers-by and police officers gathered around. The police officers looked totally out of their comfort zone. Like they had nowhere else to go now their “home” had exploded.

  “I—I felt the ground shake,” Lenny added. “Felt the wheels of my car… You should’ve—”

  “I saw it!” Martha and I both shouted in unison.

  Lenny turned and frowned at us. “Insensitive, you two, that’s what you are. No sensitivity whatsoever. We’ve lost a good man today. An expert pathologist.”

  “Oh yeah?” Martha said. “Well, our condolences, of course. What was he called?”

  Lenny shrugged. “I dunno. I didn’t really like him because he never washed his hands after handling bodies. And he smelled like old cheese.” He made out a sign of the cross on his chest. “But rest his soul, all that.”

  As I stared at the firemen clearing the wreckage and debris away, I couldn’t help but feel aggrieved for my own personal reasons. The bodies—the bodies of the girls. I’d just figured out they had bombs rigged inside them, then they just had to go and explode. I figured if they hadn’t exploded, we’d have found their fingers inside them. Found a way to identify them.

  But now they were gone. Blown to smithereens.

  I couldn’t help but tip my hat to the psychopath who was killing these girls. Sure, he was leaving breadcrumbs. But they were breadcrumbs soaked in poison. Breadcrumbs that ate away at your system, that you only realised were there when it was already too late.

  “So what now?” Martha asked.

  Lenny gulped. Leaned against the yellow tape and shook his head.

  “I… I dunno. I think we’ll be relocating across town temporarily. But shit, I love this place. Love the view from the window. It’s perfect, really.”

  I looked at the shitty shops, the tramps sitting around with scruffy dogs. Hardly perfect.

  “And what about the case?” I asked.

  “The case?”

  “The suitcase. No, what the bloody hell case do you think I’m on about?”

  “Shouldn’t you be in hospital still?” Lenny asked, squaring up to me.

  “That’s what I said,” Martha chirped in.

  “Don’t stick up for him!”

  “Okay, Blake. I’ll tell you about the case. Thanks to you, one of our girls exploded her guts all over the police station. Splattered our walls, destroyed our station.”

  “Thanks to me?” I shouted.

  “Yes. You should’ve called us right away the moment you received the envelope last night. We could’ve knocked our heads together. Figured a solution out.”

  “Knocked our heads together?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “The only one who needs a knock on the bloody head around here is you. You and your inept department.”

  “Guys, what—” Martha interrupted.

  “Oh that’s what you think, is it? You think we’re inept?”

  “I don’t think it. I know it. You’re an inept bunch of bribing—”

  “Lenny, what did you—” Martha interrupted again.

  “Do not accuse me and my department of ineptitude! We’re trying to go about our business in the right way.”

  “The right way? Paying somebody one million pounds to catch a rampant serial killer? That’s the right way?”

  Lenny looked either side at the crowds of people just to check nobody was looking. His cheeks flushed. He shook his head.

  “Maybe I was wrong about you,” he said. “There’s me, being all kind by reaching out to you, throwing you an orange branch—”

  “An olive branch!” I shouted, stamping my feet on the ground. “A fucking, shitting olive branch!”

  A few people did turn around this time. They looked at me like I was some kind of crazy person. I couldn’t blame them, not really.