The unexpectedly curative power of Titty-Tusk

It took not quite half an hour for Curry to come back, and I could tell he wanted to talk about it, except that by now a few people from the neighborhood were beginning to gather at the corners, drifting curiously toward us, and we realized it would be necessary to cordon off a larger area if we didn’t want them getting in the way once the detectives were here.

Each of us took a side. I went back around the block to lay down more down ward strips sectioning off the sidewalk halfway up each side of the block, and a few feet into the street, to carve out room for whatever needed to happen, but leave room for carts and whatnot to get by. Neither of us had ever been near an unprocessed **** scene before, let alone the first ones there, so we weren’t sure how much space the business would require. Still, it seemed better not to close the whole block and make all the traffic go around. It might create more of a fuss.

This used up a bit more time, and then finally, at long last, Detectives Nilssen-Lambert and Ladd were the first to arrive. Curry and I stood there, in somewhat subdued silence, waiting for them to give us instructions or otherwise tell us what to do. We knew them on sight—Ladd was a tall, large-built, dark-skinned elfish woman with a severely-unamused looking countenance that intimidated the absolute shit out of me, and Nilssen-Lambert was orcish like Curry and shared his generally much cheerier demeanor. But we didn’t really know anything about them or whether they hated dealing with patrol constables like some detectives did.

I did my best not to edge too much closer to Curry, as Ladd took everything in with her piercing gaze.

It was something at least, when she finished looking around at our warding work and nodded approvingly. “You did well not blocking the street all the way. Most patrol constables as young as you two don’t use their good sense like that.”

“Did you do the same on the other end?” Nilssen-Lambert asked us.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He laughed. “Gods, you don’t have to yes-sir me, or yes-ma’am her.”

“Speak for yourself,” Ladd told him, but her mouth lifted up on one side.

“If you’re feeling formal,” her partner told us, “just go with Inspector, or Sergeant, as it applies. Save your sirs for Blanks.”

Curry and I exchanged a glance, then nodded.

“Better yet, just use our names. We’re not quite caught up to the snobby cunts over in fraud and smuggling. Right Laddie?” Nilssen-Lambert looked at Ladd, who rolled her eyes.

I had a feeling both Curry and I were trying to decide whether Nilssen-Lambert was joking or not about the people in FSD being snobby cunts, but neither of us wanted to actually ask the question.

“Curry—you can come with me while I have a look around this side,” Ladd said. “Bersk—you go with Lamb.”

“It doesn’t feel proper to call you that,” I admitted to Nilssen-Lambert once we were down the block and out of Ladd and Curry’s hearing.

“You probably think that,” he said, “because like me, your partner has the privilege of only having to say a one-syllable name to get your attention. And even you only have to say two. Four starts to sound made up if you say it too much.” He shrugged good-naturedly, then changed the subject. “So you two are the wonder kids we keep hearing about.”

“We don’t call ourselves that,” I said. “It just… came from somewhere. It’s embarrassing. It makes us sound like we aren’t proper guards.”

“Wonder kids really isn’t so bad,” he mused as we turned the corner onto the street. “If it’s any consolation Laddie and I came up from the academy together just like you two, and our partner name was Titty-Tusk.”

“Why?” I asked, puzzled.

“Well, Tusk is me, obviously,” he said, motioning to himself, “and Titty is because she has those, well, you know.” He leaned a couple inches closer and kept his voice low. “Elf ears.”

This made me laugh, despite myself. “Right. I guess we’re lucky not to be wonder-titties,” I said, then glanced up, unsure if I was allowed to say titties to a ranking officer. But Nilssen-Lambert didn’t look bothered.

“Feeling better?” Nilssen-Lambert cast me a sidelong look.

I shrugged.

“You were the one who went in, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Pretty bad?”

I shrugged again. “I guess.”

“I’m taking that to mean, finding that body was just about the most hideous thing you ever experienced, but you don’t want the seasoned veterans who must be totally inured to such atrocities to think less of you for reacting to it exactly like a normal person?”

I felt a lump rise in my throat. “Sort of. Maybe.”

The curtain in Mr. Fearcher’s front window twitched a bit, but I kept my eyes on Nilssen-Lambert. Mr. Fearcher was entitled to a little rubbernecking, I supposed, since he had probably figured out by now that the terrible smell permeating all the units on his block was no dead cat.

“How long did you spend throwing up, after?” Nilssen-Lambert asked me.

“I don’t know. Five minutes, maybe? Ten? I guess Curry might know.”

“Well, then take some heart in this, Bersk—when I was a patrol constable and I encountered my first body that was let to spoil a few days—I threw up for over half an hour. Ladd started to worry she’d have to take me to hospital when I couldn’t stop dry heaving.”

“Can you smell it on me?” I asked hesitantly. “It feels like it’s clinging.”

Nilssen-Lambert motioned for me to stop. “Arms up.” When I raised my arms he leaned in and gave my uniform sleeves a sniff. “Not really,” he pronounced. “I’ve noticed on these really bad ones, the smell can stick in your own nose for a couple days afterward, without intervention. Like it’s burnt into you or something. But it does go away. Take a good long, hot shower at the watch house after your shift. And then let your partner buy you a pint or three at your local.”

He clapped me on the shoulder. “You made him go to the sender's kiosk instead of you, to spare him having to get close to it. Is that about right?”

I shrugged. “I guess.”

“Good. That’s the kind of impulse a partner should have.” Abruptly he started walking again, taking us around the corner to approach the other end of the alley. He motioned to the ladders. “Were you the one who warded these?”

“Yes,” I said, hoping that wasn’t wrong. “I thought it might keep anybody who knows the neighborhood from going up there to gawk at what the guards were doing. Or if they did, at least you’d have some record.”

“Good.” Nilssen-Lambert pointed across the street at a very wide drain pipe. “It’s also helpful to ward things like that if you see them on any buildings immediately touching the scene. You’d be surprised what a motivated rubbernecker, or a murderer, is willing to scale for a better look at things.” He continued looking over my work securing the alley and the ladders, and Curry’s on the street and walk, nodding his approval. “Well done. I’ve seen much sloppier work from much more experienced constables.”

“What are we meant to do, now?” I asked.

“I expect you’re already aware that since the city can’t legally keep registered sorcerers on the payroll, we contract with the Rooks for coroner services. One of their mages will perform the removal, so the body and scene are disturbed as little as possible. Bad ones like this take a bit of time to start moving while the whole gang assembles—first we'll have whatever priest they send sanitize things and get the stench gone. While they’re at it we’ll get that person to give you a onceover too, so you aren’t gagging for the next three days every time you catch a random whiff of it. Your imagination will still fuck with you a bit and tell you it’s there, on and off for the next day probably, but at least you won’t genuinely be smelling it anymore.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I didn’t know that was a thing.”

Nilssen-Lambert turned back to me. “You know that smell now. If you recognize it ever again, you don’t need to actually clap eyes on a body before you send for the **** guards. No need to go through that if you don’t have to. And if it turns out to be something else that died—no detective experienced with dead bodies will fault a patrol constable for not wanting to go closer. Especially one this far gone. Understand?”

I nodded.

“I’m sure Laddie’s telling your partner the same thing, but you tell him, too.”

“What do you want me and Curry to do while all the people turn up to do their parts?” I asked.

“Do I have it right that you and he are the ones meant to replace us in a few years?” he asked, startling me.

“Uh. Well, it's true we both put SCD on our careers forms,” I hedged.

“But then Blanks forbade you ever to admit any of it to a single living soul after divulging he and Hui already hammered out the line of succession for the next two hundred years and all those unwitting hopefuls are just plain fucked?” Nilssen-Lambert grinned.

I nodded the entire time he talked, then said politely, “I don’t know if I quite follow what you mean, Inspector.”

He laughed aloud. “Very good, constable. We’ll do it proper, then.” He gave me a wide, genuine smile that turned sympathetic after a moment. “By the way—if today is making you second-guess whether you’re cut out to work **** cases after all, don’t worry that wondering in itself makes you unfit. After all that throwing up, Laddie still had to contend with me crying—and I don’t mean figuratively like I was whinging around about it, I mean I literally wept with despair—on her shoulder all night about how I’d ruined all our future career ambitions because I didn’t have any stomach at all for dead people.” He smiled again. “And yet, here we are. You’ve already shown more fortitude than I did. So give yourself some time to settle with it before you give up hope.”

We were at the other end of the alley now, and before I could muster any reply to this speech Lamb gave me a bracing clap on the shoulder. “There’s not much of this scene that wants securing at this point, and it’s not so public that we have big crowds yet. Since there’s not much else here to keep you busy, you and Curry might as well stick close with us. Any little thing you learn can be useful, even as patrol constables. Now. Let’s go see how he and Laddie are getting on.”

Lamb packed our walk to the other side with plenty more talk for me to think about, and as we came up on them it appeared Curry and Ladd were just concluding their review of the wards on his side of the alley. His work seemed to have reviewed as favorably as mine. Nilssen-Lambert crossed over to his partner and while they compared notes, Curry sidled over to me. “I don’t suppose you saw anybody of interest,” he said quietly, which was his oblique way of asking me if I'd noticed the person’s shade still hanging about.

I shook my head. “I think especially on this one it’s bad enough they must have wanted to keep some distance." While my experience of actual dead bodies was limited, it seemed that most shades lucid to their situation didn’t much enjoy hanging about to see their last anchor to the physical world decay into worm food. “Plus… it’s been a few days, probably?”

“Yeah. Didn’t figure,” he said, nodding. “Not that it’s our job, anyway.”

“Yet,” I whispered, since after Detective Lamb’s encouraging words I was starting to feel less uncertain about being cut out for this work.

Curry flashed me a quick smile as Ladd and Nilssen-Lambert turned to acknowledge the priest of Rava who had just arrived. Ladd pointed to the alley, and the woman gave a swift, businesslike nod and moved in that direction. “Why don’t you two get on over here,” Nilssen-Lambert called to us. “Join us while we ask around the neighborhood and find out whether anyone saw something.”