Shot of Silence (Justice Again Book 3) by M Comley (best contemporary novels txt) 📗

They exited the station and jumped in the car. There was no need to use the satnav, Katy knew the route well enough. They arrived at the scene around twenty-five minutes later, thanks to the traffic wedging them in for at least five minutes halfway through their journey, after a car broke down at the traffic lights, of all places. The poor woman seemed mortified and grew redder the more the other drivers blasted their horns.

Katy slowed down and shouted at the woman, “Hang in there, I’ve called for assistance. One of our boys should be with you soon. Have you called the breakdown services yet?”

“I have. They can’t get here for another hour or so. I’m so sorry, I feel such a fool.”

“It’s not your fault. Good luck.” Katy drove on. “Poor bloody woman. How embarrassing for her. I wonder if she’s run out of petrol.”

“Possibly. I’d hate that to happen to me, especially on a main stretch like this.”

“Yeah, a real bummer. Here we are. Bloody hell, look at the punters around here having a snoop. What’s wrong with people?” She spotted the pathologist’s van off to the right and several SOCO vehicles. The technicians were hurriedly trying to erect a marquee over the victim, but the fierce wind was hampering their efforts.

Katy and Charlie left the car after tucking it alongside the vans.

“Hi, Patti. Do your guys need further assistance?” Katy asked.

“Sure, if you have any bodies spare. They’ll need to get suited and booted, though, before getting near the corpse.”

“I can arrange that. Got any spare suits?”

Patti dipped into the back of the van, extracted a handful of paper suits and handed them to Katy. She set off, leaving Charlie behind with Patti, and distributed the suits to a few of the PCs lingering near the cordon.

“Boys, get over there and help the SOCO team with the tent. The quicker that’s up, the likelihood of getting rid of this lot will be in our favour.”

Each of the officers took a suit and slipped it on. They sprinted to offer their assistance, and within seconds, between the eight men, they had battled the elements to successfully erect the marquee.

Katy exhaled a sigh of relief and returned to find Charlie already sporting the latest in protective fashion. “Do you have a spare one for me?”

Patti tutted and withdrew another one from the van and threw it at Katy.

“We were told it was a shooting. Any ideas on anything further yet?” Katy held on to Charlie’s arm for balance and attached her shoe covers over her new ankle boots. “I’m fit, when you are.”

Patti collected her silver case from the van, and together, the three of them entered the tent. Once Patti had removed the coat covering the victim, Katy surveyed the body.

“The doorman placed his coat over her,” Patti said. “He saw the incident—really shaken up, he is. I’ve told him you’ll be wanting a word with him. He’s inside the building, downing half a bottle of whisky, I shouldn’t wonder. Poor bloke.”

Katy pointed at the victim. “At least he’s alive which is more than can be said for her.”

“True dat.” Patti grinned. She crouched to examine the victim. “Looks like she was coming back from lunch.” She thumbed behind her at the baker’s bag and cup with its contents spilt on the pavement close to the woman.

“We’ll make a detective out of you yet, Patti.”

“Sarcastic cow. I know I was stating the obvious, sometimes it’s what is required. What do we have here? Ah, yes, looks like two shots to the back. No idea which one was first. If it was this one, she would’ve probably been paralysed.”

“Maybe the shooter felt sorry for her if his aim was bad and decided to finish her off,” Katy replied.

“Perhaps, or maybe that was his intention. To shoot her twice, one to disable her, if you like, and the next to kill her. The shots came within seconds of each other, so the doorman said.”

“Did the doorman see anything? Could this be a possible drive-by shooting?”

“He didn’t see. He heard the gun go off but couldn’t make out which direction the shots came from.”

“I take it the doorman knows her then,” Katy said. She glanced up and down the street and noted how busy it was. Had the killer intentionally targeted the woman, or had he taken a pot shot in the hope he’d hit someone? The second seemed an unlikely scenario even to her mind.

“Yes, apparently she works in this building at Zedex.”

“Hmm…was it a pot shot or did the killer intentionally murder her outside her workplace. Interesting. Could the doorman tell you anything else, Patti?”

“No. My advice would be to go easy on him, he’s in shock.”

“Understandable if he saw the incident happen and felt helpless in trying to assist her. Was it just the two shots or were there more?”

“The doorman seems to think it was only the two.”

“Hmm… So both shots hit their intended target. Not seen anything like this before, have we?”

“I dare say I must have over the years. If you’re requesting that I summon up such a case off the top of my head, then you’d be out of luck.”

Katy smiled at Patti. “I wasn’t. Okay, we’ll leave you to get on with things here, and I’ll organise uniform, get them to question the crowd, see if any of these fine upstanding citizens saw anything or if they’ve just popped up, you know, gruesome thrill-seekers.”

“My bet is they’re the latter. The crowd has doubled, if not trebled, in size since we got here.”

“Bloody brilliant. Catch up with you in a moment, Patti.”

Katy and Charlie left the tent.

“As I stated, we need to see if any of the onlookers can give us anything. Do you want to organise that while I have a word with the doorman?” Katy asked.

“Sure. Want me to take down a statement from anyone or leave that for now?”

“Leave any likely statements, let’s concentrate on the facts for now. See