Читать книгу Priors - Stuart Jackson E. - Страница 3

Barron fought to control his breathing.

The door in front of him was closed, daring him to enter.

He strained to gauge the sound of running feet behind him, getting closer.

“Wait for ...”

Almost to him. Time it right, he thought,

Sharp cracks of splintering wood as he slammed his foot against the door and it crashed open.

“... the Commander ...”

But Wallace’s voice was drowned out in the ensuing noise, as he followed Barron into the room, eyes darting to and fro. Barron yelled “Clear!” and said something else, but Wallace never heard it. He saw what was on the floor and turned and starting throwing up.

Detective Inspector David Barron surveyed the scene himself. He was a big man, looking even bigger in the gear that he wore. A dark blue cloth cap, pulled down tight on his head, a black flak jacket over a black sweatshirt, dark blue jeans, the legs tucked into bulky black socks, black heavy boots.

He was the best part of two metres tall - sandy coloured hair which showed signs of thinning and which he brushed forward as a defence to thinking about it as a problem. He would never call himself vain, but he was conscious of how he looked. Piercing blue eyes that still caught the attention of women and a clean-shaven face, olive complexion. He didn’t carry any excess weight and, although he didn’t feel it, to many he looked fit. Now he was sweating, and a bead of perspiration ran down his left temple. He wiped at it, somewhat annoyed, feeling the cool metal of his revolver touch his skin as he did so.

He reached out with his foot and touched the side of the body at his feet. He was naked, half curled in a ball, one arm covering his face. Barron put pressure on his body with the toe of his boot, knowing that it made no difference, that the naked man was dead. The action helped him keep his control - and helped him avoid throwing up, like Wallace.

The naked man’s other arm, his right arm, was outstretched and his hand rested on the thigh of the woman who was also naked.

The woman was dead.

No need to check - she was dead.

Her face was unrecognisable, a mass of bloody pulp and bone and hair, blown away by the force of the shot from the shotgun. Somehow a few teeth had managed to stay in what was left of her jaw. An ear hung by a thin shred of skin. Her neck was red with blood and her hair was soaking in a pool of it that surrounded her head.

Her body, below her navel, looked much the same, the result of what appeared to be another blast from the shotgun. The centre of the blast was her groin. Skin had been ripped from her thighs, and above the pubic area there was a bloody mixture of soft skin and internal organs.

It was obscene.

There was blood everywhere.

More Federal Policemen were in the room now, hovering, checking other rooms. Barron’s commander was standing in the doorway, his face ashen.

Barron thought Wallace had finished being sick and he called him over.

“Coming,” came the faint reply.

Barron heard him move up behind him, felt him at his right arm and turned to tell him to call the forensic group in and saw the white face. Wallace looked into Barron’s eyes and then down at the bodies on the floor of the apartment and moaned and threw up again, turning in time to avoid covering Barron with his vomit, dropping to his knees.

Barron allowed himself a grim smile. He had to admit that the scene was pretty terrible. In fact he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a body as badly mutilated as this. Or as fresh.

The blood was still flowing. On the floor, surrounding the woman’s body, it had that sluggish shimmer about it, a black-red colour that caught the highlights of the room’s lighting in the deeper pools. Anyone with Barron could tell that this had just happened. They had timed their arrival immaculately - or, if you looked at it a different way, it had been wrong side of slow. Five minutes earlier and none of this may have happened.

The noise of the others had softened. Maybe a full minute since he’d kicked the door in. Timing was everything.

The blood had run across the highly polished timber floor and soaked into the carpet on which the man half lay. The blood had gathered around his head.

“On your feet!” he yelled, half turning the naked man’s body with this boot and, to his surprise, the naked man stirred. His heart jumped and he looked around. No one had stopped.

He’d imagined it, he thought, looking at the body again. Shock. Did strange things with the mind.

Malone came to his side, and laid his hand on Barron’s gun arm.

“You won’t need that, mate. Come on out, leave it to the squad.”

Barry Malone was older than Barron, a man who had seen many things, and who had a vast wealth of stories - about everything. He was greying and he had put on weight and, shorter, next to Barron, he looked unfit. Barron was glad that Malone was part of the back-up squad; he would survey the scene and report with a seasoned mind. As a consequence it could be wrapped up quickly.

Barron made his gun safe, tucked it back into the holster.

Malone lowered his own gun, made it safe and tucked it into the waistband of his trousers. Like Barron, Malone was dressed in jeans and boots, a long sleeved blue shirt and a black bulletproof vest. Pinned to the vest, over his heart, was the same identification that simply said AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE.

He gingerly stepped forward, as if he didn’t know where the blood was and didn’t want to stand in it.

Wallace moaned and tried to get to his feet. It was enough to bring Barron out of his reverie.

“Take him out, Barry, before he covers the evidence.”

The shotgun lay propped over the body of the naked man, its stock resting on the carpet, barrel pointed towards the window, its curtains drawn. There was blood on the shotgun as well.

Barron looked at the remains of the woman and felt the bile rise in his stomach. He fought it back.

Malone took Wallace’s arm and threw it over his own shoulder, half-supporting the young detective, walking slowly from the room, skirting the bodies on the floor, muttering comforting words as he walked, you’ll be okay, mate, just get a bit of fresh air. Throwing a smile at Barron, we all feel like this at one time or another, come on, get some fresh air.

“Bring Green back with you,” Barron said. “And get Wallace to call for the wagon and the doctor. And get some front men in here. I don’t want nosy neighbours in here and I don’t want the media here either.”

He caught the eye of the commander. He nodded.

“Okay.”

The naked man had not stirred again. Course not. Imagination.

Outside it was raining. Pouring down.

Barron remembered the noise they’d made as they came down the street and the noise of the breaking wood on the door as he’d kicked it open and stormed in, not waiting for them to park the cars or provide him with the proper back-up. He had had to get in. He normally hated being first because you never really knew what to expect, or what was waiting for you. Some drug crazed idiot with a gun, twitching at the noises, firing at the least noise, not caring what the hell they hit. Or some smart street kid with a knife, keen to prove to himself and his friends that he could cut a cop as easily as anyone else.

Or a shotgun. Worst of them.

All you saw was the black hole between you and the heavy, then the explosion and it was all over. Close confines of a room like this one. They couldn’t miss. Any bloody idiot could hit you. Couldn’t stop them.

Get your face blown away.

Like the woman.

They’d understand why he hadn’t waited.

Quiet room. He had a few minutes before Malone and Green came back. He looked around. There was some blood on the walls. Spray. Strands of hair stuck on the wall, the woman’s, blonde.

There were signs that there might have been a fight or something in the room. A chair was overturned and a vase had fallen off a table, smashing, sending flowers and water over a scattered pile of magazines. The ceiling was holed around the spot where there had once been an overhead light. The thought went through his mind - the shotgun had been used to kill the lights.

There were two items of underwear on the floor. Black lace bra and what appeared to be matching panties. Hers.

No other clothes. Why not? Why these?

He ran through the questions that would be asked.

Routine. It took his mind off the bloody body. He felt the bile rising again and turned away, sucking in air.

Nothing else out of the usual in this part of the room. Television, radio, three bookshelves crowded with paperbacks and another pile of magazines. On a small table there was an open bottle of scotch and next to it were two glasses, both empty.

Was the man drunk?

He heard footsteps coming from outside and he turned back to where the two bodies sprawled across the floor. For the first time he noticed the thin gold chain around the woman’s ankle and his immediate thought was the chance to use it for identification. His eyes flashed to her hands. No other jewellery, no rings or bracelets. And no chain around her neck. No earrings. Unusual? What would they make of that?

“Christ!” Green this time. And to Barron, “Is he dead too?”

“Yes.” He had imagined it. “Got the camera?”

“Here.”

“You take them.”

Green brought the camera up, checked the exposure and the settings on the flashgun. Then he proceeded to take the photographs, catching the scene of the crime, the victim and the perpetrator, from all possible angles. Green was thorough.

Behind him another officer was using a movie camera to record the scene.

“Done?”

“Yeah.”

And Barron stepped quickly to the side of the naked man.

“Thought you said he was dead...”

“What?”

“Thought I saw him move.”

Malone was back and he stepped forward pushing Barron and Green aside. He had pulled on plastic gloves and he felt for a pulse at the man’s neck.

“He’s fucking alive! Get the medic in here, bloody smart!”

The call for the medic transferred down the hallway and out of the house.

Barron knelt beside Green and lifted the weapon carefully off the man’s body. There were smeared finger marks on the wooden stock, tracing lines in blood. He rolled out a sheet of clear plastic and put the shotgun on it and then folded the plastic over it, covering it. He let Green deal with the body.

He gripped the side of the naked man and pulled, forcing the body backwards, rolling him over. One hand slid from the woman’s thigh. The fingers were covered in blood.

There was blood across the man’s chest and the upper part of his stomach. There was a long scratch down the inside of his left thigh; it was red and angry.

His right arm had rolled as the body had rolled and his arm still obscured his face. Green bent forward and took the arm away, uncovering the face.

“Shit.”

“My God,” Malone echoed.

The face was covered in blood. It had been lying in the pool that had formed on the floor, drained from the woman’s body. The face was obscene.

“Christie!” Green said. “It’s Christie.”

And as the three men stood over the naked man his eyes opened, clear and white circles in a crinkled blood soaked mask. Brown eyes. Eyes that saw them and saw nothing.

Eyes that then slowly closed.

“James Christie,” Malone echoed.

James Christie, Barron thought. What now?