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

was how the hell she was going to get back to her hotel in Truro. She’d put away too much to drive, and he had a sinking feeling she was going to suggest staying the night. He would suggest the spare room, but he could see matters getting messy. “Are you going to perform the autopsy tomorrow?”

She shook her head. “It’s pretty cut and dry,” she said. “A bullet the size of your index finger went straight through the man’s head.”

“Even so…”

“Cause of death is massive head trauma, a projectile penetrating the frontal lobe and taking the brain stem, the Medulla Oblongata, with it and exiting the cranial cavity. Pretty cut and dry, Mister King.”

King said nothing. When women called him Mister King in that same tone, they were either interested in him but not strictly available, like placing a barrier between them, yet willing him to cross it.  Either that, or he was in trouble with payroll. “Even so…” he started.

“Powder scorch marks on the curtain at the Jameson house, three dead bodies…” she interrupted again. “Even a dead dog,” she added flippantly. Amanda ate some potato salad and sat back in the sofa. Her glass was empty, and she fingered the rim. “And the target was shot through the head.”

“Murder victim,” King said.

“What?”

“He was a murder victim. Assassins refer to the target. Home Office pathologists generally say murder victim.”

She looked at him, her eyes burning into him. “What do you mean by that?”

“Just an observation.”

“Well, Mister CSI, you didn’t seem to be in the know earlier today.”

King shook his head. “I’m not a cop. But I know my way around a murder.”

“Meaning?”

“I just don’t take things at face value, that’s all.”

“So, there’s more to it than a simple gunshot?” She shook her head, looked around for the wine bottle. It was empty. King still had half a glass of red. She got off the sofa, wobbled unsteadily, checked herself and smoothed down the dress, which had ridden high up her shapely legs. She picked up her handbag, held it close to her. “Where’s the lavatory?” she asked curtly.

“Upstairs, on the left,” King replied.

He watched her walk unsteadily up the open wooden staircase, then looked at his watch. It was eight-thirty. It wasn’t the night he had planned. He wasn’t sure what he had planned, but it wasn’t this. He rested his head back against the sofa and thought what a mess he was in. First, the seemingly impossible task of investigating Snell’s death, and the whereabouts of the people behind Anarchy to Recreate Society. GCHQ had quickly traced the computers used, the separate IP addresses and tracked them to random accounts set up in India. Posts had been done via smartphones using data roaming and were unable to trace the cash-bought phones as they were pay-as-you-go, and not contracted.

Now this. A drunken, seemingly provocative young woman in his house. There was something about her personality, her mood. She had the demeanour of someone who would take down all around her, if it came to it. If not for her own ends, then merely for her own entertainment. He had known women like her before. They had been brief affairs, nothing more. Women King had left behind after assignments. No forwarding address, no number.

Amanda reappeared at the top of the stairs and walked down slowly. She seemed a little more composed, but her expression wasn’t as soft as it had been up until his comment. He had touched on a nerve. “So, CSI. What’s the big conspiracy? Why is a bullet not enough for you?”

“I never said it wasn’t,” King replied neutrally. “I was sent down here by someone who had met with the Prime Minister just twenty-minutes after the news that Sir Ian Snell had been killed. I was an hour away from London at the time. I got into town, met with my boss in my department and was on a plane to Newquay airport within the hour. You arrived at the house an hour before I did. Now that tells me that forensic and pathology tests were important enough to this incident not to draw quick conclusions. I think every contingency needs to be looked at. Process steps, it’s called…”

“I know what it’s called!” She slinked out into the kitchen and returned with another bottle of Caroline’s Australian chardonnay. It wasn’t cheap, but it was cheap enough for a screw cap and she had it undone, dropped the cap onto the table as she poured into her glass, the wine washing up the sides of the glass and spilling onto the coffee table. “I know my job, Mister King. Mister CSI…” she smirked.

“How did you get down so quickly?”

“By helicopter,” she said. “Maybe Home Office pathologists rate more highly than inexperienced investigators? I had a government Sikorsky. What were you in, Ryan Air?”

King sighed. There was too much tension between them, albeit loaded on her side, to make headway with the investigation, or anything else. Even talking civilly, or so it would seem. “Look,” he ventured. “It’s getting late. Or late enough for another long day tomorrow. I’ll make you up a bed and we can talk some more in the morning.”

She sat down heavily on the sofa and downed the glass. “Fine,” she said, curtly.

King went upstairs and opened the door to the spare room. The bed was unmade. The covers, sheets and pillow cases were all in a trunk at the foot of the bed. It was another of Caroline’s touches; she had found the trunk in an antique shop in Falmouth. The shop had been closing-down, and she had bought quite a few pieces. He wasn’t an expert with duvets, but he got the basics sorted and had started to shake it out when he heard the vehicle. He peered out of the window and saw