Thicker Than Water

’

‘Then what do you want from me, Castor?’

‘Mainly I just want you to run some searches on Kenny Seddon,’ I said. ‘How long he’s been at the Salisbury. Where he was before that. Anything he’s done that’s left a footprint, and any recent events on the estate that he might have been mixed up in.’

‘What kind of events?’

I thought about Jean Daniels and her litany of hints and euphemisms: something had happened, but I wasn’t even close to being able to define what kind of something it had been. ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted.

‘Anything at all. Cast your net as wide as you can.’

‘You could do that at your fucking local library,’ Nicky said acerbically. ‘You getting lazy, Castor?’

‘Well, there is one more thing.’

‘Go on.’

I took a sheet of paper from my pocket and showed it to him. Cwed> < On it I’d sketched the ellipsoid shape with the radiating lines - the one I’d seen twice during my brief visit to Kenny’s flat. ‘Have you ever seen this before?’

‘Looks like a schoolkid’s drawing of a vagina,’ Nicky commented. ‘Last time I saw one of those, I still had a functional heart. And a functional penis. You need the first to get the second, you see, because erectile tissue—’

‘W

hat about these lines coming out in all directions?’ I asked, forestalling the biology lesson.

‘Evidently it’s a bright, shiny vagina.’

‘It was drawn on a wall at the Salisbury. The words “Now it bleeds” were written in spray paint right next to it.’

Nicky shrugged. ‘The vagina hypothesis still looks robust,’ he said. ‘Why do you care, anyway? Is this anything to do with Kenny Seddon?’

‘It might be,’ I said non-committally. ‘It just struck me as odd, that’s all, so I thought I’

d Rorschach you with it and see what it reminded you of. Now I wish I hadn’t. There’s a weird, poisoned atmosphere around the place, that’s all. And maybe that’s why Gwillam is there, now that I come to think of it. If he thought there was demonic activity in the area, he’d have his shock troops armed and ready.’"

"‘But you said you were avoiding Gwillam.’

‘I’m avoiding a head-on confrontation with him, yeah. But I’m still interested in anything that’s going down at the

Salisbury that’s even slightly out of the ordinary. That’s why I’m asking you. Your antenna is pretty sensitive when it comes to stuff like this.’

He acknowledged the compliment with a nod. By this time we were right in front of the doors to the auditorium.