LITMIR.BIZ

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followed Chiltern down the narrow path. The first thing he saw when he emerged at the back outside the kitchen door was the body of Colin Field. It was propped up against the wall as if he had just sat down for a rest. His legs were splayed, the scuffed trainers out of sync with the portly figure of their owner. His head was cocked heavily to one side, the eyes open a slit, lips pursed. A trickle of blood had dried to a crack of dark purple running from the corner of his mouth to his chin, but the real sign of damage was the blood on the red brick of the wall, splashed liberally as if a child had flung a can of paint at it.

      A couple of yards from him, Paul Robins lay on the crazy-paving terrace. Don noticed the shattered hand and could imagine how Paul had received the wound. The wound in his chest was bad but he judged it had probably not been fatal. That had been reserved for the head shot.

      He moved carefully round to the far side.

      ‘Jesus,’ he whistled.

      Chiltern nodded. ‘Not much chance of giving him the kiss of life, is there?’ he said.

      The explosion of the gun in the confined space of the mouth had blown out most of the teeth, propelling them through the thin wall of the cheeks. But where the bullet had exited through the top and back of the skull there was a gaping hole. It had taken the larger portion of the brain with it and slammed it in a rough fan shape on the paving stones.

      ‘How well did you know them?’ Chiltern asked.

      Don shrugged. ‘Reasonably. They’d been on my course for a while and you get to know the guys quickly that way.’

      He was being polite, tempering his opinion because he knew that Chiltern had worked with both the dead men for several years. In truth Don had found them to be a couple of no-hopers, overweight, inefficient, dim-witted and bungling. Just the stupid sods, in fact, to walk straight into the middle of an armed gang without so much as a catapult. But no one deserved to die like this, he thought. Not even these two.

      He crouched down beside them and looked around. The scene-of-crime officer had done a thorough sweep and everything that might be needed as evidence was circled with a thin chalk line. Principal among these items were several cartridge cases. Don asked if he might have a closer look at one of them and the SOCO nodded.

      ‘Don’t bugger up the prints, and put it back where you found it,’ he snapped, busy with a measuring tape, marking the distance from Colin’s body to the point where he estimated the firer must have been standing.

      Don took a pair of gloves from his pocket and slipped one of them on. Carefully, he picked up the nearest of the cases and examined it. It was 9mm calibre. Powerful enough to silence a full-grown man, especially at almost point-blank range. No wonder Colin had been flung against the wall with such force, he thought.

      But there was something unusual about it and a moment later Don realized what it was. He had come across its kind only once before. Several years ago he had been on secondment to the Sultan of Oman’s army. The Sultan’s quartermaster had done some shopping around on the open market for ammunition in an effort to cut costs. British ammunition had proved the most expensive, and he had finally opted for a batch of Pakistani-made rounds, both 7.62mm and 9mm. They hadn’t performed as effectively or as consistently as the British-made ammunition, several of the rounds misfiring and causing stoppages owing to an insufficient charge of powder in the brass case. But they had done the job and Pakistani ammunition had been used a great deal thereafter.

      Turning the cartridge case in his fingers, Don was convinced that this was from the same source. He replaced it in its white chalk circle, where it looked as if it was about to be part of some Satanic ceremony.

      He voiced his opinion to the SOCO, who grunted and said, ‘Right now I couldn’t give a stuff. But thanks all the same. I’ll get the lads on to it back at the lab. If you’re right they’ll be able to tell you the exact factory it came from, right down to the postcode.’

      Don went into the kitchen, where Chiltern was receiving a report from one of his men. He looked up as Don came in. ‘Nice mess, isn’t it?’

      ‘That’s what happens when you get in the way of a 9mm bullet or two.’

      ‘Well, there’s another two dead upstairs,’ Chiltern added, shaking his head. ‘Right sodding blood-bath this is turning into.’

      He led the way into the hall and up the stairs. Everywhere were signs of the intruders’ recent presence. Furniture had been overturned, pictures ripped from the walls and ornaments smashed.

      ‘It looks like my own place after the kids have had a party,’ Chiltern said, grinning.

      They found the next body sprawled on the landing. It was the body of a middle-aged man of Indian appearance. A bullet wound in the back of the left leg indicated that he had been brought down trying to run away from his attackers. Thereafter someone had made a crude attempt at interrogating him. A heavy metal file had been applied to the surfaces of his teeth until they were almost completely rubbed level with the blood-soaked gums.

      ‘That’s an old Spetsnaz trick,’ Don said in amazement.

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Spetsnaz. Soviet special forces.’

      Chiltern winced at the gruesome spectacle. ‘What the fuck would they be doing in Southall?’

      Don shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but during the Cold War they sent training teams abroad, just like we did.’

      ‘Passing on their techniques, you mean?’

      ‘Exactly.’

      The man’s eyes were wide open and staring, bulging out of their sockets with the agony. A cloth had been stuffed at the back of his mouth to prevent him screaming and he had been finished off with a bullet to the back of the head.

      ‘Who was he?’ Don asked.

      ‘Just a guy who ran a chain of curry restaurants in the area,’ Chiltern replied. ‘I’ve ordered takeaways from them myself. Bloody good they were too.’

      ‘Any idea why anyone would want to do this to him?’

      Chiltern shrugged. ‘Not a clue.’ He smirked. ‘Perhaps someone got Delhi belly after his vindaloo.’

      Don ignored the wisecrack. ‘You said there were a couple of bodies?’

      The policeman pointed to an open door. From inside Don could hear the click and whirr of an automatic camera. He stepped over the dead man and went on down the corridor. The bare legs were the first thing he saw, protruding from behind the bed. The police photographer looked up.

      ‘Nasty. Very nasty. It’s as clinical as an execution.’

      He moved aside to allow Don a clear line of sight to the body. It was a woman. Presumably the man’s wife. They seemed to Don to be of a similar age. She was dressed in a bright-blue sari trimmed in gold. Expensive. He studied the room. It was obviously the home of a well-to-do family.

      Unlike her husband’s, the woman’s eyes were tightly shut; clenched, as if trying to shut out some unpleasantness. One hand was clasped to her throat in shock and the other held a candlestick.

      ‘Looks like she tried to defend herself,’ Chiltern said.

      A single bullet between the shoulder-blades had thwarted any such attempt, ending her life immediately.

      While Chiltern spoke to the SOCO, who had now finished in the garden and climbed up the stairs to start work in the house, Don wandered out on to the landing again and explored the other rooms. There were two bathrooms, a guest bedroom, tastefully decorated but unlived in, and a large room clearly belonging to an older man. There were smashed photograph frames on the floor, and a walking stick snapped in two.

      But it was the last room that caught his attention most. Posters hung off the walls, pictures of pop stars and horses. The furnishings were in pinks and pale, gentle shades, and the clothes torn from the ransacked drawers were those of a young woman. More interestingly,

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