Blood Men: A Thriller

The guy has three suction cups attached to him—one strapped on each hand, the third secured around his right knee. The fourth is resting on the ground about half a meter from the body, the strap broken in the fall.

The alleyway is cooler than the street, and in complete shade, but the top nine storeys of the ten-storey building are in direct sunlight. Even in this heat the alleyway smells damp. There are recycling bins lining one of the walls, broken wooden pallets and cardboard boxes lining the other. Christchurch alleyways are always full of something—just normally not bodies. He looks up, shielding his eyes against the bright reflection from the windows, then back down at the dead man’s face. A guy with big Vegas-style Elvis sideburns and busted-up features and head wounds that have leaked all over the cracked tarmac.

“See, told you it was a show,” Landry says. “Ain’t much for us to do except wrap Batman up in a bag and take him to the morgue.”

“I think he was trying to be more like Spiderman,” Schroder says.

“Either way, the fact he’s naked except for a trench coat tells us he’s a piece of crap.”

“Maybe.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? For all we know he was on his way to rape somebody,” Landry says. “Dressed like this—he certainly wasn’t trying to watch cable TV for free. I’m thinking he got what he deserved.”

Schroder nods. Still, if he was planning on peeking into somebody’s apartment—surely there was an easier way.

They all turn as one as the media vans begin their assault on the scene, all pulling up at the same time. The cameramen and reporters climb out and move around the barriers to get closer. Police constables push them back. Cameras are hoisted up onto shoulders and the sun glints off the lenses.

“And the show gets an audience,” Landry says.

“We should cover him up,” Schroder says, glancing up at the other tall buildings surrounding them. Landry is right—this is a hell of a show. People are standing in the windows, all staring down and pointing, their faces full of excitement. The reporters scan the buildings for better vantage points to invade the dead man’s privacy from. A constable comes over and goes about covering the victim, a white sheet of canvas hiding the view away from the public. Not all the blood has dried and some of it seeps into the material.

“Anything in his pockets?” Schroder asks.

“Nothing.”

“I’m all done with him,” Sheldon says. “Pretty obvious what happened, but I’ll know more once we get him back to the morgue. Messed up the way he is, he must have gotten pretty high.”

“I’m not so sure,” Schroder says. “All of this—something here doesn’t add up.”

Landry and Sheldon glance at the body, at the building, at the body again, then back at Schroder. “You want to elaborate on that, Carl? What exactly are we missing here? A mostly naked dead man with suction cups strapped to him at the base of an apartment building with a couple of hundred windows—what doesn’t add up?”

“I don’t get it,” Schroder says. “I mean, it seems a hell of an effort to go to just to peep through some windows. Problem is, all the effort in the world wouldn’t have helped him out. This whole suction cup thing, it’s a myth. You can’t scale buildings like that. Can’t be done.”

Schroder takes a step back to reduce the glare and gazes up the side of the building. None of the floors have balconies.

“All that means is he started climbing from higher up. Maybe he has an apartment here,” Landry says. “He probably climbed out on the sixth or seventh floor, and fell from the sixth or the seventh floor. Come on, Carl, we didn’t call you down here to try and make us look like idiots—there’s no crime here.”

“If there’s no crime, why did you call me down?”

Landry rolls his shoulders back, and when he talks, a vein pops out in his forehead and starts throbbing. “For once the victim is someone who deserved it. For once the victim isn’t some girl who smiled at the wrong guy and got sliced up for it. Come on, Carl, how many times have we seen that, huh? And this time—well, this time it’s score one for the good guys.”

“How come nobody found him earlier?” Schroder asks.

“There was a car parked at the front of the alley, blocking the view. Belonged to one of the tenants. He normally leaves it parked here overnight. He only came to move it half an hour ago.”

“Time of death is about twelve hours,” Sheldon says.

“Tell me, when he climbed out last night, before he fell, do you think he closed the window?”

“What?” Landry asks.

“None of the windows are open.”

They all study the side of the building. There’s no way the victim climbed out and made the effort to close the window behind him. There’s no way he could have gone more than a meter before the suction cups gave way.

“Shit,” Landry says. He pulls a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and dances one across his fingers.

“Maybe he managed to climb all the way up from the ground,” Sheldon suggests.