The smell of rotting flesh drifted on the wind. The odour of death was unmistakable. Considering that the stench had reached him on the ground floor, he had to wonder how long the latest victim had gone undisturbed and why it took so long for anybody to report it. Yellow and black barrier tape marked the crime scene’s border, telling him that he had arrived at the right place. The smell was also at its strongest. The tape was strung along either side of the door to the flat, across the passageway. People stood in the small corridor on either side of the tape, pressing against each other, hoping to get a glimpse of the corpse. Most of them blocked their noses with their thumb and forefinger or tried to swat the smell away by waving their hands in front of their faces. Nothing they did would get that smell away. If they stood there long enough, they’d never get it out of their clothes. He knew from experience. And yet they stayed to gawk. It amazed him.

Nico stepped under the tape and into the gap between the two groups of people, all vying to see into the apartment. He looked around him while he tugged the tight rubber gloves over his large hands. Why couldn’t they make the gloves in different sizes?

A young female constable, trying not to gag from the smell, was interviewing a middle-aged man wearing faded blue shorts. A pair of green plastic slip-slops adorned the man’s dirt-encrusted feet. His beer gut hung over the edge of his shorts. An old woman with her grey hair still in pink plastic curlers stood weeping at the edge of the crowd.

Nico knew that the scene inside would not be pleasant. He hated this part of the job. He hated this case: the bloated dead bodies, and the smell of rotting flesh. There was nothing worse than a body that had been in water for a few days. It was a sight that would make the staunchest policeman lose his lunch. The thought made his stomach churn. He wanted this part over with, but he had to get through this to do what he loved: catching the killer!

First things first.

All those people hanging around the scene had to go. He liked having the scene to himself. He needed to absorb it, to feel it; having all these bystanders around just messed with his concentration.

“Could we please clear the scene?” he asked a bored-looking constable standing at the edge of the void. The constable’s attitude changed from bored to annoyed as he proceeded to ask people to go home.

Lazy bastard, Nico thought, this isn’t a fucking picnic.

“There’s nothing to see here, people. Go home. You’re blocking the way. Please, people, let us do our jobs and go home. Have some respect for the dead,” the constable said, showing very little respect towards the people around him.

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