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you, what with those stories you hear of them dragging newborn babies out of their beds – ’
    ‘So,’ I interrupted her – we’d be here all day otherwise, ‘you weren’t concerned any more – until today…?’
    ‘Oh, yes, love, sorry. It was the postman, you see. Our normal one, he knows Mr Baker died and had no family to speak of so he doesn’t bother to deliver next door; he just returns all the mail to where it came from. But he’s on holiday this week – off to Bermuda, he was, something about his daughter’s wedding…’ She checked herself. ‘Anyway, this one today was a temp, and he knocked on my door with a parcel for me – wouldn’t go through my letterbox, you see – and we got chatting. He’s not from round here, he said – comes from one of those new-fangled eastern European countries, used to be Russia… and anyway, he asked if I knew anything about the place opposite. “Why?” I said, and he told me he’d gone to deliver some mail there and he’d spotted a whole lot of insects at the window. Some dead, some alive, he said they were. I mean, that’s not normal for a house, is it, empty or occupied?’
    I stared at the windows. If I wasn’t very much mistaken, an unusual number of flies were indeed bashing about behind the panes of dirty glass.
    Wingsy, having finished his call and got out of the car, followed my gaze.
    ‘Think we should knock, Nina.’ It wasn’t a question. He knew on instinct, as did I, that this was not looking good.
    I went up to the front door, Wingsy just behind me. I banged a number of times on the door and the downstairs window. Wingsy did the same. Neither of us said a word. We had a good idea of what lay beyond the warped wooden front door of No. 17. Delia kept a safe distance on the pavement.
    I looked through the letterbox. I could hear the faint buzz of flies, smell the unforgettable odour of a soulless shell. We each tried a house on either side but got no reply to our knocking there either. Resigned to what we were going to have to do, we telephoned DS Kim Cotton to tell her we planned to gain entry to the house.
    We got ready to force the front door. We stood mentally preparing ourselves and squeezing our hands into whitedisposable rubber gloves. ‘I still have a key for the front door, if that’d help?’ said our helpful neighbour. ‘Don’t think they changed the locks.’
    As she went back into her house opposite, Wingsy and I looked at each other. ‘It could just be his cat or something?’ he suggested. ‘Or a stray that wandered in. You’re not looking too convinced.’
    ‘Way I see it, mate, we’re gonna smell of dead body for some time. Last time I was in a situation like this was when I was in uniform. Had no qualms then about going home and burning all my clothes in the back garden. This suit is Next, you know?’ I tried to make light of the situation.
    ‘Yeah, but it’s not this year’s, though, is it?’ said Wingsy.
    ‘Piss off, you twat. I just – ’ I broke off as I saw Delia coming back across the street towards us. As she gave us the key, I explained that she should go back home and we’d be across to speak to her later. Really I was stalling. I had no intention of leaving my friend to go into the house by himself, but I knew how unpleasant the next few minutes were going to be.
    Wingsy turned the key with one hand and pushed against the cracked and peeling door with the other. As his left hand let go of the key, he wasted no time in placing it firmly against his mouth. The buzzing got louder. Two hasty flies flew past Wingsy’s head.
    ‘Bloody hell, even the flies can’t wait to get out,’ I said in a second attempt to lighten the mood. Still didn’t work, of course. I followed Wingsy inside.
    The hallway was dark. There was little natural light. The stairs were in front of us along the right-hand wall, one closed door to the left and one slightly ajar door at the back. The left-hand door was probably the