Power Games Read Online Free PDF Page B

been trying to avoid all evening! But for all her chuckles, she couldn’t keep at bay the memory of those half-touches, and the intensity of Graham’s gaze.

Chapter Four
    Kate had thrown up twice already. Her stomach was warning her it could do it again, any moment now. She must get the smell out of her nose. Mints might help. One in her mouth, one in a tissue pressed to her nose. But nothing could disguise the smell. Nothing could disguise the fact: this charred mess had been a human being.
    â€˜Smoke inhalation would get him first, of course,’ Kevin Masters, one of the fire officers, was saying. ‘So it wouldn’t be like one of your martyrs, burnt at the stake. Though I believe they strangled them first, didn’t they?’
    â€˜Only if they were bribed to,’ Kate said. If showing off his general knowledge helped him deal with the death, why should she discourage him? It certainly made a change from the ghoulish humour that was her squad’s usual defence mechanism. In any case, Rowley and the SOCO and the rest of the team were all busy, and a bit of bridge-building between services never came amiss. Especially when you had a bit of a conscience about a budgie. ‘And wasn’t there,’ she continued, trying to smile, ‘some guy who held his right hand into the flames, because it had signed papers which betrayed his cause?’
    Masters, a spare man in his early forties, scratched his chin. ‘Would that be Sir Thomas More? Or Saint Thomas More, depending on your persuasion.’
    She shook her head doubtfully. ‘Or maybe it was Cranmer? He had quite a lot to recant, after all. I rather think More had a nice swift death – off with his head. This poor bugger here didn’t, though,’ she said. ‘What did he do? Get so drunk swigging meths he spilt some, and then – when he lit a fag – whoosh?’
    â€˜Could have. But I wouldn’t like to pass an opinion till the FIT people have had a thorough look.’
    â€˜FIT as in our MIT – Major Incident Team?’
    â€˜FIT as in Fire Investigation Team. They do the same sort of job as your SOCOs – searching for needles in haystacks to make sense of everything. It’ll be very interesting to see how the two teams work together,’ he added darkly.
    â€˜But where will they start?’ Kate looked helplessly at what was left of the warehouse. ‘I mean, this was once a three-dimensional structure – now you’ve got all the walls, all the ceilings, turned into one soggy mess. Who’s to know whether that girder there was part of the wall or part of the roof?’
    Masters laughed. ‘Training. Experience. Instinct. The same sort of things you people bring to a murder case.’ He looked sideways at her. ‘Which you may have here, of course.’
    â€˜If the poor sod didn’t set fire to himself.’
    â€˜Or herself. Would you take bets on whether it was male or female?’
    She forced herself to look again at the charred flesh, the teeth bared in a manic final grimace. She swung away, holding back bile.
    A stir of activity distracted her.
    â€˜Ah! That’ll be the experts. The big, tall chap with glasses – he’s the Forensic Science Agency fire expert. The short one with hairy legs – that’s the other expert.’
    Kate opened her eyes in a cynical stare. A dog?
    â€˜No, I reckon the canine expert’s as important as the human one. In his own way. He’s trained to sniff petrol, you see. To pick up the fumes.’
    â€˜Like other dogs sniff cannabis or dead bodies?’
    â€˜That’s right. So if he has a good nose round and comes up with the smell of petrol, it’ll blow our theory of the drunk meths-swilling tramp out of the water, won’t it? Anyway, let’s see what Star comes up with.’
    Star, a black Labrador, stood patiently to be fitted with little leather boots.
    â€˜You