Free The Blissfully Dead by Mark Edwards, Louise Voss

be anything more than that.’
    By the time her mum said, ‘Perhaps you should call the police,’ Chloe was convinced. Something terrible had happened to her friend.

Chapter 12
Day 4 – Patrick
    T he Rocket Man Film and Photography Studio was hidden away on a grim industrial estate at Sunbury Cross, close to the top of the M3, between a food-packing warehouse and a factory that manufactured sex toys.
    ‘For all your Rampant Rabbit needs,’ Carmella deadpanned as Patrick took in the run-down buildings, shivering as a frigid wind whipped across the estate. In the distance, he could hear the roar of cars and lorries heading west, but apart from that, all was silent. This whole place looked a long way from sharing in the bounty of economic recovery.
    The SOCOs’ vans were parked on the wide driveway of the studio, several officers milling about in the entrance. Above their heads, a window was smashed and Patrick mentally marked this as a possible entry point. But it was more likely to be the work of bored local kids or squatters.
    On the way over, Carmella had looked up the studio on Google while Patrick drove.
    ‘So . . . Rocket Man . . . opened in the early eighties and was used mostly by the music business for photo shoots and pop videos. It shut down a year ago. Their website is gone too, but there’s a news story about it closing here . . . The owner said that they were a casualty of the music biz tightening its belt, most of the music magazines and papers going bust, et cetera.’
    ‘Seems a weird place for a studio,’ Patrick said.
    ‘I guess the rent was cheap. And it was out of the way. Less chance of the pop stars being papped as they came in and out. Oh, listen to this, from the news story last year: “New boy-band sensation OnTarget shot the video for their debut single ‘Our Little Secret’ at Rocket Man, one of the last promo films to be made at the studio.” I’m starting to feel haunted by that band. You know, I popped to the shops yesterday and the amount of OnTarget merchandise I saw was unbelievable. Soft drinks, lunch boxes, loom bands, socks, pyjamas, dolls, mouse mats, sweatshirts – and their perfume, Friendship. If I’d known then that Friendship was the perfume that had been sprayed into Rose’s wounds, I’d have bought a bottle.’
    Patrick had steered the car onto the estate. ‘I think Rose was carrying the Friendship perfume with her. Women do that sort of thing, don’t they?’
    Carmella smiled.
    ‘And the killer used Rose’s own perfume on her.’
    ‘Rather than bring his own?’
    ‘That seems the most likely scenario. And he removed it along with all her other stuff. I’m hoping he’s kept it all as souvenirs, so when we find him . . .’
    Carmella scrolled down on her phone. ‘There’s one more thing. Allegedly, the studio was also used recently to shoot porn movies.’
    ‘I’d have thought that would keep them going.’
    ‘You’re behind the times, Patrick. No-one’s willing to pay for porn anymore. It’s all freely available online.’
    ‘Oh yeah. So I’ve heard.’
    Now, the two detectives approached the building. Patrick exchanged a few words with the SOCOs, who handed them full protective gear and told them where the body was located. They suited up and headed straight into the reception area, where a corridor led past another empty room to a single studio.
    The building smelled musty and unpleasant – pigeon shit and rat piss – a cloying smell Patrick had encountered before, in the abandoned flats on the Kennedy Estate a couple of miles up the road. As they opened the door of the studio, though, another odour reached Patrick’s nose and he exchanged a look with Carmella.
    Friendship .
    Patrick quickened his pace, his natural reluctance to see the body overridden by the need to see if he was right, and the smell was indeed the OnTarget perfume that he and Carmella had just been talking about. They did not speak, and the shuffling of their blue