Deadly Intent Read Online Free PDF Page A

officers drew out chairs and sat around chatting. She still hadn't seen anyone she knew—not that she minded. It was just nice to see a friendly or familiar face when starting a new case.
She picked up her notebook and went next door, and sat down with two empty chairs either side of her. No one else sat close. She held her pencil at the ready, coffee and a doughnut beside her. She had just taken a bite when Cunningham's door banged open and the DCI strode across to stand at the incident board. With her back to the room, she made notes. Then she turned to face everyone.
"Okay, let's get cracking. First up is the call from a neighbor who lives on the estate. All we know is she heard gunfire, but I want her interviewed again, just to see if she can tell us anything about who might have been dossing down in the dump where the body was discovered." Cunningham twisted the marker pen in her hand. "We have an ID on the victim, but we need it to be verified and I want this kept quiet until we know the facts. 1 do not—repeat do not —want any press releases until we have that verification. According to ID in his wallet, the dead man is DI Frank Brandon."
Anna sat bolt upright. She knew Frank Brandon: he had been on the last case she had worked on with Langton.
"Anyone know the victim?" Cunningham asked.
Anna raised her hand. She kept on swallowing to control how shocked she was. Frank of the heavy cologne and weight lifters shoulders; Frank who reckoned he was every woman's dream; Frank who had at one time made a pass at her ... Frank? What in God's name was he doing in a drug dive?
Cunningham continued. "We will obviously, as soon as a formal identification has taken place, look into what case he was working on." She looked at Anna coldly. "Did you recognize him?"
"No, ma'am, but he was facedown. It looked like he'd taken the bullets to his head and shoulders."
"Correct. The top of his head was blown off. We have, I believe, five bullet wounds—two shot through the door, the others we think may have been at point-blank range—but we will wait for ballistic, forensic, and pathology reports for all that."
Cunningham turned to the board, then back to the waiting officers. "It looks, and I am only saying what I think—we won't know until we have made more inquiries—as if our victim went to the block of flats to score, was let in the front door and taken into the main room to wait, then for some reason was killed. The killer shot through the reinforced door, then opened it, came out, and shot the victim at point-blank range, to make sure he was dead. Then he must have run back in and escaped out of the window. Right now, though, we have no idea how many people were in that squat. We wait to see if they get anything from the prints."
Anna listened, as did everyone else. Cunningham's soft, upper-class tone was at odds with her cold attitude; she did not meet anyone's eyes, and talked at, rather than to them. She continued to twist the pen in her hands before writing on the board the ID of their victim and a list of the contents of his rather expensive wallet: two photographs, one of a pretty blond woman and another of two small children; along with numerous receipts for dry cleaning, repairs to a BMW, and grocery bills—nothing else.
Anna bit her lip, trying to calculate how long it had been since she had last seen Frank. He had most definitely not, to her knowledge, been married or had children. Could he, in the time she had worked on two
other cases, have met someone, married them, and produced two kids? She doubted it. She put up her hand and mentioned her thought to Cunningham, who nodded.
"Well, we'll know sooner or later. Anything else?"
Again Anna put up her hand. Cunningham stared at her, her dark brown eyes expressionless.
"The blood spattering, ma'am."
"What about it?"
"From what I could see, if the victim was shot in the head through the door—"
"Yes?"
"The forensic team were still checking when I left—"
"I am aware