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As a younger man, in an earlier version of Sutler's England that is still yet unfinished, Constable Finch finds his first dead body. Walking home, his mind is a steady current of boredom - chores and lists and things to remember, the eternal corkboard that is his memory. A memory that is utterly useless, as he left his umbrella at home, again. In autumn. The rain increases, and blinded by raindrops pouring from his eyebrows, Finch ducks into a doorway until he can see again.
He pushes his hair back from his forehead, trickles of rainwater spilling just between collar and skin, warming quickly, uncomfortably. One of them slips over his spine, and he imagines it making its way down like a stick scraping across railings, from one rung to the next. He shudders, and his shoulder knocks against the door.
Which opens.
An old little shop door with an old little bell, tinkling merrily as if it could be daylight and warm and normal outside. Inside, the shop is dark and yet still somehow inviting, and even as Finch thinks that he shouldn't go in, he's already closing the door behind him.
The rain patters against the windows and he drips onto the floorboards, shifting uncomfortably as he trespasses where he really has no right to be. The sound from outside is muted, as if the shop is holding its breath. His ears are ringing, and he shakes his head from side to side, dripping yet more water everywhere. Finch can't tell what kind of shop it is, but he has a sudden thought that it's a butcher's shop.
A familiar smell in the air, of course, and even as the information is being processed he's walking across the floor, to the counter and the little beaded curtain behind it, the smell stronger and the premonition louder, blood pounding in his ears.
The bodies are posed deliberately and waiting to be found. Someone is terribly proud. But where one head is thrown back in ecstasy, it leans too far, the skin at the neck gaping like an unfastened zip, the edge of a windpipe gleaming wetly. Finch can see ridges of bone almost glowing in the dark. The man in his lap lolls to one side, despite the chair he has been propped against, and one wrist is bent backwards against the carpet. Trousers are unbuttoned and around ankles, but they are soaked in the same smell that is everywhere.
The wedding rings are stacked neatly one on top of the other.
He remembers almost, but not quite, dropping his mobile, and that sickening lurch in his stomach when he thought he might have to retrieve it from the sodden carpet.
People are generally kind. He is new, after all, and there's a hushed quality to the voices asking him questions, the whens and wheres and hows, as if he's somehow related to the victims. As if their loss is his loss.
His face appears in the papers next to a picture of the corpses, still frozen as he found them. For days he looks for them in the mirror.
*
The police force is an endless merry-go-round of faces he no longer cares to remember, and he's been training Dominic three weeks before he stops writing his name on the back of his hand.
"You remembered that time, sir. All by yourself."
Finch shifts in his seat. "Do you have a last name?"
"Probably pace yourself, if I was you." Dominic smiles, not looking at him, managing somehow to type and drink coffee and chat all at the same time, and Finch feels old.
*
Finch is dimly aware that he's becoming a cliche. But perhaps it's alright, he thinks, because they don't write those sorts of books any more. The alcoholic detective with the unwashed shirt and the non-existent family life.
Dominic holds an umbrella over his head, his other hand in his pocket, and breathes steam into his field of vision. It's a small umbrella, and his shoulder brushes against Finch's every now and then, every time he turns to look behind them, at the mouth of the alley. At the barrier where the crowds are already gathering.
The body of a man out after curfew, his clothes and all identification removed. His genitals removed. The Fingermen are getting better at this. Even if someone recognises him, there's no reason to come forward. People go missing every day.
A wedding ring on his finger, but then they're all married now. Finch was.
"We can hide some of it," Dominic says, not looking at him.
He wonders what drives a man to go out into the night looking for something like this. He must have been looking for a stranger, or else they'd have met indoors. Why would anyone risk their life for that? His blood pounds in his ears again, just under the sound of the rain. He must be the only one asking these questions.
He can already hear the traffic arriving, and the cameras and video cameras, tarpaulins being raised and electronics shielded from the inevitable, senseless downpour.
Dominic nudges him with the hand in his pocket. "Make it a heart attack. For them."
Finally tearing his eyes away from the body - which is smiling - he sees a constable look away a splitsecond too late. As Finch stares, frowning, the constable looks back again, shiftily. Out of the side of his eyes. He smiles at Finch. Or smirks.
There will be another body, across town, or in the river. They always turn up in twos, always the same way, the same method. A housewife will open tomorrow's newspaper and gasp, or scream, and then put a hand over her mouth, and close her eyes. And not tell.
"Sir?"
Finch is old enough to know better. Dominic is young enough to think he's invincible. They're both nothing at all.
Finch stoops, leaving the circle of Dominic's umbrella, water in his eyes immediately. He takes hold of the dead man's hand by the wrist, and pulls it a little more into the light. He leaves it in a puddle, where the ring gleams sharper.
He waves Dominic's umbrella away. "Let them in."
The memory of the dead man's smile will be enough to keep him strong for two whole weeks.