We Are Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

before he had, when he only lived ten minutes away.
    There was no freshness about the morning, just stale heat. He hadn’t looked at a weather forecast, but the break couldn’t come quickly enough for him. He walked slowly, looking out over the low fields and marshes to the left. There were a couple of homes in the distance but too far away for anyone to have seen anything useful. To the right, trees and hedgerows. There were homes over there too, closer by far, but all he could see were a couple of rooftops. Chances were no one would have seen anything from there either.
    He arrived at the scene, which had not yet been cordoned off. There was no need, with the road blocked at either end. Haynes was standing with one hand in his pocket, the other holding a small evidence bag, having watched Jericho slowly approach. Trueblood was leaning over the body. McGuire was standing to the side, keeping a watchful eye on the surrounding undergrowth. At some point word was going to get out, and then the gawkers would come. Then they would have to cover up the scene far more than they already had done. But until then, they were taking advantage of the light and space, the freedom of not yet having to close themselves in.
    Jericho glanced at his watch, then looked down at the body, the bike lying a couple of feet to the side. Bullet to the head, a lot of blood. He looked away.
    ‘The trouble with Britain,’ said Haynes, after engaging Jericho with a small nod, ‘is that we’re not designed for the extremes. And we never will be. We need air conditioning five days a year. We need decent snow-clearing equipment five days every five years. When are we ever going to spend money on that stuff? Like, never. There’s no point. So we just have to put up with it when it happens.’
    Jericho had watched him throughout, then finally looked away and back at the body.
    ‘Can we talk about him now?’ he asked.
    Trueblood turned at the sound of Jericho’s voice and smiled.
    ‘Robert,’ she said. ‘How are you?’
    ‘Too hot, but otherwise delighted to be here. What have we got?’
    She smiled and turned back to her work as she spoke.
    ‘Bullet to the forehead from, I’d say, three to four feet. No sign, so far, that the victim tried to run. Probably didn’t have time to do anything.’
    ‘Any sign whether the killer was on foot, on a bike, was he–’
    ‘Impossible to tell at this stage. Actually, I’m not sure there’s a stage when it won’t be impossible to tell. You might need to find a witness for that. Maybe we’ll know more once we’ve worked out the entry angle.’
    ‘And the bullet?’
    She turned and smiled again.
    ‘Oh, there’s definitely a bullet, but I’m not going to extract it here. Anyway, I’m not the person to tell you anything about it. I’m sure you’ll get your report soon enough.’
    ‘First impressions?’
    She paused, her hands on the head of the corpse, then slowly stood up. When she spoke she did so with the accompaniment of a slow shrug.
    ‘Looks like the body was pole-axed. This close, the guy obviously didn’t see it coming. His phone fell by his side...’
    Haynes raised the evidence bag which Jericho had already noticed.
    ‘Passcode,’ said Haynes. ‘We’ll need to take it back.’
    Jericho indicated for Trueblood to keep talking.
    ‘So, maybe the killer walked up behind him. Maybe he drove.’
    ‘He’d hear the car.’
    ‘Yes, he would, but you know, a car’s a car. It’s not like, oh my god, there’s a steel beast driving up the road ... Who’s going to turn and look at a car? Either way, he’s not going to expect the driver to have a gun.’
    ‘Or passenger.’
    ‘So, like I said, I’ll get the angle of bullet entry and that should give us a little more to go on. If it came from lower down, presumably we’re talking about the shooter sitting in the car.’
    ‘Or a midget,’ said Jericho.
    ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Too often we forget the possibility of evil