FORTY-SEVEN
They waited and watched as the big black transit rolled up and the men came into the house, silent, faces blank. Nobody reacted. Not even a cursory nod.
Chaise sat at the broken table, hands resting on his lap, fingers intertwined, staring into nothing.
Colin, having spoken to the people in the Portacabins, stood, arms folded, leaning in the doorwell. It had begun to rain. He didn’t speak.
The men in the blue overalls worked quickly; even so, it took them the best part of an hour to get the bodies into black zip bags, clean up the blood with solvents, check all of the rooms were as neat as they possibly could be. They’d found Ivan on the landing, his neck broken. Mikhail and his father were in a terrible mess and of the other two, one groaned when they picked him up.
“What
