Free Nero's Fiddle by A W. Exley Page A

parlour.
    The sweet, cloying odour battled with the menthol and tried to overwhelm his olfactory sense. He took several shallow breaths and let his body find equilibrium with the smell, so he could do his part of the job. Retching out a window was not a productive use of his time.
    The hallway looked fresh scrubbed. The mat under their feet showed signs of wear, but was beaten and clean. A few sprigs of winter sweet stood in a tall vase, giving off their spicy aroma which mingled with the other, pervading scent. The parlour showed a long life and gentle retirement. Stretched linen in a frame held the beginnings of needlepoint. Brightly coloured silks spilled from a basket on the floor, waiting to be picked and used. Pictures and paintings hung from the top rail, each depicting some sort of ocean theme, from fishing to naval. Fraser made a note to ask the husband’s profession.
    Two brown wing chairs sat on either side of the fireplace. One chair was empty, at the other resided two feet in thick green felt slippers. Their soles were flat to the ground, skinny calves rose above once shapely ankles, and stopped mid shin. Charred flesh and white bone was a stark relief against the blackened leather of the chair. Light shimmered on the sticky ooze coating the surface. A hand rested on the arm, fingers curled around the end, as though the owner gripped the chair for support while about to rise, but never made it to a standing position. Purple flannelette fibres clung to the exposed wrist bones and were all that remained of what the person once wore.
    The thick drawn edge of a body sitting in the chair was filled by tiny pieces of bone stuck in a soup-like sludge of ash. The grim outline revealed the head once rested in the crook of where the chair back met the high arm. Now only a few strands of grey hair lay over the edge. Nothing but the pair of feet and a hand remained.
    “There’s no head,” Connor muttered. “I hate it when they don’t have heads.”
    Fraser examined the area surrounding the deceased; the soot trail spiralled up the corner of the room. The black cloud spread outward and faded to grey at the centre of the ceiling. “You didn’t like the last one who still possessed his head.”
    The large Enforcer stared at a painting on the wall, the azure ocean which lapped at the small boat now smeared a menacing storm grey. “That’s because there’s supposed to be something connecting the head to the feet.”
    Fraser bit back a huff of laughter. “So your problem is not so much the lack of head, as the lack of anything in between. That would explain why you kept throwing up on me while we investigated the Grinder.”
    Their eyes met and there was a pause in conversation as they both remembered the street girls who ended up as mincemeat one hot summer. Their butchered limbs stuffed down sewer drains, the flesh carved from bone. They saw enough to fuel thousands of nightmares and each man sought his own oblivion to lighten the burden he carried. Violent death marked each of them in its own invisible way. No one escaped.
    Connor shook his head at the cremated remains. “I hope this combustion thing isn’t catchy. It’ll drive up church attendance if people think God is back in the swing of smiting sinners.”
    Fraser stood back from his inspection and clapped his hands. “Right, while we wait for Doc to arrive, fill me in on the pertinent details.”
    “Penelope Stock. Sixty four years old. Her daughter found her.” As if on cue, a high pitched hysterical scream from further down the hallway punctuated Connor’s statement. “The boys have their hands full trying to settle her down.”
    Fraser cast around and pointed a finger at a nearby uniform. “Tell one of them to give her a few drops of laudanum. That should reduce the screaming so we can get some work done.”
    A nod and the lad disappeared on his errand.
    He focused his attention back on Connor. “I assume the daughter confirmed identity, despite