She tried to move her lips, make sounds, call for help. Nothing. No matter how loudly she screamed in her head – and it felt like she was screaming all the time now – all that trickled out of her mouth was a puppy-like whimper.
She saw the shadow on the ceiling move closer to her.
Useless. Just made her head hurt, her inner ear trill.
Claire felt her eyelids being pulled down again, fought to push them up. It was getting harder each time. As was breathing, her lungs slowing with each poisoned breath she took. Panic and fear only helped her heart to speed-pump the crippling drug round her body. She knew she didn’t have long.
The shadow of the figure now loomed above her, blocking out the overhead light. Claire felt confusion on top of fear and panic: who were they? Why were they doing this?
Then she saw the scalpel. And she knew.
The figure bent over her, light glinting along the scalpel’s razor-edged blade.
Began to cut.
Claire felt nothing. Saw only the intruder’s grotesque shadow thrown across the ceiling, the light exaggerating the sawing motion of the arm.
Eventually the figure straightened up. Stood over Claire. Smiled. Something in its hand, red and dripping.
Another smile and the red, dripping thing was taken from her sight. Claire couldn’t scream or move. She couldn’t even cry.
The shadow moved towards the door and was gone. Claire was left alone, screaming and shouting in her head. She tried to pull her arms up, move her legs. No good. It was too much effort. Even breathing was too much effort.
She felt her lungs slow down. Her eyelids close. She could hear the pump of blood round her body slowing down, down…
She tried one last time to fight it but it was no use. Her body was closing down. And she was powerless to stop it.
Her lungs stopped inflating, her heart stopped beating.
Her eyes closed for the final time.
2
‘Oh my God…’
Detective Inspector Philip Brennan, Chief Investigating Officer with the Major Incident Squad, donned surgical gloves, pulled the hood of his pristine crinkling paper suit over his head and stood on the threshold of hell. He knew that when he pulled back the yellow crime-scene tape and entered, he would be crossing a line between order and chaos. Between life and death.
He lifted the tape, stepped inside.
‘Jesus…’
The tape fell back into place, the line crossed. No going back now. He took in the scene before him and knew he would never leave this apartment, mentally or emotionally, until he had found who had done this. And perhaps not even then.
The hallway looked like an abattoir. Covered in so much blood, as if several litres of red paint had been dropped from a great height, splashing up the walls and over the floor like a grisly action painting, fading to brown as it dried. But paint didn’t smell like that. Like dirty copper and rancid meat. He tried breathing though his mouth. Felt it on his tongue. Tasting as bad as it smelled. Sweat prickled his body, adding to his discomfort.
‘Can someone turn the heating off?’ he shouted.
Other white-suited individuals moved about the apartment. Intense, focused. He noticed that a few of them were carrying paper bags, some full. They were issued in extreme cases to catch any vomit that might contaminate the crime scene. One of the officers acknowledged his request, went to find the thermostat.
The body still lay in the hallway, ready to be stretchered off to the mortuary for autopsy. The SOCOs had finished extracting every last piece of information from the scene but had left the body in place so Phil could examine it, find something to kick-start his investigation.
He looked down, swallowed hard. A woman was lying there, her torso twisted, her arms outstretched and grasping, as if she had been trying to hang on to the last breath as it left her body. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. A vicious slash had taken out both jugular vein and artery on either side of her neck. He could see she had struggled by the patterns made by her arms in the blood on the wooden floor. Like bloodied angel’s wings.
Phil looked to a SOCO officer standing beside him.
‘Okay if I cross?’
The SOCO nodded. ‘Think we’re done with this one. Got everything we need.’
‘Photos?’
The SOCO nodded again.
Phil stepped over the body, careful not to track blood into any other room. The bedroom door was open. He walked towards it, looked in. And felt his stomach pitch and roll.
‘Oh God, this is a bad one…’
A white-suited silhouette heard Phil’s voice, detached himself from a group of similarly dressed figures at the end of the hall, came to join him in the doorway. ‘Like we ever get good ones?’
‘Not as bad as this…’ The smell was stronger here. He couldn’t describe it; it was life, it was death, it was everything the human body was. It was something he had smelled before. It was something he knew he would never forget.
As he looked at the body on the bed, he felt his chest constrict, his arms shake. No. This was no time for a panic attack. He breathed deeply through his mouth, forced his emotions down, his breathing back to normal. React as a copper, he told himself; it’s up to you to make order out of this chaos.
Detective Sergeant Clayton Thompson, one of Phil’s team. Tall and in good shape, the white of his hood emphasising his tanned features, his usually self-confident, even cocky, smile replaced by a frown of concentration. ‘Should have waited for you to turn up before going in, boss. Sorry.’
Phil always made a point of assembling his team at any crime scene. Entering together got them pooling their initial responses, sharing their theories, working towards a common conclusion. He was slightly annoyed that Clayton hadn’t waited for him, but given the severity of the situation, it was understandable.
‘Where’s Anni?’ he asked.
In response to his question a head poked round the frame of the bathroom door.
‘Here, boss.’ Detective Constable Anni Hepburn was small, trim, with variably coloured spiked hair that always contrasted with her dark skin. The strands poking out of her white hood were today mostly blonde. She gave a quick glance to Clayton. ‘Sorry, we should have waited for you, but Forensics said-’
Phil held up a hand. ‘We’re all here now. Let’s get going.’
A look passed between Clayton and Anni. Quick, then gone. Phil caught it, couldn’t read it but hoped it wasn’t what he thought it was. He always felt slightly jealous at the amount of female attention Clayton attracted, and he knew the DS often did plenty about it. But not with members of his own team. Not with Anni. Still, now wasn’t the time to think about that. They had work to do.
He turned back to the room, took in the scene before him. Forensics had set up their arc lamps, shining down
