I called Ariel a cab to take her back to her hotel.
“Sorry about this.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Work emergency. I get it.”
I tapped my phone and buzzed hers. She opened my message.
“Voucher for a full treatment at the Thai House Spa in Covent Garden,” I said. “Near your hotel. Help with your jet lag.”
“And you just happened to have it stored on your phone?” She laughed.
“Perks of the job. We helped them out once.”
“Are you bribing me?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Is it working?”
“Ask me tomorrow night.” She smiled and winked.
I shut the door and sent her off, then ran to the BMW and drove out to Darren Cowley’s flat.
Benjamin buzzed me in.
There are a few things I would happily go to the end of my life not seeing, and a half-naked dead man hanging from the ceiling with a full erection is very close to the top of my list.
“Fuck.”
When I had clocked off four hours ago to go on my date with Ariel, Benjamin had volunteered to watch Darren Cowley’s flat in my place, since he had nothing better to do: Olivia was going out drinking with her girlfriends from college and his online friends were too busy with babies and family stuff to play Call of Duty with him.
After the first hour, Darren was still a no-show. Benjamin got bored and, being Benjamin, decided to come inside to take a look. He managed to bypass the buzzers in the building’s front door, and picking the lock to Darren’s flat was even easier for him. That was when he found what was left of Darren Cowley.
“I think they’ll call it autoerotic asphyxiation,” Benjamin declared as he handed me a pair of rubber surgical gloves so we wouldn’t leave any of our prints around the place.
“He must have already been dead when I got here,” I said.
“See the booze and the drugs on the coffee table? The sliced oranges, the peels? No suicide note. This will read, ‘Got high, got randy, decided to extreme-wank, went wrong.’ ”
“Hell of a coincidence,” I said.
“What, he got so stressed out he would accidentally top himself?”
I looked at Darren, much as I didn’t want to. There was a slice of orange in his mouth, apparently for biting down so the sour taste would jolt him from blacking out while the noose was tightening. There was the kicked-over chair near Darren’s legs. His wrists were tied in front of his chest, seemingly part of the ritual to feel “helpless.”
“He hasn’t started stinkin’ up the place yet.” Benjamin sniffed. “So it’s only been a few hours.”
I was amazed at how calm and blasé Benjamin was. Then again, I realized I was, too. Granted, Benjamin had warned me about this before I got here. He was mischievous, our Benjamin, but without malice. But still.
“Something bothering you?” he asked.
“I’m bothered that I’m not shitting myself or freaking out over this. I might have recoiled and vomited, but I haven’t. How are you so calm?”
“Ehh.” Benjamin shrugged. “You work for Roger long enough, a stiff will pop up from time to time.”
We started to look around. It was an expensive flat, full of the latest furnishings Darren must have paid for with his bonuses and salary before spending the rest of his disposable income on the recreational drugs we saw him and his colleagues indulging in on Sandra’s videos.
Darren’s computer was gone, along with any accessories like a hard drive. On the desk, we could see little dust patterns around the clean gap where his laptop used to be.
I heard coarse, guttural laughter echo through the living room and saw a trio of Rakshakas, the same ones I saw on the rooftop of Holloway-Browner, eyes glowing, demonic as ever, grabbing Darren as he struggled and begged, hauling him up on the chair and getting a noose around his neck.
Why the hell was I seeing demons from Hindu mythology? Why was I seeing human murderers represented as demons?
“Hang on,” I said. “If he tied his own wrists up, how the fuck could he tie a knot that tight by himself, even in front of his chest?”
“Used his teeth, maybe?” Benjamin said.
“Not a knot this complicated or this tight. Someone did this to him. They could have just hung him without this ‘autoerotic’ bollocks. They tried to be clever and got sloppy.”
“Why the hassle? Why not just fake a suicide? They could have forced him to write a note to say he was depressed or totally stressed out and couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Distraction,” I said. “If everyone thinks he died by accident because he was a perv, there’d be fewer questions asked. At least until an inquest susses out what we just did. Buys the killers time. By the time there’s an inquest, they could be long gone.”
“Crafty bastards. I almost admire that.”
What fucked me off was the sheer malice behind it, the shame and humiliation that Darren’s family was going to go through.
Benjamin and I searched the flat, looking through the cupboards, the kitchen, the fridge, not convinced we were going to find anything.
“If they were professionals,” Benjamin asked, “they would have looked where we looked.”
“Well, there was nothing to find. Sandra already took the thumb drive. But if they interrogated Darren, they’ll know she has it now.”
We got out of there, left the door to the flat slightly ajar so that a neighbor might be concerned enough to take a look inside. Just to be safe, as we drove off, Benjamin took out one of the cheap burner phones he always carried around for emergencies like this to call 999. He even put on a fake posh accent.
“Hullo, police? I think something awful’s happened to my neighbor. His name’s Darren. Darren Cowley. Yes. His door’s ajar, and a few hours ago, there were some strange sounds coming from his flat. I didn’t dare go in. Yes. Prospect Tower. Yes. Flat 10C. Yes. Please hurry. Ta-ra.”
He switched off the phone, took out the SIM card, and tossed it out the window. Then he tossed the phone out the window as well. He didn’t take off his rubber gloves so there would be no prints on it.
I hoped we weren’t too conspicuous in the surveillance cameras on the streets that night.