The squad car’s menacing presence was made more so by dint of its flashing blue lights pulsing soundlessly, sans the blare of its siren. At just after five a.m., the oppressive murk of the morning’s nascent light gave the stroboscopic blueness a purifying quality at odds with the filth surrounding it. The crime scene lay undisturbed save for the evidence of the murder, blood staining the pavement yards from the arcade’s entrance.

A lone seagull circled above the parked car, spiralling deftly for a closer inspection, ever hopeful of an opportunity to pluck nourishment from the human activity it never comprehended. The street was deserted save for the presence an inebriated contractor, lurching from lamppost to lamppost in pursuit of the terra firma of his squalid digs.

He floated along the pavement like flotsam gently propelled by an unseen tide. His plimsoll line exceeded, cargo was occasionally jettisoned splashing the dirty promenade as it formed liquid mementoes of the sordid night before. Retching violently, he dry vomited and made for the next lamppost, its reassuring solidity at odds with his unsteady, clumsy gate.

Her shift had begun at four-thirty and this job required her to be on site by five. She would enter the arcade and then follow the prescribed procedure. Her instructions were explicit and required meticulous attention to detail, whilst also being rigorously systematic. Her career demanded a slavish devotion to process, a devout willingness to observe its prescriptives without flinching.

She’d achieve nothing if she failed to execute the correct process and her boss would be certain to voice his criticism without regard for the filth she was forced to encounter. He’d told her once that if she was unable to perform her role, finding the stench of corruption a little too pungent, she should leave the service and find something more suitable to her sensibilities. If she was not willing to get her hands dirty, he’d find plenty of other applicants eager to join the ranks. With command over her future prospects, demoralised dissent was not an option and neither was squeamishness.

Corruption…much like necrotising fasciitis, destroys all that it touches. She’d seen the effects of its putrid influence, seen its fetid fingers besmirch those it infected. Witnessed its unsanitary harm, coating all about it in the grease and grime of depravity. She could arrest the onslaught, perhaps slow its progress, but deep down she knew that her actions would be nothing more than a sticking plaster solution on a gaping wound. Corruption always came back in one form or another.

She was going in without backup. Just her and the well-drilled process impersonally ingrained into the gritty fibre of her very being. Her training had been disconcertingly brief and she was expected to learn on the job. She’d carry out every task almost robotically, knowing that the devil was in the detail. If she missed anything obvious, she would face acerbic censure.

However repulsive, her job was to look under the carpet and into the darkest recesses of the arcade’s fetid environs. She could leave no surface unexamined, or ignored even if her stomach convulsed when confronted by the foulest signs of depraved scum and their repulsive activity.

She needed more resources to achieve her objectives, however she’d have to make do with the meagre equipment provided. With only the most rudimentary of tools, she’d be expected to clean the scene up and remove anything likely to win her boss’s approval. He did not care how she did it, and gave even less thought to her discomfort whilst performing her unsavoury task.

Once inside the dormant arcade, she’d make a thorough examination of the scene and follow her nose. Instinct and her olfactory bulb would guide her to that most demanding of her attention. Experience had schooled her to trace filth to its source, clearing up the evidence along the way.

Stepping over a soggy mound of day old vomit, she reached for the chemicals most likely to support her agenda. Spraying the surfaces would reveal what she needed to see. She would apply the same technique to everything in the arcade from the soiled toilet lids wreaking of stale urine and faeces, to the sticky front door handles garlanded in grime. Her forensic fastidiousness had kept her in the job, and she hoped that a career in the service would not always be this unappetising.

She nursed a pathetic dream of being transferred to another part of the service down the track. She dreamt of exchanging her uniform for plain clothes, or at least a uniform signifying different duties. Lying awake at night, listening to her raucous neighbours scream at their children as their television blared in the background, the idea of leaving the service wormed its way into her unmoored thoughts. Coalescing around something akin to purpose or active resolve, they would be obliterated by the clock radio’s shrill alarm and duty’s unwelcome call.

The others would be on site shortly after she had finished. Her superiors would make a quick inspection, pointing out anything she had missed. Anxious to avoid criticism, she carried out her gruesome duties with assiduous care, and only stopped when she had removed all the evidence of the arcade’s dirtiest sins. She’d place some of this in the heavy duty bags she’d brought with her, and deposited the rest into bespoke containers specifically designed to house what she had discovered.

After nearly three hours the job was done, though the stench would linger in her nostrils for the rest of the day, even a hot shower failing to remove its nauseating odour. She’d report back to base and move onto the next location requiring her efforts. She filled in her activity log and left it for the others to review when they arrived. All boxes ticked, she put in a request for further supplies knowing it would be rejected. If she complained, she’d face a disciplinary, or the horrendous prospect of being given even more rancid assignments.

Leaving the arcade, Patryca slung her shabby canvas rucksack over her back, and unchained her dilapidated pushbike, its rusty chain sagging forlornly much like her despondent spirits. A.C Commercial Cleaning Services had texted the address of her next job. She set off with a grim resolve bathed in futility, but cruelly nurtured by unrelenting financial necessity. Perhaps one day she’d clean up at life’s roulette table, but for now she knew pedalling on was her only hope.