Ruthless - [6]
‘Some evidence of wear in the vertebrae,’ he pointed out.
‘Middle-aged?’ said Gill.
‘Most likely.’
Then the third image. The mesh of broken ribs, the main part of the chest. Gill noticed the dark smudges at the same moment as Garvey said, ‘What have we got here, then?’
He clicked closer. The smudges were clearer now, two of them, small cylindrical forms with a conical nose, the size of cigarette butts.
Gill’s heart missed a beat. ‘I think we can safely rule out accidental death, or suicide,’ she said. ‘The poor bugger’s been shot.’
3
They were ready and waiting in the incident meeting room when the boss arrived, having sent word that she was launching a murder inquiry. Rachel had been part of DCI Gill Murray’s syndicate for three years now. Could’ve been sergeant if things hadn’t conspired to make her miss her exam. But there’d be chance again if she stuck at it. And she was determined to do so. Things had been rocky and Godzilla had been on her back on more than one occasion, making Rachel feel like shit, but she’d not yet been chucked out. Janet reckoned that the boss rated Rachel as a keeper, someone who’d fly up the career ladder if she put her mind to it, but Rachel wasn’t so sure. She’d been on the receiving end of Godzilla’s tongue-lashing so many times that she sometimes thought the boss had it in for her. Though to be fair there had always been good reasons for the bollockings. Not as if they were trumped up, bullying or whatever.
‘This morning I attended the scene at Old Chapel, Lower Manorclough.’
‘There was a fire,’ Rachel said, interrupting without thinking, ‘last night.’
‘There was indeed,’ the boss went on after a short pause, ‘reported on the local news.’
‘No,’ Rachel said, wanting to set the record straight, ‘I saw it, I was there…’
Janet, on the other side of the conference table, raised her eyebrows at Rachel, either querying why she’d been there or warning her about butting in when the DCI was speaking.
‘… that’s how I know,’ Rachel tailed off.
‘Glad we’ve cleared that up,’ the boss said smartly. ‘What you won’t know is that our victim, male, Caucasian, identity unknown, was inside the building and initial evidence suggests he was shot, twice, then doused with accelerant and set alight. I must warn you the photographs are not particularly pleasant and are not required viewing. Avoid looking at them if you wish. Garvey found no soot inside what remained of lung tissue, which suggests the victim was already dead when the fire started.’
The photographs were projected on to the large screen. Kevin Lumb, on Rachel’s right, reared back. ‘Whoa!’ he said. ‘Barbecued or what?’
What a knob.
Kevin, dim though he was, realized he’d spoken out of turn when stony silence greeted his adolescent comment. ‘Shock innit?’ he said weakly.
It wasn’t enough.
‘DC Lumb,’ the boss said, no iron in her voice as yet but Rachel could tell it was coming, ‘our role as members of a major incident team is to represent the interests of victims of serious crime and attempt, to the best of our ability, to determine who perpetrated said crime. To make every effort to see a suspect apprehended, charged and, God-and-the-jury willing, convicted of that crime. And we carry out that role with professionalism, affording every victim the respect and dignity that any one of us might expect if it was one of our own in the mortuary. So just close your gob and put your brain in gear. Got it?’
Pete Readymough, to Rachel’s left, put down his breakfast butty and wiped his fingers on a tissue. Put off by the photos, she imagined. Pete could do with skipping a few meals, Rachel thought. He could probably survive several weeks on his reserves of body fat.
‘Sorry, ma’am,’ Kevin said. He gave Rachel a sideways, shamefaced look, as though he expected her to feel sorry for him. Ever since Sean had chosen Kevin as best man (fuck knows why, he barely knew the guy) Kevin had acted like he was one of the family. Chumming up to Rachel, oblivious to her put-downs, thinking she was joking when she told him to do one. Like his mind couldn’t really compute a universe where he wasn’t at its centre, loved by one and all. She might feel sorry for him if he had the nous to learn from his mistakes but he just repeated them.
The boss resumed, ‘Our priority is to establish identity: who is this man? Once that’s clear we may be able to establish who had reason to want to kill him.’
‘Could he have been killed elsewhere and dumped there?’ Mitch asked.
‘It’s possible,’ the boss answered.
‘Any sign of how they got in?’ Rachel said. ‘The place was boarded up, wasn’t it?’
‘No answers yet,’ the boss said. ‘Find out who the current owner is, talk to them, any history of break-ins and so on. CSI and fire investigation still ongoing. Could be some time. What we do have is a gold wedding ring recovered from our victim, inscribed R.K. and J.S. 23.4.72.’
‘Forty years,’ said Pete.
