Hunter Hunted by Jack Gatland (best value ebook reader .TXT) 📗

switch, to upload a terrorist dossier on Kendis Taylor onto DCI Monroe’s computer,’ DS Kapoor continued. ‘And the following day, there you both were, visiting us.’ She leaned in.

‘Did you pass the message on?’ she asked. ‘Did you divert it? Maybe tell someone to enter our Crime Unit and attempt to murder our Detective Chief Inspector? Did you order the death of Kendis Taylor?’

By now the news crew were stirring, aware that something was going on in the Lobby, and were setting up their cameras. Will was visibly sweating now, looking around as if hunting for allies.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he snapped. ‘You’ve got nothing on me. You’ll regret this.’ Caught in a corner, Will was feeling light-headed. He wanted to attack back, to shout, to strike, but he couldn’t. Not here.

‘Where were you the night that Donna Baker died?’ DS Kapoor’s tone changed, suddenly conversational. ‘Where was Laurie Hooper?’

If Kapoor had expected this to be the killing blow, she was sorely mistaken. Will chuckled. He’d expected this one. He’d been told that Kapoor and her partner, DCI Bullman, had taken the crime report and that Laurie Hooper, Donna’s personal assistant, would be their next witness to be questioned.

But that would be difficult.

‘Is that your kill shot?’ he asked. DS Kapoor shrugged.

‘She around?’

‘No,’ Will replied calmly. ‘She’s gone. Left the moment I heard you were starting this witch-hunt.’ He gloated now. He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help himself. ‘You thought you were so clever. But you can’t speak to a Government employee on Government property without a warrant.’

‘Oh, I know,’ DS Kapoor smiled, and Will suddenly felt uncertain that he’d scored the goal he believed he had. ‘That’s why we ensured you’d be hearing about us gunning for you. We guessed you’d bundle Miss Hooper into a car and pop her out the back entrance of Portcullis House. Interesting thing, though. The moment they go through the gates, they’re not on Government property anymore.’

With horror, Will realised why DCI Bullman wasn’t there. DS Kapoor, seeing the realisation cross his face, nodded.

‘Now we’re on the same page,’ she said.

Will looked around, trying to find a way out of this. He couldn’t use his phone, and he couldn’t demand that security removed this bloody woman without cause.

DS Kapoor kept bloody smiling.

‘Shall we start again?’ she said, opening the notebook. ‘Where were you the night Donna died?’

23

Late Night Trading

Outside Fairley House, a small school in Lambeth that was dedicated to students with learning difficulties, Doctor Marcos climbed out of a taxi, finding herself on the junction of Pratt Walk and Lambeth Road, paying the driver in cash and looking across the street at the four storey brown brick and glass building on the corner. Although housing the Metropolitan Police Central Communications Command Centre, it was also the home of the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory, where the body of Kendis Taylor currently resided. It was a Brutalist style police complex with external concrete staircases, brick infill and a large concrete ventilation shaft that protruded out on the street corner, and Doctor Marcos, familiar with both the inside and the outside of the building was not a fan of it.

To the side though, on the other side of Pratt Walk was a sandwich bar and delicatessen called The Sandwich Man; usually closed at this time of night, there was often an unofficial agreement with the police that sometimes the deli would stay open until nine pm some nights. And tonight was one of those nights.

Entering the delicatessen, Doctor Marcos saw it was sparsely filled with police officers, taking a break with a cup of tea, or trying to jolt themselves awake with an espresso or two. At the end though, nodding to her was DC Davey, a foolscap folder in front of her on the table. Ordering a flat white coffee, Doctor Marcos walked over to Davey, sitting opposite her.

‘How is he?’ Davey asked. Marcos shrugged.

‘Sleeping,’ she replied. ‘Hopefully the pressure will ease over the next few hours and he’ll have fewer headaches.’

‘And you’re sure that he’s safe there?’

‘If they do anything while I’m not there, they know they’ll have me to deal with,’ Doctor Marcos smiled; a dark, vicious one that gave no humour. ‘I think he’ll be fine for the moment. What do you have?’

‘I did a second autopsy on Taylor,’ Davey pushed the folder over to Doctor Marcos who, before opening it gratefully accepted the flat white from a waitress. Sipping at the coffee, she finally opened the folder, staring down at the photos within.

‘Anything different from the official one?’ she asked. Davey shook her head.

‘DCI Raghesh did the autopsy, and he seems to have picked up everything,’ she replied. ‘All I did was probe a little more on certain areas.’

‘Like what?’ Doctor Marcos looked up from the photos.

‘Taylor was stabbed with a long, thin blade,’ Davey started. ‘Double sided, about two-and-a-half centimetres wide, half a centimetre in depth at its middle point, and made of Ruthenium. Or at least coated in it.’

‘More likely coated,’ Doctor Marcos muttered as she flicked through the photos, bringing out the original autopsy report. ‘Ruthenium is rare as rocking horse shit, and a blade made of it, although being pointless is a tad expensive. And that killed her? I mean, Ruthenium Oxide is toxic and volatile…’

‘All Ruthenium compounds are regarded as highly toxic and as carcinogenic, so possibly,’ DS Davey read from her notes. ’Apparently Russian-born scientist Karl Ernst Claus discovered the element in 1844 at Kazan State University and named Ruthenium in honour of Russia.’

She looked up. ‘Could this be a Russian murder? Another Salisbury?’

Doctor Marcos shook her head. ‘Ruthenium is mainly mined in North and South America, South Africa and Canada, but sure, let’s blame the Russians.’

DC Davey nodded, looking back to the notes. ‘Well, she suffocated because of the punctured lung, and that killed her,’ she said. ‘But she’d been tasered as well. Burn marks on the upper torso showed the device had