First to Die Read online

  There was a thickness in Zain’s mind, as he recalled his incarceration. During a botched surveillance with SO15, Zain had been kidnapped and tortured for days. Held in a Portakabin in Portsmouth, about to be beheaded. Every day men with their faces hidden would come and beat him, and one in particular would come only to pull his toenails off, one by one.

  Zain felt sick as the masked figure came closer. He thought about letting his cover go, telling the figure to drop the Molotov cocktail, stand down. Instead he stayed fixed, unmoving, caught in what felt like a battle of wills. His nostrils filled with a chemical, not petrol, something else. He didn’t get a chance to think much beyond that, as he watched the bottle arc through the air. He tried to work out where it would fall, try to limit its damage if he could. Too late, he saw where it was heading, and ran with every breath he could muster, but he couldn’t reach it in time. The Molotov cocktail smashed the windscreen of a parked Honda, and Zain could only watch as the flames spread and in seconds turned it into a fireball, followed by an explosion, renting the night into a hundred pieces of burning rain.

  Zain fell to the ground, choking, as screams and chaos surrounded him.

  But his brain registered something. A last thought. A last vision. Something was wrong. Very wrong. And it wouldn’t be until much later that it made sense to him.

  Chapter Three

  The body was lying face down, the dark hair exposed behind a Guy Fawkes mask that was still secured to the body’s face with an elastic band. DCI Kate Riley watched her breath fog in front of her as she walked towards the lone police officer standing guard. It had been a long, busy night, culminating in a blast which had put her officers’ lives at risk. Five hours later the rising sun had transformed the world around her. Kate had sent the rest of her team home as the protestors had begun to disperse. It was as though exposure to morning sunlight would bring them into the glare of discovery, their power of anonymity slipping as the sun slicked up into the sky.

  When the masked body had been found it was nearing eight, with St James’s Park returning to its status as a shortcut for the civil servants and office workers who used it to get from the Tube to Victoria Street and its surrounding areas. Kate’s own team were situated in a building close by, many of her colleagues taking the same route. The body was in a secluded spot, hidden among some thick bushes that kept their foliage in winter. It was close to the lake, and closer to the Buckingham Palace end of the park, away from the protestors.

  Kate introduced herself to PC James Alliack. He had been given the night off, one of the few Met officers afforded the privilege. They needed someone awake in the morning to give the impression of business as usual.

  ‘New baby. Works a treat to get out of most things,’ he said, smiling.

  Ironically, he was probably getting more action than most of his colleagues had the night before. They had mostly ended up babysitting the crowd. Barring a couple of incidents, it had been relatively peaceful. It would have to be Zain at the centre of the biggest action. Coincidence, that was all it was. Though Justin Hope was convinced Zain attracted trouble; in fact he insinuated that Zain stirred it.

  PC Alliack was in his early twenties. Kate could see the unmistakable marks of youth on his face, despite the dark circles and lack of sleep smudged under his eyes. A nervousness marked by the way he couldn’t hold her gaze for too long. She wouldn’t want to be that green and inexperienced again. She couldn’t bear to live through those years and uncover that darkness once more.

  Born in New England, Kate had been forced by events to give up her identity and relocate, entering witness protection with her mother Jane. Only the boredom of that existence didn’t sit well with her, so she had asked for a transfer to another country instead. And here the ex-United States Capitol Police detective, who had also done stints with the Department of Homeland Security, had reinvented herself. The new name, the change from blonde to brunette, had all been relatively straightforward. Impressed by her PhD in Criminal Justice from Brown University, the Met had snapped her up, with some faked references the US government had been obliged to give her.

  The only thing that often threatened to give her away, was the American accent she couldn’t quite tame. Even though she tried, it slipped through, especially this early. Alliack looked at her curiously as she spoke. ‘I’m guessing there won’t be many people coming to the party today then? Have you requested support?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I’ve been told to let SOCO do their part first.’

  The Scenes of Crime Officers, the forensics experts. They would be fresh after a full night’s sleep, and were the most useful presence in these situations. They would gather the evidence that people like Kate would need later. She felt her own tiredness in every cell, and fought it back. Her heart was beating faster than usual, fuelled by the many cups of coffee she had drunk. She probably shouldn’t be leading on this, but there were few senior officers around. Plus it was a body, post-riot, in St James’s Park. That didn’t go under anyone’s radar and demanded the PCC’s attention and involvement.

  ‘What’s their ETA?’

  ‘Should be here any minute.’

  ‘How was the body discovered?’

  ‘Jogger.’

  ‘What would we do without joggers and dog walkers?’

  Alliack laughed, unsure if he should in these circumstances. His rawness was endearing in a way, but worrying if he had to have any sort of involvement in the case.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  ‘He was jogging through the park, got a cramp, stopped to massage it. Saw something, came to investigate, and saw the blood. Ma’am.’

  Kate looked at the sprawled figure. While cloaked, the exposed neck seemed to be quite thick, the shoulders broad. She estimated the height to be over six foot. It would suggest a male, but she didn’t want to assume just yet. Not until the pathologists did their job. Kate stared again at the body, the pooled red around it, mixed with mud.

  ‘Did the jogger touch the body at all? Before he called us?’

  Alliack shook his head, but tell-tale redness crept into the corners of his face and he averted his eyes.

  ‘Has anyone else been in contact with the body?’ she asked, slowly and deliberately, her voice in a lower register than she normally used. It was something she had learned during her Reid technique training, standard for all US law-enforcement officers. Men responded to lower voices more than higher female ones. It shouldn’t have to be done, but often in work she used it to make herself heard. She needed the truth, no matter how worried Alliack was about saying whatever it was he was so obviously holding back from her.

  She heard him swallow, his Adam’s apple almost bursting through the skin on his throat.

  ‘I did,’ he said finally. His shoulders hunched forward perceptibly. ‘I checked for a pulse, just in case. I know from external examination they look pretty badly done in, but I just wanted to be sure. Was I wrong?’

  ‘No, you did the right thing. We can eliminate ourselves easily, as long as you didn’t move the body out of situ, and God help us if they had been alive and we didn’t do anything. I’m assuming you didn’t feel a pulse?’ Kate arched an eyebrow, hoping it would help to reduce the tension.

  ‘No, ma’am, or I would have called an ambulance.’

  Kate didn’t respond, instead taking in the surrounding area, trying to piece together how the body might have got to where it was. Nothing to suggest what had happened could be seen by her naked eye, but they were set away from where the main action had taken place, so possibly forensics would find something. She looked for tracks indicating that the body had been dragged to its final point, but again there was nothing she could see.

  She was itching to turn the body over, take the mask off. She tried to judge from height and weight if she could tell the sex, but apart from the exposed bits of neck indicating a Caucasian victim, she didn’t want to assume. The short hair was matted with dried blood and dirt. She trie
d to see if there was a style to it, something gender specific. She thought then of Stevie; from the back her short hair could have been a man or a woman’s.

  ‘Now what, ma’am?’

  Kate looked through him, feeling a sense of dread she couldn’t explain. She rubbed her arms to get some warmth into them.

  ‘We wait.’

  *

  He took a step back, involuntarily, as though she might have seen him. That wasn’t possible, he was so far away, watching her through his manipulated sunglasses. From the outside they looked like shades, but they were telescopic lenses, the latest in subtle espionage equipment.

  He touched the arms, to adjust his view, focusing on Kate Riley clearly. So this is what she had become, this was the new her. He had wanted to see her in action, see what he was up against.

  She didn’t look like much. Five ten, brown hair to her shoulders, a jacket concealing the shape of her body. There was no resemblance to who she had been, to the bitch that had ruined his life. He felt an anger bubble in his throat. Her stance was the same though. Erect, sure of herself. Always walking as though she was being propped up by the rod of justice. Fuck her and her righteousness.

  He breathed and moved further back into his hiding place. He had to control his anger, the urge to tear her apart. That would came later. Kate Riley would meet her end, in him. For now he had only one task. To keep watching her.

  Chapter Four

  The cold air was brushing Kate’s ears, and she could see frost on the ground. It looked almost beautiful in the bright sun. All she could hear were the birds. It felt picturesque, until she looked at the trauma lying in front of her. PC Alliack seemed to be looking everywhere except at the victim, or at her.

  ‘Your first dead body, I take it?’

  ‘That obvious, ma’am?’

  The same masking laughter he had done before. She thought back to the first time she had seen a corpse. She had been to enough family funerals prior to starting her career, but coming to a crime scene, and realising you were too late, that no one was being saved, was different.

  She had been part of law enforcement across Washington, the very power heartland of the nation. The place where politicians and the influential all mixed against a heady cocktail of ambition and corruption. It was probably why the idea of London had been so attractive to her, and she hadn’t been disappointed by its reality.

  ‘Mine was fairly tame,’ she said, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen between them. ‘Homeless man, beaten to death for a bottle of beer and his coat.’

  ‘Nice. I mean, not nice, I meant . . .’

  ‘I know. I thought it was ironic, here was someone who by the standards of our materialistic world had nothing, yet somebody thought the bits he did have were worth killing him for. I remember I felt utter sadness. And a sense of powerlessness. There was nothing I could do for him. He was dead, and his final minutes were probably horrendous. It seemed so innocuous, but it threw me. I became really depressed after it.’

  She stopped to check she wasn’t revealing too much or making PC Alliack feel worse. He was staring at her, intensely, hooked on her words.

  ‘What happened?’ he said, in a whisper.

  ‘It took a long time to get over it. I saw other murder victims after that, but that man, he never left me. It was the smell, it lingered. Sounds crazy I know, but it was there at random times, like a sensory memory that triggered at inappropriate times. And that hopelessness kept coming back. What was I? Just there to clean up after the fact, not do anything useful?’

  She had changed so much, she had moved her world quite literally, and been in some tough battles over the years. Yet that first time was still fresh, she could recall it in an instant. She saw herself back then, educated to the eyeballs, but on the street she was so raw.

  ‘Isn’t that part of our job though, ma’am?’

  ‘Yes. And that was what got me through it. I realised I wasn’t just there to mop up. I was the last chance for the dead. When their final breath had left them, I was there to be their voice and to make sure they were still heard. Make sure the evil that had fallen on them wouldn’t go unchallenged.’

  ‘You found who did it?’

  ‘Yes. Another homeless man. On the streets because the mental health system had failed him, because society had failed him. He should have been in a hospital getting help, instead . . .’

  ‘Sad.’

  Kate thought pointless was a more appropriate word.

  ‘Well look on the positive, PC Alliack. We’re in the open air so at least you won’t have the smell of death to contend with. Until the autopsy of course.’

  As if on cue, she saw the forensic pathologist assigned to the PCC making her way through the park.

  *

  Dr Rani Kapoor was in her early thirties, with a singsong voice, as though she had stepped out of an animation movie rather than a morgue. Kate didn’t like to think it was forced: the pathologist trying to fight the stereotype of the job by always being so cheerful. It irritated her, but she let it go.

  ‘Sorry, sorry, my team are all stuck. Flat tyre so the Batmobile is currently being rescued by the AA. Imagine the look on the face of their mechanic when he rocks up and there’s a van full of my lot with their face masks on.’

  Even her laughter trilled. Kate felt her insides tightening. She was tired, needed sleep, more coffee, but more importantly some answers.

  ‘Dr Kapoor, this is PC James Alliack, he found the body.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ said Dr Kapoor, putting down the metallic case she was carrying. ‘Did you touch or move it in any way?’

  PC Alliack gave the same details he had already given to Kate about how the body was found, and what he then did. He seemed a lot more relaxed talking to her than he had to Kate earlier. Maybe it was the authority chain – Kate was his superior – or maybe it was just her personality? Really, she must be tired, she thought. Second guessing if people liked her. She had given up that garbage years ago; she was here to do a job. Who she pissed off, or what people might or might not think about her, was of no consequence.

  From her case Dr Kapoor pulled out disposable overalls for herself and Kate. They both suited up in the white plastic, Kate immediately glad of the warmth, if not the sharp smell. Dr Kapoor pressed above her right collarbone and began dictating the scene. No more need for manual audio recorders; they were now built in to the forensic suits. Like airplane black boxes, the recordings were removed as the overalls were destroyed. They stepped close to the victim, and the smell of PVC was replaced by the distinct smell of human decay.

  ‘That’s odd,’ said Dr Kapoor. ‘Given the temperature and the fact we are outside, there shouldn’t be such an overpowering aroma.’

  ‘It might have been here a lot longer than we thought?’ said Kate doubtfully. The protest was the night before and the figure was clearly adhering to the dress code.

  Dr Kapoor didn’t reply, her face serious, as she studied the body, dictating her observations into the air. She went back to her case, and took out a small digital camera. She started to take shots of the scene and body, then filmed it carefully, taking small steps as she covered the ground painstakingly. This was the Dr Kapoor that Kate preferred, the professional one she could engage with.

  Dr Kapoor handed Kate the camera, asked her to do another video scan of the area and body. Meanwhile the pathologist inserted a digital thermometer into the right ear of the victim, and watched her machine beep until she had a reading.

  ‘Ok so this is a KX67, new thing we’re helping to trial,’ said Dr Kapoor.

  ‘Trial for a thermometer? Aren’t they a few centuries late?’

  ‘It comes highly recommended. Records the temperature of the body, the air or room temperature, and takes into account readings for humidity and other pertinent environmental factors, runs an algorithm, before finally churning out a probable time of death.’

  ‘Does it work?’

  ‘I’ll take manu
al readings during the post-mortem, use the liver and rectum temperature to compare the results it gives me, but I’ve used it in a couple of cases now and the results seem valid.’

  The KX67 beeped three times. Dr Kapoor went to pull it out, but it was stuck. She tugged at it harder, and then gasped. The victim’s ear had come off with the machine.

  Chapter Five

  Kate looked at the fleshy stump at the end of the thermometer. Blood and internal veins that had attached it to the head were hanging off the ear, making it look like a fake prop for Halloween. A holiday the British still didn’t have the hang of, she thought, as images flooded her mind. New England Fall evenings, the trees riotous colours of red, orange, gold. The noise, the excitement, the atmosphere on the night of 31 October. Her brothers tormenting her, Kate standing up for herself even back then. Her parents looking on, so normal. But when a layer of normality was peeled away there was a darkness that eclipsed most horrors she could attribute to that night. She closed that door before it even opened; it was not the time or the place to be thinking of her past. She was doing too much of that lately.

  ‘Well this is a first for me,’ said Dr Kapoor, laughing, as she bagged the torn body part and the KX67, and described for her notes what had happened.

  ‘Ears don’t usually un-attach themselves from heads unless they have been cut,’ Kate said coldly.

  Dr Kapoor moved in closer, using her fingers to trace the bloody hole where the ear had been. The remaining flesh was deep brown, but it was hard to tell if there was any other damage.

  ‘I don’t think it was removed with a blade. There’s no visible sign of any adhesive or connecting matter, without which the ear wouldn’t have remained in place. No, I think I simply pulled it off. Question is how, what’s happened inside to make it so loose?’

  Dr Kapoor checked the hands next. They were covered in black gloves, bits of leaves and mud. She then traced her fingers around the body, following its shape gently.