Private London (Private 4)

‘WHO’S BEEN ASSIGNED to processing the body?’ asked Dr Lee.

She was looking at the sallow-faced DI who was pointedly not looking at the horror show that lay at his feet.

Ken Harman gestured as a tall woman entered. Wendy nodded at her pleased. Doctor Harriet ‘Harry’ Walsh had been her assistant at the time she had left the FSS when she’d been seduced by Private. And Wendy had never regretted her change of employer. Sure, she may not actually process the bodies at scenes of crime any more, but that was just data collection, after all. And it wasn’t the collection that was important – it was what you did with it afterwards that mattered. And Wendy Lee could now crank that data faster than the FSS by an order of magnitude.

‘What have you got for me, Ken?’ asked the pathologist as she snapped on the obligatory latex gloves and walked over. She dipped her head forward and tied back a glorious tumble of red-gold curls, causing them to sparkle momentarily in the bright artificial light before hiding them under a protective cap. She stood up again and at five foot eleven in her flat-soled shoes she made Wendy Lee feel dwarfed, not for the first time that evening.

‘Looks like a Jane Doe,’ said the detective. ‘Hard to tell for a layman like me. Whoever it is has been feeding a family of Rattus norvegicus for quite some time, by the looks of it.’

‘You don’t look too well,’ said Harriet Walsh.

‘Just finished a large doner kebab when the call came in,’ he explained. ‘Wish I hadn’t had the extra chilli sauce now.’

Doctor Walsh gave Harman a brief sympathetic smile and nodded to Wendy Lee.

‘What do you think?’

‘Just got here, Harry. But female … looks to be in her early twenties.’

Doctor Walsh looked down at what was revealed of the body and sighed. ‘And out of hunting season, too.’

She gestured to a couple of her SOCO assistants who were standing by, waiting for the nod. Then she kneeled down to peel back the plastic sheeting that partially covered the dead body. Using a scalpel to slice the plastic and peel it back as delicately as possible.

Any evidence could be vital – the merest speck of fabric or mud or blood. Nothing could be taken for granted. The whole scene would be processed, photographed, recorded, analysed. And it all took time.

Some half an hour later the plastic sheet that had once wrapped the body now lay either side of it. The gruesome package opened up like some macabre gift.

Adrian Tuttle moved in closer, the flash mounted on his camera making the bright light intermittently even more glaring as he shot photo after photo. The white skin of the dead woman almost bleached in the flashes.

It was now quite evidently a woman, likely in her early twenties as Doctor Walsh had concurred. Impossible to tell her exact age without proper forensic analysis. But the long dark hair, the exposed pelvic bone, the remains of her breasts that hadn’t been mutilated or cut or simply eaten away, all pointed to the sex of the victim.

A young woman. Taken. Murdered. And left for rodents to feed on in the squalor of a backstreet lock-up.

Chapter 17

‘WHAT?’ CHLOE WILSON practically shouted the word but she might as well have whispered for all the difference it made.

Loud music still played continuously in the underground student union bar and the noise of it reverberated off the thick walls like a swelling, bouncing wave of sound, making it hard for Chloe to think, let alone hear what her friend was trying to say to her. She had to shout again even more loudly against the music and the raucous conversation that surrounded her. ‘I can’t hear you! What did you say?’ she said, feeling the strain in her throat.

Her friend Hannah leaned in closer, attracting the attention of two young first-year students. Flushed with acne and alcohol, they tried surreptitiously to peek down her low-cut blouse at her ample bosom. Hannah flicked them a finger and put her arm around Chloe’s shoulder. ‘I said it’s my shout, Chloe,’ she said, her accent pure West Coast of America – the rich part of it. ‘Fancy another vodka?’

Chloe took a sip of her half-finished drink and shook her head. She was a little dizzy again. Feeling the heat flash through her face, she put a hand on the cool marble surface of the bar to steady her balance. ‘I need something to eat,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling a little light-headed. Let’s get a pizza first and then hit some bars in Soho.’

‘Good thinking, girlfriend,’ said Hannah. ‘Bunch of goddamned horny schoolboys in here, is all.’

Chloe nodded again, not quite as vigorously this time.

‘I need to pee first, though, honey.’

Chloe watched as Hannah looped her arm through the arm of her other friend, Laura. She dragged her away from a shaggy-haired gangling youth wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches, who was attempting to chat her up, and headed off to the ladies’. Chloe took another small sip of her drink and flapped her hand in front of her face. Christ but it was hot in here, she thought for the hundredth time in the last half-hour. Maybe it wasn’t food she needed, just some fresh air.

‘You all right, love?’

A male voice, friendly enough – but Chloe would have snapped back, telling the guy to get lost. Not in the mood for being chatted up herself. Then she saw that it was just the barman who was speaking to her. A reasonably good-looking guy, she supposed, in his mid-twenties or thereabouts. A postgraduate student reading history of art, if she remembered correctly. He was quite smitten with Laura if Chloe was any judge, watching her with puppy-dog eyes whenever they came into the union. And who could blame him? Laura was gorgeous. Bright, clever, gorgeous. Dangerous things in a woman, as Chloe’s godfather would say – thinking himself quite the comedian.

She shook her head at the barman, trying to remember his name. ‘I’m fine, thanks. Just need some air.’

‘Sorry, we don’t sell that.’