Ten Second Staircase Read Online Free PDF Page B

and efficient. Arthur and I have the room opposite. Dan Banbury is our ITslash-crime scene manager. Rough and ready, but a good sort. He shares with Giles Kershaw, who's rather too posh and plummy for my taste, but also good at his job. He's the forensics officer and social science liaison—'
    'What's that?'
    'Not entirely sure,' May admitted. 'He came with the title and noone's got around to asking him what it means. The lovely Sergeant Longbright you know, of course. And there are two detective constables down the hall, Meera Mangeshkar—she can be a bit stroppy, but she's all right once you get to know her—and Colin Bimsley, who has been medically diagnosed with DSA, that's Diminished Spatial Awareness, which explains why he falls down the stairs so often.'
    'And that's it?' asked April, shocked. 'This is the crack team that solves crimes no-one else can handle?'
    'Not quite,' said May with a smile. 'There's you now. Our first resident nonprofessional. Liaison and communication. At least, that will be the official title until we find out what you're best at.'
    Leicester University's Scarman Centre had suggested that the Association of Chief Police Officers should train members of the public to work alongside professional investigators, and the PCU was always an early adopter of radical new ideas. 'Come with me,' May beckoned. 'Let's get you started.'
    'I like it here.' April wiped a patch of condensation from the window and looked down into the traffic. 'It feels safe and protected, like a nest. When I look outside, I have to fight a sense of panic. How many active cases are you working on?'
    'We've been asked to take on work from other jurisdictions around the country, and there are a couple of interesting matters in hand. A British civil servant named Garrick, on assignment in Thailand, was found in a Bangkok reptile house at the city's floating market, apparently bitten to death by green mambas. When the body was shipped back, Arthur and Giles found traces of old needle tracks in the crook of his left leg. Garrick was right-handed; addicts usually cross sides when they inject, so we figured they were selfinduced. There were unused syringes in Garrick's desk drawer, but no traces of injectable drugs in his system except snake venom. We suspect he was trying to build up his immunity to the snakes by injecting small amounts of poison into his bloodstream.'
    'Why would he do that?'
    'Our job isn't to fathom the vagaries of the human mind, just to settle the arguments about death. Not that it stopped Arthur from trying to find out. He discovered that Garrick's previous assignment was in Alabama, where he had joined a snake-handling sect. He'd decided to convert the locals in Bangkok, but needed to prove his own abilities first. Case closed. Apart from that, we've another dead biological warfare expert on our hands. That's the twelfth since 9/11—more fodder for conspiracy theorists.'
    'I'm a great believer in conspiracies.'
    'Then you'll love this one,' said May with a smile. 'Dr Peter Jukes from Salisbury, Wiltshire, found by fishermen floating off Black Head at the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall. The local coroner reckoned it was a straightforward matter of death by drowning, but there were unexplained injuries. Plus, his boat turned up fifteen miles away, washed into a local harbour. The coast guard concluded that it was unlikely he had fallen from the boat, because local tides and currents would have taken it into shore near the spot where he was found. Jukes told some drinking pals he was going fishing with his friend Leo, but no-one of that name has been found. Arthur has turned up some darker connections; Jukes formerly belonged to a Druid sect—his family says it was a hobby—but had lately drifted into Satanist circles. The police refuse to believe there's a connection between his injuries and his interest in black magic, but we're wondering if he became an embarrassment to his employers. Jukes was chief scientist