The Alex King Series, A BATEMAN [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

and he caught sight of the vultures circling above him in a beautifully cloudless sky, gliding on the thermals before darkness started to take hold, and gradually became everything.

10

 

Two weeks earlier

Social media announcement

 

Anarchy to Recreate $ociety

The people have spoken. No cause, campaign, charity or individual has achieved half as many likes on social media in such a brief time as our group. Your group. The group of the people. Anarchy to Recreate Society has achieved thirty-million likes. We will soon be recognised as a terrorist organisation rather than a social and political awareness group. We don’t expect people to like this post. But the fact you are reading this shows that we have struck a chord in the hearts of the citizens of this world, and that cannot be disputed.

Today, one of the richest five people in this world will die. They will be killed by soldiers of our cause. The remaining names on the list will not go unpunished for their greed. When the last name on the list is dead, we will create a new list. A new list of the five wealthiest names. And so on. This will be our ongoing manifesto. It is now up to the rich to give up their wealth for their own survival. To avoid making the death list, they simply have to use their money for the good of the population. Or die.

This group is now closed.

11

King watched the coroner as she packed away her case. It was an old leather satchel, the type he imagined doctors used on house calls. In the nineteen-fifties. It was well-worn and stretched. He wondered if it had been a gift from somebody with similar credentials in her family. Her father’s perhaps. Or her uncle’s. It was a manly affair. Or maybe she had soul? Maybe she liked antiquated things that were both different from the norm, marked her out as a character. An individual. Maybe she had hunted down such a bag after qualifying, or landing a promotion. King had done the same with his vintage Rolex. At the time, it had been a matter of money. He hadn’t had enough of it for a new model in a jewellers’ window. But now the older models made the same prices, or perhaps more than the new ones, but in his opinion, carried a little more sophistication and shouted far less. A different, more acceptable message.

She was a young woman. No more than thirty, but she was running this team and there were both men and women performing duties, who were well into their middle-forties. Which initially told King she was good at what she did. Or lucky. It didn’t matter to King. Luck had been a constant and welcome companion to him. He’d take luck over skill any day.

She looked up at King, as she snapped the case shut. “You’re not a police officer, are you,” she stated.

King shook his head. “You guessed.” He smiled. “I was hoping to wing it a bit longer, to be honest.”

“So, what are you?”

“I’m with Interpol.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“An investigator?”

“Yes.”

“So,” she paused. “What do you want to ask me?”

“Sorry?”

“Well, this is where I brief you on my findings. You then order a full autopsy, tell me to leave no stone unturned, give up my weekend… that sort of shit.”

“Have a nice weekend,” he said.

“What?”

“Doing anything nice?”

“No, I…” She frowned. “What do you want to know?”

“There may be DNA from one of the killers on the body of the husband. They fought. That much is obvious.”

“One of the killers?”

“Yes,” King replied. “There would have to have been two.”

“Because?”

“The man has the markings of a rifle’s buttstock on his face, the chequered grip.”

“So?”

“So, he was shot. After they had a fight. The buttstock wound came from an accomplice. They fight, the accomplice batters the husband and the person he’s fighting with draws back and shoots him in the head.”

“You suppose a great deal.”

“I thought it was obvious.”

“Really? Well, what about Snell? Care to add your thoughts?” There was a hostility, but she seemed to be keeping composure. She certainly hadn’t like the supposition. “I can always use an expert’s opinion.”

King watched the two men, both clad in white coverall suits, zip up the body bag of who he now knew to be Mrs Katie Jameson. She had been thirty-four. “Well, a point three-three-eight bullet is going to be pretty difficult to disprove,” he said. “And Liam’s death looks to be pretty straight forward. The bastards knew what they were doing, that’s for sure.”

She sighed, apparently having softened in mood. “I’ve never seen anything like this. The couple, yes. But a long range, single shot with a sniper rifle? No,” she paused. King noticed her hands were shaking and there was a croak to her voice. She coughed, cleared her throat and wrung her hands. It stopped the shake, at least. It surprised him. He had CSI down as world-weary, dispassionate. “And certainly not the calculated suffocation of a child,” she added. “I’ve seen it done with a pillow, an attempt to pass it off as cot-death, but the way they did that…” she trailed off. Her eyes were moist. The boy’s death had really affected her. She coughed again. “How about you?”

Learned it, done it, taught it, King thought. But not children. Even he had principles once. Instead, he simply shook his head. He stepped aside as the two men put the body of Mrs Jameson on a gurney, and started to wheel her out. He realised he had forgotten the coroner’s name. She had introduced herself back on the sun terrace. “I’m Alex, by the way,” he said. “Alex King.”

“Amanda Cunningham,” she smiled thinly.

“I don’t suppose you see much like this