Jacobson came in behind him with all the enthusiasm of a man edging out onto a narrow ledge above a long drop.
“Aw . . . Jesus Christ,” he gulped when he saw the body.
Although Ferris knew he’d be giving Jacobson some stick for a long time to come over his reaction, deep down he couldn’t blame the lad. It was a bad one, no doubt about that, with the gaping wounds and the blood. Like the work of a madman.
Death made it hard to put an age on what had once been a person but he realised this guy had probably been no more than a teenager despite his size.
“Drug deal most likely,” he declared, taking in the dead kid’s race. Jacobson was studiously checking out everywhere but the body.
Next to it lay the knife that had made such short work of the victim, the blade gleaming like evil chrome.
“Wiped clean by the looks of it,” Ferris said, more to make Jacobson look than anything else. No surprises there—all the little scumbags watch the TV forensics’ shows these days.
But what did make him rock back, shocked, was the object that had been placed on the corpse’s ragged chest.
“What the . . .?”
It was a clear plastic bag containing a greasy puddle of blood like you sometimes got around vacuum-packed meat in the supermarket. And on the bag was scrawled a message in black marker pen. A confession? Or a denial?
I DID NOT DO THIS.
30
Balanced on a couple of inches of protruding brickwork outside one of the glassless windows with her fingertips wedged into a crumbling mortar joint Kelly listened to the policeman’s shocked exclamation.
She closed her eyes, tried to relax to regulate her breathing and control her panic. Not easy when she was suspended between her outstretched arms, one leg crossed behind her for balance, foot pointed. It was twenty feet or so to the ground—a dangerous distance. Not far enough to kill her unless she was unlucky, but injury was a certainty.
The only way to go was up.
Still she hesitated, aware of the muffled squawk of the police radios just inside the building. All her life she’d thought those in authority knew best. She had trusted them to do the right thing by her.
Until she’d put that trust to the ultimate test and they had failed her.
Nevertheless her first instinct when she’d heard the car draw up below and seen the policemen emerge to head so obviously in her direction was to give herself up.
That instinct lasted for only a few seconds and was disregarded by her scornful inner voice of reason.
Yeah, because look how well that worked out for you last time.
Kelly opened her eyes, carefully unclamped the whitened finger ends of her lower hand from the edge of the brick and stretched up for the next handhold.
She had already jettisoned the bloodstained Tyvek oversuit, letting it go from the window before she’d climbed out of the aperture. The breeze coming up from the river had caught it almost instantly, semi-inflating it like some weird balloon and sending it billowing skywards.
Inside her shirt, still warm next to her skin, was the second bag of her own blood. She needed to hang on to that at all costs.
She’d bound up the gash on her arm with the heavy duty duct tape they always carried in the cleaning kit. The last thing McCarron’s reputation could afford was to leave a trail of decomposing fluids as they carted disposal bags out to the van and duct tape was sure to seal any leaks.
Right now Kelly was more worried about remaining at liberty until she’d had the opportunity to get the blood independently tested.
She moved with desperate caution knowing any slip would send loose grit and dust scattering down the outside of the building. With no glass to damp out the sound they were bound to hear her.
But she climbed almost every day—not rock but urban faces like this one. She willed herself to stay calm, to pretend there was nothing more at stake than gaining a high place from which to enjoy the view.
Who are you trying to kid?
With a grim twist of her lips that became more grimace than smile she reached the sagging line of the gutter. And from below she could see that the rusted fastenings were mostly loose in the powdery brickwork. There was no way she could use it to lever herself onto the roof.
Kelly bit back a groan of frustration. She was running out of both time and options. The tension was making her muscles quiver with the effort of holding herself flattened against the wall. That and the after-effects of whatever muck they’d pumped into her system. She couldn’t stay here much longer.
She glanced quickly each way and saw a threaded rod sticking a few inches out of the wall about three or four feet to one side—part of a steel tie put in some time earlier to stop the old building bulging out of shape.
With the last of her strength Kelly swung for it.
31
“What was that?” PC Jacobson demanded, jerking round.
“What was what?”
“I dunno. I heard something—from outside I think.”
PC Ferris gave a dry chuckle. “You’re getting jumpy my son,” he said. But when Jacobson still faltered he waved a hand towards the open windows. “Go on, have a gander if you’re so sure you heard something.”
“Probably nothing,” Jacobson muttered but he went across to the line of windows in the back wall of the building. Anything was better than standing around trying not to look at the dead body while they waited for the promised reinforcements.
He stuck his head out with great care, only enough to expose one eye. There was no fire escape or other means of easy egress. He even craned his neck to look up and saw nothing but yet more pigeons squabbling over window ledge territory rights above him. Jacobson drew his head inside quickly. He’d no desire to get dumped on even if it was supposed to be lucky.
“Well?” Ferris said with a distinct taunt in his voice.
“Nothing,” Jacobson admitted. “Must have gone well before we got here, eh?”
And if both men felt a sense of relief at this thought neither was prepared to admit it to the other.
32
Dmitry saw the flashing blue lights in his rearview mirror and pulled the big Mercedes coupé over as far as he could on the crowded street.
The full-dress squad car came bowling past him, the sound of its siren fading rapidly into the distance as it was swallowed up by the buildings and the other vehicles. Still, it didn’t take a genius to work out where the car was heading.