Reckoning Point, стр. 19
“What about the blood?” Erik inquires, snapping on the gloves that Cobus handed him.
“This injury to the left arm, it’s a strange one,” Cobus raises his eyes to check that Erik is listening and continues. “That was done before the point of death occurred, and I’m pretty sure she was consenting.”
“What?” Erik looks from the girl to Cobus, sure he has misheard him.
“It’s so carefully done. Whoever done this to her has tried to remove a layer of skin. If she was against this, there’s no way it would be this neat.”
“Maybe she was restrained? Tied up?” Suggests Erik.
Cobus shakes his head in the negative. “No ligature marks, nothing to suggest that she was bound in any way. Moving on, the actual cause of death, Erik, this will be it.”
Erik steps up to the table, puts his hands on the girl where Cobus leads him, trying not to notice how damn cold the marble-like texture of her skin feels through his latex gloves.
He hears the sharp breath that he draws in as he gazes at the marks on the girl’s neck that stand out lividly on her pale skin. There are seven of them, and he doesn’t need Cobus to tell him that these are fingerprints. “Can we get a match off them?”
Cobus shrugs. “I doubt it, look how big they are. The man was almost certainly wearing gloves. Not latex ones, either. If the perpetrator wears only one pair sometimes the prints show through, but I’ll bet these are leather ones.”
“Anything else to go on?”
“He’s likely right handed, see the ones on this side are more pronounced?” With that, Cobus lays Gabi gently back and covers her with a sheet. “I’ll get Patty to type up the report later today, we’ll have it with you by tomorrow. Any questions?”
Erik shakes his head, removes his gloves and puts them in the flip-top bin by the door.
Cobus walks Erik back to the entrance and as he unlocks the door he roots in his pocket and hands Erik his business card. “I know what these things are like, if you think of anything you want to clarify, just call me, anytime.”
Erik takes the card and puts it in his inside pocket, waving a farewell to Cobus and walking back to his car.
Once in the driver seat he leans back against the headrest. The wounds on Gabi’s neck and the strange patch of missing skin on her arm were a shock to see. An untrained eye could detect the utter violence that caused her death. And it leaves him with a very uneasy feeling that this death, this isn’t a one off.
18
ALEX
GREAT TITCHFIELD STREET, LONDON
4.7.15 Lunchtime
Alex notes that his helper, Noah, is unusually quiet as they search the flat. For that, he is grateful and not that surprised. In company and in public Noah is all for show, but once he has been with Alex for a while, he calms down, and Alex never fails to see the man that this boy could be, given half the chance.
“You all right there, Noah?”
They are standing in the vast lounge and Noah looks over at Alex. “This chick is loaded, right?”
Alex shrugs. “Something like that. I’m going to make a start in the kitchen, you check the bookcases, anything that looks interesting, any names or locations, actually, anything that is written down, you bring them to me.”
He watches Noah begin to bring the books down and flip through them carefully, much more carefully than Noah usually handles items, he thinks with a wry grin. His smile fades as Alex recalls the first time he was here, doing much the same as Noah is doing now, but with a lot less care and absolutely no regard for Elian and her feelings. How things change, he thinks, how I changed, in such a short space of time. And Elian done that to me, she changed me.
He snaps to attention, knowing that he is verging on the very line of thinking that he has promised himself not to do. He’s here as a detective, doing a job as though someone is paying him, emotionless and with a hard shell. Because if he lets his feelings into this then that won’t be any help to anyone, least of all Ellie.
Alex moves into the kitchen, pausing at the pine table that has been in this flat for around twenty years. He thinks of Sissy’s story, of how she was summonsed here under false promises of collecting government compensation for the Chernobyl fallout, only to find a newborn baby awaiting her instead. And he thinks of Elian’s birth mother, a woman he never actually met, but who led him to Elian by hiring him to bring the killings in Chernobyl to an end. He lets himself mourn for a moment, not for himself, but for Elian and her real mother, Afia, the drug addict who could have led such a different life if she had been a little stronger. But she was strong when it mattered, at the end, setting Elian free from the clutches of Niko, and then ending his poisoned, rotten life. She had paid the ultimate price; sacrificing her own life in order to kill Niko and ensure Elian could go on and thrive and live. But she isn’t thriving, or