A Pound of Flesh

Chapter 2





Detective Inspector Keith Preston listened patiently as the scene of crime manager took him through the morning’s work. A patrol car had found the Mercedes abandoned beside a train station half an hour’s drive outside the city. The white car had been parked just under the railway bridge well away from the prying eyes of any CCTV camera. The victim’s body was still where they had found it, slumped over the steering wheel, a gathering posse of flies buzzing around the dark stain on the man’s shirt.

‘Matthew Wardlaw,’ the DS told him, ‘lived in Solihull. From the contents of his briefcase it seems he’d been staying up here on some sort of legal business. Was booked into the Crown Plaza hotel.’

‘Pathologist on his way?’

‘Her way. Doctor White.’ The DS grinned.

Preston nodded. Jacqui White was one of Glasgow’s more recent celebrities, due to her part in a documentary series about facial reconstruction. Forensic anthropology had been her initial career choice before she had switched to medicine and so the pathologist had been selected to appear in a series of programmes around the country featuring universities like Dundee and Teesside. Preston guessed that the programme’s ratings success was probably down to her milk chocolate voice and a face that the camera just loved. Whatever, Under their Skin had made Jacqui White a household name on both sides of the border as she travelled around talking to the forensic anthropologists whose work was an integral part of criminal investigations. Today, though, she was here in her capacity of consultant forensic pathologist.

Both men looked up as the charcoal grey Porsche Carrera parked behind the two police vehicles. One door was pushed open and in a matter of minutes the pathologist had donned her white boiler suit, picked up her medical bag and was heading towards them. She would examine the corpse, estimate the time of death and tell them what they already knew: that the victim had been shot through the heart, the scorch marks around the entry wound testifying to the fact that the bullet had been fired at close range. Finding out why he’d been there and who had reason to kill him were not within Dr White’s remit, however. She would examine him more fully down at the city mortuary, leaving Preston as Senior Investigating Officer to work out these sorts of problems.

‘Someone knew what they were doing,’ Jacqui White commented as she snapped off her surgical gloves at last. ‘Bull’s eye, in fact,’ she added with a fleeting smile.

‘Or they just got lucky,’ the DS suggested.

‘Well, he didn’t,’ Preston pointed out, nodding back towards the Mercedes. They watched as the scene of crime photographer prowled around the car, leaning in to take shots from various angles, one more stage in the piecing together of just what had taken place under this railway bridge. Matthew Wardlaw’s body would soon be zipped into a body bag and transferred to the waiting van. But for a time this cordoned off area would continue to be forbidden territory to any curious eyes.

Overhead a train rumbled on the tracks, its brakes suddenly shrieking as it drew closer to the platform. Preston looked up and nodded thoughtfully. Perhaps this wasn’t such a random location after all, then. Whoever had pulled that trigger might have waited for such a moment, the deafening noise on the bridge obliterating the sound of gunfire. Well, they would have to wait for forensics results before anything could really push this one forward. It was an isolated spot, far from any domestic habitation, just a couple of shops and a post office-cum-general store nearby. Still, the station would have CCTV that could be looked at, though Preston had a bad feeling it would be of little use to them.

He turned away from the scene of crime with a sigh. Once an incident room had been set up he’d have his team look into the victim’s background. It would be a starting point at least. The DI’s brow furrowed as he frowned. First, though, he’d have to make contact with the police in Solihull, get someone from their family liaison out tonight to break the news of Wardlaw’s death to his family. It was one of the least pleasant tasks in this job, but at least whichever officer rang that doorbell would have been spared the sight of the victim’s body, and could refer to the man’s death as an ‘incident’ for now, at any rate.