Chapter 1
Chapter One
It is a sad truth that politicians, privilege and perfidy are rarely found apart.
While some may begin their political path with an urge to serve, that resolve is inevitably worn away with every passing day, every deal struck, every favour curried.
And many who climb the mountain of public service carry corruption with them from the very beginning.
Many, not all, I reminded myself as I looked clinically at the ruined body of Lord Theodore Marlow.
I was rarely called to a scene when someone had passed away peacefully, but this was certainly the grimmest. The posh, refined room stank worse than a public urinal. Death was a great leveller, and no matter how refined he had been in life, Marlow had still shat himself in death.
‘Talk me through it,’ I ordered Channing.
‘Lord Theodore Marlow, aged forty-six, air elemental and representative of the same at the Symposium. He was found dead by his cleaner at 8am today upon her entry into the premises. According to the cleaner, Marlow was estranged from his wife, Ada Marlow, and they have one dependent, Frankie Marlow, who is four years of age. Mrs Marlow maintains a separate residence in the Home Counties and runs her own successful wind farm.’
‘Has she been notified?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Continue.’
‘Frost and McCaffrey secured the scene, and Medical Examiner Kate Potter is en route. McCaffrey is canvassing the local area to see if anyone saw or heard anything.’ He gestured loosely at Ed, his comment there implied.
No need to spell out that the Scene of Crime Officers (SOCO) were in attendance when we could clearly see Ed whistling to himself as he photographed the scene.
‘Tell me about your actions since you arrived,’ I instructed.
Channing wet his lips. ‘When I arrived at the scene, I verified death as per your previous instructions.’
‘Good.’
‘Then I took some photographs of the body and the crime scene. I examined the body, which was cool to the touch.’
‘He was eviscerated,’ I pointed out. ‘Having a huge cavity open like that cools the body far faster than if the body is left intact, so you can’t use temperature alone as a means of estimating the time of death. What else can we check?’
‘Lividity,’ Channing said confidently. ‘Because the deceased is secured to the chair, the blood has pooled primarily in the lower extremities.’ He gestured to the body’s calves.
‘The hue is mottled and a light purplish red, not the deep maroon you get once the lividity is fixed, so death is likely to have been within a couple of hours.’
‘Not bad.’
He smiled a little at the faint praise, but then I continued. ‘Once he’s peeled away from the chair, his buttocks should also be examined. Lividity would be prominent then. What else should we consider?’
Channing looked slightly panicked, like he was dreaming he’d turned up at school nude.
Taking pity on him, I continued the lesson. ‘We need to factor the catastrophic blood loss into the lividity. Marlow lost a lot of blood, so there was less of it to pool in the limbs. With the blood loss factored in, the lividity won’t become so extreme as quickly.’
I knelt, careful to avoid the pool of blood soaking into the carpet.
I pressed a gloved finger to the victim’s calf.
The mottled skin blanched under the pressure before returning to its previous shade.
‘The lividity here isn’t fixed, so that tells us the time of death is definitely less than eight hours ago,’ I confirmed. ‘Smell the air.’
Channing baulked at the instruction. ‘What?’
‘Take a deep inhale,’ I said impatiently.
‘I really don’t want to,’ he muttered.
I got that. It smelled bad enough in here without having to intentionally inhale. A scene like this created the worst kind of smell. Everyone hated a disembowelment, not just the victim.
‘What do you smell?’ I pressed.
With a grimace, Channing did as instructed and inhaled deeply. He gagged, and I waited for him to sift through the stenches to identify what stood out.
‘That’s the most rancid thing I’ve ever smelt,’ he said, still gagging.
‘It’s not nice,’ I conceded. ‘If you’re going to be sick, do it over there, far from the scene.’
‘I’m okay,’ he said, but I didn’t quite buy it. My inexperienced rookie was green on any day of the week, but now he looked it too.
‘When you’re ready, take another breath – maybe go for a shallower one this time – and then parse the scents. What can we learn about the scene from the smell alone? You need to learn to rely on more than just your eyes.’
My partner took another breath, this one markedly shallower than the one before. ‘The scent of urine and faeces is predominant. Next is the coppery smell of blood, and under that is something kind of sweet.’ He grimaced. ‘And something else. Something … acidic?’
‘Right. The acidity comes from the stomach juices. That coppery tang is there as soon as blood is spilled, but that faintly sweet edge develops after three or four hours. So, we’re definitely more than a couple of hours post-mortem, but less than eight. How else can we nail down the time of death?’
‘Rigor mortis?’
‘Right. Check his jaw. Rigor starts in the small muscles first – jaw, eyelids, neck.’
Channing reached out and gently prised the jaw open. ‘Some resistance,’ he murmured, almost to himself. ‘It feels almost rubbery. Stiff but not yet set.’
‘Which tells us what?’
‘We’re three to four hours post-mortem, not much more. Five hours post and the jaw would be locked.’
‘So what’s our estimated time of death?’
He looked at his watch. ‘It’s 8.30am now. He died between three and five hours ago, so any time from 3.30am to 5.30am.’
‘You got it,’ I said, pleased. ‘ME will confirm, but that’s our ballpark. Update SPEL and McCaffrey. Now, what can you tell me about the injuries?’
Channing leaned closer to the wounds, careful to remain out of the blood and guts pooling underneath the chair.
‘Two points of incision. The angle’s upward through the diaphragm into the chest cavity.
Victim was sitting, and the wounds were made at close range.
The tearing here,’ he pointed, ‘means the weapon wasn’t withdrawn cleanly. ’
I arched a brow. ‘So?’
‘So we’re not looking for a knife,’ he said slowly. ‘The entry point is almost rounded.’ He stood and turned to face me. He had reached the same conclusion I had, and he was no more happy about it than I was. ‘I’d say we’re looking at tusks. Ogre’s tusks.’
I kept my face carefully blank. He was bang on the money. I’d seen wounds like this before, most recently on Einar.
I was trying to keep a lid on my agitation. If one of Krieg’s ogres were responsible for this – and all ogres were his – then we were going to have to lock horns over it, and his were bigger. Okay, so his horns were technically tusks, but either way, this wasn’t going to be good for us.
Hopefully the ogre in question had a valid contract in place.
The Other had a warped sense of justice, and as long as the assassin had a legal contract in place, he would have no legal responsibility for the death.
Then I could focus on whoever had ordered the hit rather than the hands – or tusks – that had done the killing.
If there was a valid contract, I’d be able to wrap this case up by the close of business. If there wasn’t…
None of that turmoil showed in my voice as I calmly said, ‘Good. And what about defensive wounds?’
‘There are none. The cuffs on the deceased’s wrists are magic-cancelling cuffs – Connection-issue – so he had no access to his magic at the time of death. There are faint marks around the wrists and ankles, but no lacerations.’
‘Which tells us what?’
‘The deceased was secured to the chair when he was killed, and he didn’t have the time, consciousness, or wherewithal to fight his restraints.’
‘Right. How quickly would a wound like that kill him?’
Channing considered the question before speaking.
‘It depends on what the tusk hit. If it tore the aorta or nicked the heart, he’d have been unconscious in a minute, dead in two.
If it missed the major vessels but ripped the intestines, he’d have bled out more slowly.
Five to twenty minutes to collapse. Half an hour of life, tops, before death, if he was lucky. ’
‘Not lucky,’ Loki interjected.
My caladrius companion was right. Lasting half an hour while eviscerated was the opposite of good luck.
‘In this particular case, I’d say he was lucky,’ I murmured.
‘It looks as though it was all over fairly quickly and he didn’t suffer for too long.
Judging by the volume of blood loss and the way he’s slumped, the tusk probably went through the diaphragm too.
We’re likely looking at a collapsed lung and massive internal bleeding.
He’d have been out in seconds, dead within a few minutes.
A small mercy.’ I looked at my partner. ‘Anything else to note?’
Channing’s head tilted as he considered. ‘No signs of forced entry into the property. Marlow’s protective runes were nullified before the perpetrator gained access. He had a Common security system too, but it was disengaged.’
‘So what does that tell us?’’
‘Whoever did this was a pro.’
‘Exactly.’ I rubbed my bottom lip. ‘But if we’re looking at a professional hit – and we’re assuming at this point an ogre carried it out – then the whole set-up seems …
off.’ I was mostly thinking aloud, picturing the moment that Robbie had killed Einar with his tusks.
Robbie had been moving fast, and he’d used momentum and his tusks to kill the rogue ogre.
Einar had been pinned up against a wall and – like all ogres – he’d been tall.
Robbie hadn’t had to do much more than lower his head as he’d charged, yet here …
I shook my head. ‘Marlow is secured low on the chair. I can’t get the mechanics to line up.’
‘Maybe the ogre knelt as he killed Marlow?’ Channing suggested.
‘Maybe.’ Yet I couldn’t imagine an ogre doing anything so deferential as kneeling in a moment like this. It just didn’t jibe. Something was off.
Loki let out a loud yawn and fluttered to my side. He pressed himself against my neck. ‘I go home,’ he said. ‘I tired.’
Anxiety sharpened. He’d barely been awake for a couple of hours. I gently lifted him from my shoulder and brought him up to my eye level. ‘Loki, tell me what’s going on with you, or I’ll take you to a human vet who’ll shove a thermometer up your arse.’
I had no idea if that was true or not, but his eyes flew wide at the threat.
‘Not without date,’ the caladrius muttered, making me smile despite my worry. ‘I go home,’ he repeated. He yawned again, and with one last nuzzle against my fingers, he took off, ignoring my demand for more information.
‘Is he all right?’ Channing asked, frowning after him. ‘He looks worse every time I see him. His feathers look droopy and sad.’
‘Oh, something’s definitely up with him, and I’m determined to find out what.’ I looked back at Marlow. ‘For now, let’s focus on the dead.’
I knelt by the body and pointed to the victim’s torso to show Channing the one thing he’d missed. ‘See these marks?’ I pointed to two raised red dots.
‘Yes, ma’am. I just thought they were insect bites.’
I let the ma’am go. ‘Possible, but not likely. My best guess is that a taser was used on the victim – ME to confirm. These are tiny entry marks. The killer needed Marlow stunned so they could cuff and kill him before he reached his magic. There’s no blackened skin, so no drive-stun.
Enough to disorient him but not enough to put him down. What does that tell us?’
‘The killer wanted the opportunity to talk to him? Otherwise, they could have sliced his throat where he lay. Instead, he was pulled from the bed and put on the chair.’
‘Exactly.’ I patted his shoulder. ‘Good job. Write it all up.’
He gave a brisk nod but couldn’t quite hide the pleased gleam in his eyes.
His first full report. The first of many.
Paperwork was one of the worst things about being a cop.
The novelty would wear off, but for now, I was more than happy to have him do the paperwork for me.
I’d check it and sign off, but his name would be at the bottom.
‘Ma’am,’ Channing started. ‘Wise,’ he corrected himself with a sheepish look. ‘Will you speak to Krieg?’
‘Of course,’ I said coolly. ‘The High King of the Ogres will be one of our first ports of call – but first, I need to pass the death message.’
He winced. ‘Marlow’s got a kid.’
‘Yeah,’ I sighed. ‘He does.’
We both knew first-hand how hard it was to lose a parent, though neither of us had suffered that particular loss as young as Frankie. It would colour the rest of his life, and my heart ached for him.
I didn’t know enough about Theodore Marlow to know whether he deserved the brutal ending he’d met, but for his son, I’d get to the bottom of this sordid affair and get him justice.
I could give the kid that much.