V

"He was found at an old factory, somewhere up around the Thames ship works," Carter was flipping, or should I say scanning, through the piece of paper we'd been given as we walked along the street back towards my flat. 

"No witnesses though, or at least none listed, time of death somewhere between one and five in the morning that's the only time that place isn't being used as a storage unit. The company that owns it says there's no way anyone could have got in or out but that sounds wrong because there's holes in all of the walls even just in this photo – look." She handed me one of the photographs and I squinted at it, the detail wasn't great but the walls were just sheets of iron and were indeed rusting into holes. It was hard to believe somewhere like that was in any operatable state. 

"Stray dog?" I hummed out loud, "could've got in through one of the holes in the dark." 

Carter shook her head immediately, "no bite marks, not even a scratch on him, couldn't have been an animal." I rolled my eyes to myself, know-it-all. 

"It seems to be more of a blunt object kind of murder, maybe strangulation?" She pointed at the body diagram that marked in the edges of the bruising on the neck that she'd rapidly sketched in. 

"He was a tall guy, wouldn't it be hard to strangle him round the neck?" I had no idea if it would be or not, though I wouldn't have wanted to try it. 

"Good observation," Carter was quiet for a second, "on top of that, I didn't see any finger marks or distinct patterning of hands." Another moment of silence, "oh maybe a scarf, some kind of fabric, that would leave the same smooth pattern we saw in the bruising." I made a non-committal sound, I wanted to get back to my flat and develop the photos, then maybe I could analyse them while she was away so I could have something intelligent to say next time we talked. 

"Would you like to go over there and 'poke around' as you'd say? It's not far from here and there might be something there to give us a clue. Nobody leaves no evidence, no one has ever been that good." 

I was beginning to know better than to disagree with her when she was like this. Her brain was switched on as she'd say and it was better to make the most of that apparently. She'd already changed course towards the edge of the river so I clearly wasn't required to respond - we walked. The mud on, what could by the dictionary be technically identified as a road, got deeper the nearer we got to the river and the sky lay in it's regular grey blanketing form. Carter had a nose for directions and was walking purposefully hat tipped down as always. I followed her up to the outside of a building that only had three walls and about half a roof, generously. 

"There is no way someone actually holds a business in this place," I muttered peering inside. 

"I agree," Carter turned her nose up, "it smells like sewage, and sulphur…" her eyebrows crinkled down, "and wet dog?" 

"Ha!" It was childish of me but I was never a mature adult even at the best of times. "So it was a dog!" 

"Not necessarily, we've no evidence of that, plus a dog could've just been here there's a lot of stray dogs in London. Plus, it would have to be a really smelly dog for an open air building to still smell of it hours later." She looked satisfied with her rebuttal of my gloating and picked her way inside careful not to step on any of the bits of floor that looked about to cave in. I shook my head and followed, snapping photos as I did so. There wasn't really much to look at though, the ceiling had an old basic candle holder still precariously attached to it and the drier corners of the building had some boxes piled in them with tables and a few pieces of hand equipment, axes and saws, but nothing stood out to me. 

"Dawson has it rained in the last day?" Carter was standing a little way off from me peering at the walls. 

I thought back to the best of my memory, "don't think so, why?" 

"There's no footprints," she gestured at the floor. She was right, other than our own the mud was fresh and flat, not a boot track in sight. 

"This place is practically a quagmire, it probably churns itself round independently with the amount of water and gunk round here," I shrugged. "I don't know, maybe it did rain early in the morning and I didn't notice." 

She shook her head in the frustrated manner I was now used to. "No, but then how would the workers of found him? That was just early today those footprints would have to be here, no question." She was frowning so hard I could barely see her eyes and I ran the inside of my sleeve over my glasses while I thought. 

"Maybe they didn't find him," the comment was meant to annoy her but to my surprise she pulled the bit of paper out and read it again. 

"You're right-" I could tell those words tasted bad to her after she said them but she was too caught up to take the statement back. "It doesn't say who found him, it isn't listed anywhere on this report, that's ludicrous that's the only informant we have." 

"Look- Carter I was just making a joke, it probably was the workers and they just forgot to write it in." I shrugged, "why don't we just ask them what they were doing here, I mean they clearly don't work here officially and that's a big enough lead to go off of as any." 

She shook her head, "I'm going back to the Yard, going to find out who reported the body, I'll catch up with you if you want to go and interview those guys, apparently they work at the ship works just next door." She gestured at a much sounder looking building. 

I opened my mouth then shut it again, I would take an excuse to go home, especially after my morning was robbed from me and my shoes were physically soaking in the mud. I glanced down to screw the cap back on the camera and then changed my mind and took one last photo of the whole scene trying to imagine, in fact, where the man was even lying. By the time I'd safely put my camera back into its case and turned round Irene was gone. I squelched the couple of miles home with little thought, irritated by the smell of wet dog that clung to my jacket. 

I got in and headed straight into my dark room, trapsing mud over the floor as I did so, reviewing these photos of the body were now my top priority. I left them to soak while I took my jacket and boots off and made myself a cup of tea in my kettle, which screamed in protest. My notebook had got damp and I laid it out to try while I pondered the days events, flicking through the pile of unsubmitted stories I had for work, I'd have to tied myself over until this case was finished with filler stories. Something about the whole situation was intriguing me too much to let it go, I put the cup of tea down on top of a stack of old photos and books on what remained of my table top surface and went to clip my photos up. 

The rain came now, I could hear it against the skylight as I scribbled, flicking through the couple of medical journals I had stuffed in a corner. This wasn't my area of expertise though, I couldn't make sense of half of the English let alone the Latin and with almost no diagrams I swiftly gave up, this clearly wasn't how I was going to get my answers. I wandered back into the darkroom and unpegged my photos before laying them out on the ground to analyse them. I sifted those taken at the factory to the back as I knew they were practically useless. Those of the body were more interesting, I made a slightly better diagram of the bruising and vein stress patterns for future reference, the autopsy report hadn't yet been completed and therefore I didn't have access to anything else about the man, not even his name. 

I was better off, I reasoned, getting some dinner and sleep and waiting for Carter to report back what she had found out at Scotland Yard. My knees complaining from squatting on the floor so long I got up and made my way towards what I referred to as the kitchen carrying the stack of photos against my chest. I shut the door to the dark room and a quick cold breeze sent my pictures scattering. I cursed and scrambled to my hands and knees again to pick them up before dumping them on the counter. As I did something in the top photo caught my eye, where there was a beam crossing what was left of the roof of the building, a smudge was on the photograph. I was about to reprimand my stupidity of picking up the prints without gloves when I realised that it wasn't a fingerprint at all, it almost looked like something was sitting up there. I put the photographs down, I knew nobody had been there but Irene and I, clearly all this running about had damaged my camera. 

It was a few hours later that Carter banged on my door, I knew it was her, I'd become accustomed to her brisk knocks on my door. I meandered over and pulled the door open, it stuck a little and I glanced down to pull it, I was procrastinating fixing the unevenness in the flooring. 

"Yeah come on in then," I glanced up and trailed off, there was no one there. I blinked and rubbed my eyes before shutting the door. It was official, to remain physically able to run my life I needed to get myself a better daily pattern. I glanced over at the table, barely visible under mountains of notes and extracts from other papers. I'd tidy up in the morning…I would! I pushed my way through the bits and pieces that infested the floor between me and my bed and collapsed backwards onto the sheets. I wanted to call Carter but I didn't even know if she'd be home. Hang that, I didn't even have her phone number, I'd ask her for it when I next saw her. The shadows from the tree that hung over the block I lived in swayed on my ceiling in a calming manner. There was something about the patterns, I could make up stories with them or try and spot one that looked like a dog.