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white. He turned and looked towards the kitchen with trepidation and slowly started to walk towards it. He placed the phone on the kitchen work surface and stared at the oven wondering what could be inside. Before he knew it he realised one of his own hands was clenching the cool handle of the oven door. He tensed and squinted as he started to pull the handle down, dropping down on one knee to look inside, not knowing what to expect, as if a bomb might go off in his face.
    Inside the dark oven he could see a baking tray. Something sat in the middle of it. He pinched two fingers like tweezers and carefully gripped the edges of the baking tray. He was half expecting it to be hot but the oven was off, the tray cold. As his fingers investigated he felt the distinctive crumpled shiny surface of foil lining the tray. He started to edge it out onto the open oven door and could see a pool of thick black oil around the outskirts of the object. He realised that it was not oil, but congealed blood. He pulled the tray out fully. Sat in the middle was a dismembered arm, the skin discoloured with a slightly blue and purple tint. The arm had been cut off at the elbow joint, the knuckles white and blue on the clenched fist.
    Peter stumbled back on himself in shock, knocking the tray. It flipped over and off the side of the oven door and the arm landed with a sickening wet thud as spatters of congealed blood splashed across the floor. The tray noisily clattered on the tiles. He shimmied backwards away from the mess, his back bumping heavily into the legs of the kitchen table, his eyes transfixed on the bloodied arm. His stomach shuddered and he retched as the smell filtered into his nostrils. He jumped to his feet and crouched over the sink, retching again. He fumbled with the tap and splashed water in his face and grabbed cupfuls of water to drink. He looked down at the bloodied arm and his heart dropped as he saw a tattoo inked into the underside of the arm which read ‘The long arm of the law’ in italic writing. It was the same tattoo that Colin had shown them last night.
    Peter remembered that Colin had challenged Cas to an arm wrestle. Colin had always been a slim child with no muscles but through his time with the police force he ’d bulked up considerably. Colin rolled back his shirt sleeve and propped his arm on the table goading Cas to prove he was still the arm wrestling champion of the group. Cas accepted the challenge and clasped hands with Colin. Michelle, Cheryl and Laura rolled their eyes at the stereotypical male bravado.
    ‘Boys will always be boys,’ Cheryl chided , but the men ignored her.
    Peter could see that Colin already had doubts simply from the grip Cas had on him. Cas knew this too and as they waited for Steve to count them down he looked into Colin’s eyes and smiled. The contest w as over in a matter of seconds.
    ‘Not bad Col, but not good enough.’
    Colin’s pride was obviously wounded but he accept ed his defeat with good humour.
    ‘I ’ll get you one of these days.’
    Cas then spotted the ink on the underside of Colin’s exposed arm. Colin explained that he and four of his colleagues had all got the same tattoo on the day they graduated.
     
    Peter shakily pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and slumped into it, breathing out heavily to try and control his nausea. He looked down again at the arm laid in the pool of blood. The open wound at the elbow joint was facing towards him and he was surprised how neat the cut was. From years of watching gory horror movies he had expected veins to be hanging out like entrails but it looked like it had been sliced through cleanly. Questions were jumbling through his mind like a washing machine. He couldn’t concentrate on answering one question before another tumbled along. Where was the rest of Colin? Was he still alive?
    Peter jumped as the mobil e phone emitted a hum and started to rattle on the work surface and a second later the William Tell