And if you’ve got a problem with that, talk to the super.”
And she left Banks listening to the silence, chocolate croissant halfway to his mouth.
A N N I E S T O O D behind the crime scene tape that zigzagged across the door of the drawing room and watched Peter Darby, their photographer, go to work for the second time in two days. She was still in-wardly fuming at Banks, but on the outside she was all business. She had been shaken by what she had seen and had overreacted, simple as that, but Banks could really get up her nose without trying very hard these days. Who the hell did he think he was, telling her what to do and what not to do?
Stefan Nowak was running the show for the moment. He stood beside Annie with a clipboard in his hand, checking off actions, his SOCO team kitted up and ready to go as and when required. A couple of them were working the landing, where there were bloodstains on 3 2 P E T E R
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the carpet and smears on the wall, as if the killer had brushed against it as he ran off.
The room wasn’t very large, and the fewer people who were in it at one time, the better, Nowak had said, so he was restricting admission and working according to a strict hierarchy of access. Everyone going in, of course, had to wear full protective clothing, and their names were entered in the log. Even Annie and Doug Wilson were properly kitted out. Dr. Burns, the police surgeon, the on-scene forensic medical examiner, had already pronounced death and now he went back to work to glean what information he could from the body.
The whole house and gardens had been cordoned off as a crime scene, but this room was the center of it all, and it was even more scru-pulously protected. Nobody but those given the okay by Nowak would get past the door, and they’d do it in the order he decided.
Luckily, Annie and Wilson had discovered the body, and neither had entered the room, so for once Nowak was pleased to find that he had as close to a pristine crime scene as he could hope for.
Annie went over to Wilson, who was still sitting on the stairs in his white oversuit recovering, and put her arm over his shoulder. “All right, Douggie?”
Wilson nodded, glasses dangling from his hand. “Sorry, guv, you must think I’m a right girl’s blouse.”
“Not at all,” said Annie. “Can I get you some water or something?”
Wilson pulled himself unsteadily to his feet. “I’ll get it myself, if that’s okay,” he said. “Back in the saddle and all that.” And he wobbled off downstairs. There were SOCOs working down there, too, Annie knew, and they would make sure Wilson didn’t touch anything he shouldn’t.
When Annie went back to the drawing room door, Dr. Burns was just finishing his external examination. As soon as Burns came out, Nowak sent in the trace experts to take blood, hair and whatever other samples they could find, along with a blood-spatter analyst. To the untrained eye, the place was a shambles, but an expert like Ralph Tonks could read it like a map of who had been where, done what to whom, and with what.
Annie went in with them. She needed a closer look at the body. She A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S
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didn’t blame Wilson for being sick. She had seen quite a few crime scenes in her time, but this one had shaken her, too: the sheer frenzied violence of it, the blood and brains splattered everywhere, the sense of pointless overkill. Lacquered antique tables had been knocked over and broken, vases smashed, mirrors and crystalware shattered, along with a bottle of single-malt whiskey and a decanter of port; the f loor was strewn with bright f lowers, dark stains and shards of glass. Amid it all, now that she was closer, Annie could make out a framed photograph on the f loor, its glass spiderwebbed with cracks, showing Mark Hardcastle with his arm around the shoulders of the dead man. Both were smiling into the camera.
She could also see that one of Silbert’s eyeballs was hanging from its socket and his front teeth ran in a jagged line, the lips torn and shrunken back. He was recognizable, but barely, and Annie wouldn’t want to be the one responsible for asking a family member to identify him. DNA would be the best route to go for that.
When she peered more closely again at the framed picture on the wall that she had taken for a Jackson Pollock, she saw that it was a woodland scene sprayed with blood. In fact, it wasn’t a painting at all, but a blown-up photograph, digital, probably, and if Annie wasn’t mistaken, it was taken in Hindswell Woods, and it showed, on the far left, the very oak tree on which Mark Hardcastle had hanged himself.
She felt a shiver run up her spine.
She ducked under the tape and went back out to join Dr. Burns on the landing. He was busy making notes in a black-bound book, and she waited in silence until he had finished.
“Jesus Christ,” Burns whispered, putting the notebook away and looking at her. “I’ve rarely seen such a vicious attack.”
“Anything you can tell me?” Annie asked.
Burns was almost as pale as Wilson. “According to body tempera-ture and the progress of rigor,” he said, “I’d estimate that he’s been dead about twenty to twenty-four hours.”
Annie made a quick back-calculation. “Between nine a.m. and one p.m. yesterday, then?”
“Approximately.”
“Cause of death?”
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Dr. Burns glanced back to the body. “You can see that for yourself.
Blows to the head with a blunt object. I can’t say yet which blow actually killed him. It could have been the one across his throat. It certainly broke his larynx and crushed his windpipe. Dr. Glendenning should be able to tell you more at the postmortem. It may even be the one to the
