The Last Straw. Paul Gitsham

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СКАЧАТЬ of the life-giving red liquid had been forcibly ejected from the man’s body. The pasty, greyish-blue tint of the corpse’s skin confirmed the observation. He could see why the responding officers hadn’t felt the need to contaminate the scene by checking his pulse. The Scenes of Crime team would have to check with the paramedics to see if they had touched the body.

      The late professor had been a man in his fifties, with a shock of grey, unruly hair. About average height and weight for a man of his age, he was clad in brown corduroy trousers and a white polo shirt. That was about all that Jones could make out amidst the blood. The man was slumped to one side in a comfortable-looking padded leather office chair, pointed halfway towards the office’s only door. The seat was a swivel chair, positioned so that the occupant could easily operate the laptop, answer the phone and reach the various pieces of paper that were piled carelessly on the remaining surface of the desk. A selection of different-coloured ballpoint pens was scattered across the workspace. A clear area to the right of the laptop suggested a space for a mouse.

      The professor’s throat had been slit, clearly by something very sharp. Whoever had wielded the blade had done so efficiently. It looked to Jones’ eye as if the blade had managed to sever both carotid arteries. If that was the case, it put a different complexion on the attack. Contrary to Hollywood movies, cutting the throat of a surprised man wasn’t a simple affair. The victim would almost certainly have struggled. Looking closer, Jones could see that, aside from the cut throat, the back of the professor’s head — facing away from the doorway — looked to be a bloody mess. On the floor next to the chair sat what appeared to be a large lump of granite rock on a pedestal, blood and matted hair covering a particularly prominent edge. Jones could just make out the words “Boulder, Colorado” stencilled on the base. A souvenir perhaps? Significant or not?

      Jones turned to Sutton.

      “First impressions, Inspector?” he asked quietly. Jones was already formulating a theory himself, but he liked to see what others had to say first.

      “I reckon he was sitting at the desk, probably working on his laptop by the looks of it. Whoever did it came up behind him and whacked him over the back of the head with that bloody great lump of rock. That probably stunned him enough for his attacker to slit his throat.”

      Jones nodded. “The question is, why didn’t he turn around? It looks as though he was facing away from the doorway when he was hit. And then, did his chair turn around after he was hit or whilst his throat was being slit?”

      “Well, either the attacker sneaked up on him, or he knew his attacker was around and wasn’t surprised by their approach.”

      Jones nodded his agreement.

      “And what about the angle of his chair?”

      “Too early to speculate.”

      “I agree, let’s not second-guess Scenes of Crime.” Jones was pleased with Sutton’s response. He was always a little wary of officers who jumped to conclusions without all of the facts. Good detectives, he felt, tempered their deductive reasoning with caution and were honest enough to admit ignorance, rather than stretching the evidence beyond breaking point.

      With nothing else to be gained from the bloody office, Jones turned away from the carnage. He glanced at his watch: eleven p.m.

      You were complaining how bored you were, Warren. Well, you know what they say: ‘be careful what you wish for’.

      It looked as though Susan and the in-laws would have to finish the wine without him.

       Saturday

       Chapter 2

      The alarm clock buzzed angrily. With a groan, Warren swiped the OFF button. Prising an eye open, he saw that it was six-thirty. His head felt mushy and his mouth was dry. It seemed as though he’d barely closed his eyes. That wasn’t a huge exaggeration, given that he’d arrived back home at well past four a.m. Resisting the urge to indulge himself in another ten minutes’ sleep, lest he didn’t awaken again, Warren swung his legs out, planting his feet on the woollen rug that covered the floor by the bed. Behind him, Susan grumbled in her sleep and rolled over.

      Ordinarily, when Warren worked night shifts or Susan stayed up late marking, the night owl would take the spare bed in the guest room to avoid waking the sleeping partner. With the in-laws visiting that wasn’t an option this time. It hadn’t mattered though. When Warren had tiptoed into the bedroom, Susan had been flat on her back, her comatose status testimony to the sedative effect of red wine. Indeed, Warren had noticed a second empty bottle on the coffee table in the lounge. He smiled to himself, glad that he wouldn’t be here in a few hours when his slumbering wife awoke. Never a morning person at the best of times, Susan also wasn’t a big drinker and he suspected she would wake up grumpy and feeling a little the worse for wear.

      He padded quietly into the bathroom, passing the guest room on his way. Through the closed door he could hear strident snoring. He wouldn’t like to put money on who was the culprit, Bernice or Dennis.

      Warren showered quickly and brushed his teeth. The elderly pipes in the house groaned, reminding Warren that he still hadn’t called a plumber, but the rhythmic noise from the guest room didn’t miss a beat. By now, Warren was feeling marginally more human. As he shaved he stared at the familiar face in the mirror. Aside from a little redness around the eyes and a couple of faint dark smudges beneath them, he didn’t look too bad. He still had the good looks that Susan claimed had attracted her years before; a firm jaw and eyes that could switch in an instant between friendly and hard, a trick he’d learnt during his earliest days on the force. His dark brown hair, just this side of black and still neat from his trip to the barber’s prior to starting this job, had yet to sport its first grey hair, although he was under no illusion that it would be long before his new position changed that.

      Creeping back into the master bedroom, Warren slipped on the previous night’s suit and tie, remembering this time to retrieve his warrant card from his other jacket. Pausing to look at his slumbering wife, he risked a peck on the lips, tasting the wine on her breath. Still asleep, she nevertheless smiled.

      Outside, the sun was already up although it had yet to chase away the night’s chill. Warren had grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl before leaving the house, and now crammed the remains of it into his mouth as he unlocked his car. The birds were singing loudly, but the rest of the street was quiet. Most of Warren and Susan’s neighbours worked regular office hours, so few would be up and about at seven a.m. on a Saturday. Similarly, the roads were quiet and Warren pulled into the small staff car park at the rear of Middlesbury Police Station barely ten minutes later. A few cars dotted the tarmac, most noticeably a brand-new Mercedes. Warren felt his stomach contract: his boss, Detective Superintendent John Grayson, was already in.

      Middlesbury Station was something of an anomaly in Hertfordshire. Most of the county’s detectives now worked out of the joint Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire Major Crime Unit based in Welwyn Garden City. However, a combination of the distance from Welwyn and the rapid growth of Middlesbury meant that the town’s police station sported several custody cells and despite the budget cutbacks had retained its small but fully operational CID unit. Many of the other towns in the local area had to make do with a reception desk manned nine-to-five with an emergency telephone connected to Welwyn for out-of-hours emergencies.

      Swiping his access card and keying in his pin number gave Jones access to the building and he headed directly for the largest of the incident rooms. He had scheduled this morning’s СКАЧАТЬ