Free The Girl in the Rug by K Leitch Page A

them, Carla and Frank both shivered as they walked slowly
along the row of dilapidated garages.
    ‘Tell me again why I’m here at the crack of dawn in this
filthy garage block, freezing my tits off, instead of being snuggled up in bed
with my husband?’ said Carla accusingly to Frank.
    Frank just smirked, ‘You love it…don’t pretend you don’t.
Anyway I said I would check it out…you didn’t need to come.’
    ‘Yeh you were just hoping that Julia from environmental
health was going to volunteer to go with you, I heard you flirting with her on
the phone when she called in.’
    ‘That was not flirting,’ Frank exclaimed, ‘that was just my
usual professionalism…anyway I’m meeting her for a drink tomorrow.’
    ‘Bloody hell Frank I just can’t keep up with your love
life…oh god,’ Carla broke off covering her nose. ‘She’s not wrong about the
smell though… it’s definitely getting stronger…oh bloody hell that reeks…yep…I
think it’s coming from this one. Looks like the lock’s been broken…’
    At an ungodly hour this morning Frank had taken a call from
a worried environmental health officer, a Miss Julia Payne, who was reporting
that several complaints had been made about an awful smell that seemed to be
coming from one of the garages situated in a block behind some flats on the
‘Buttercup’ estate. She had checked out the smell herself but was reluctant to
enter the garages without the police there with her, so Frank had volunteered
to check it out and, intrigued, Carla had decided to tag along. She was
beginning to wish she hadn’t now though as the familiar, almost sweet sickly
smell of death pervaded her nostrils.
    The garage door was barely hanging from its hinges and
whatever lock it had once had was now hanging down useless at the side of it.
Frank covered his face against the smell, as he pushed the door to one side and
shone his torch into the darkness.
    ‘Oh god it’s even worse inside…someone has obviously been
using this place as a toilet…oh gross! Watch where you tread Carla there’s shit
everywhere,’ Frank said dry heaving and coughing.
    ‘Open that door a bit wider if you can Frank, let’s try and
get some air into this place,’ Carla was fighting against her own nausea, the
stink was so intense that it was making her eyes water.
    Slowly, and carefully they started searching through the piles
of old junk that filled the space. Their search was hampered slightly by just
how much stuff had been rammed into the small space. Old washing machines were
piled high with cardboard boxes holding all sorts of paraphernalia. There
seemed to be piles of old magazines and newspapers some going back as far as
the seventies and assorted pieces of old furniture that had seen better days,
and mixed in with all of it was dirt…almost certainly human. The nearer to the
back of the garage that they got the stronger the smell…but furniture was piled
up so high there that it was almost impossible to get through.
    ‘I bet this ends up being some dog that’s got himself stuck
and starved to death,’ said Frank, starting to dismantle the furniture pile to
clear a path wide enough for them to squeeze through.
    ‘Well let’s hope so,’ whispered Carla, ‘this place is giving
me the creeps and I can’t take much more of this stench, it is making me feel
ill.’
    Carla wasn’t joking, she could feel her stomach protesting
against the putrid smell, she swallowed hard against hot bile as it rose up in
her throat.
    It was definitely worse here though, near to the back of the
garage. Carla lifted a small table out of her way making a narrow path for her
to squeeze through. She edged forward cautiously; it was so dark she could
barely see anything outside the beam of her torch.
    Suddenly the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and
it seemed like the air was sucked out of her lungs as the light from her torch
suddenly touched on something….something shoved right into the