‘Not good,’ Hill said, a typical understatement from the man, as he peered into the salon.
Isaac Cook looked as well. The crime scene investigators were already on site checking the bodies, conducting their examination of the scene. On the street, barriers were being erected to isolate the scene from the view of the curious onlookers who were aggressively taking photos on their smartphones, and talking amongst themselves and to others.
The two police inspectors donned coveralls and gloves, as well as overshoes, before entering, stepping to one side to clear the body of a young woman lying on her side, her heavily-bloodied face still visible.
‘Gillian Dickenson,’ Isaac Cook said.
‘She’s always on the television. Supposedly she was going around with Guy Hendry.’
‘She was. He’s over the other side.’
Larry Hill, a man who had seen death more than once, looked around and at the young and very dead woman. ‘You never get used to it, not totally, do you?’ he said.
Isaac Cook realised that he had, and that he felt inured to the scene. It had caused him concern on more than one occasion, and it had even ended one of his relationships when he had come home ambivalent about a murder scene. That time it had been a husband and wife who had been shot by a disturbed son. The girlfriend at the time, blonde and in love with the DCI, had seen the murders on the television. She was close to tears at the story of how the dead couple had adopted the son as a child, knowing of his mental difficulties, and then the person they had heaped love and care on had murdered them.
‘It’s so tragic,’ she had said. Isaac’s reaction had been to turn off the television. Two days later, she moved out.
Larry Hill’s ever-loyal wife continued to pressure him to achieve more, to allow them to upgrade their house again for the third time in ten years. He knew that he had neither the motivation for study nor the inclination for promotion with its added responsibilities. He was a man who enjoyed being out on the street, meeting with the villains, solving the crimes, not sitting in an office. And whereas he had the greatest respect for the man who had brought him into Homicide at Challis Street Police Station, he had no wish to take Isaac Cook’s position as the lead officer in the department once he had moved on.
‘It looks like a terrorist attack,’ Gordon Windsor, the crime scene examiner, said. He was a small man with thinning hair who Isaac Cook respected enormously.
‘But it’s not,’ Isaac replied. The three of them were standing to one side of the salon.
‘As you say. What we have are eight bodies, each with a bullet to the head.’
‘It looks as if they were shot more than once.’
‘We’ll send the bodies to Pathology, so you’ll have a more exact idea of what happened.’
‘Your initial observations will suffice for now.’
‘Okay. We believe that one person came in to the salon and used a semi-automatic rifle. We’ve no idea what make, although we’ve retrieved a bullet from the wall. It will help to narrow it down, but that’s about all. After that the man…’
‘Man?’ Larry said.
‘An assumption, and besides, we’ve got shoe prints. Typically, it’s men who commit these sorts of crimes, that’s all.’
‘Assume it’s a man,’ Isaac said. ‘What else do we have?’
‘The killer then shot each person in the head, a precise shot.’
‘Not all could have been the target, and this was not the act of a hot-headed idiot.’
‘Hot-headed idiots don’t eradicate the witnesses with such precision, and normally they have a death wish, end up shooting themselves. This was professional,’ Windsor said.
‘Not typical of London.’
‘It is now. You’ve recognised some of the dead?’
‘Gillian Dickenson and Guy Hendry.’
‘There’s one more you know.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘He’s not so easy to identify, not from here.’
‘His name?’
‘Alphonso Abano.’
‘Minor villain, drug dealer?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘He’d not be a target, not for a killing this elaborate,’ Larry Hill said.
‘Larry’s right,’ Isaac said. ‘He’s the sort to end up knifed in a back alley. These murders were orchestrated, which means whoever did it was paid well, and may not even be a local, not even English.’
‘That’s for you to figure out. We’re not sure who the others are, except for Giuseppe Briganti. His photo’s up on the wall.’
‘We’ll ID them later.’
With the traffic so heavy Isaac and Larry left their car and walked two hundred yards to where they could be picked up by Sergeant Wendy Gladstone, a woman in her fifties, with enforced retirement closing in on her due to her arthritis and her general low level of fitness.
‘It’s chaos out there,’ she said.
‘It’ll be chaos for the next five to six hours. They’re attempting to clear one lane on the road which should help, but the traffic will be backed up for miles,’ Isaac said.
‘The ghoulish hanging around?’
‘As usual, not that they’ll see much.’
‘You’ll need to make a statement. There’s a camera crew at the police station already.’
‘And at the crime scene, not that I intended to talk to them there,’ Isaac said. ‘And besides, the details are sketchy. What do you know about Guy Hendry?’
‘He’s one of my favourites. Is he…?’
‘Dead. As well as Gillian Dickenson. Some of the others we’ve not identified yet, apart from that slimy weasel, Alphonso Abano.’
‘Guy Hendry and
