Don went into the kitchen, where Chiltern was receiving a report from one of his men. He looked up as Don came in. ‘Nice mess, isn’t it?’
‘That’s what happens when you get in the way of a 9mm bullet or two.’
‘Well, there’s another two dead upstairs,’ Chiltern added, shaking his head. ‘Right sodding blood-bath this is turning into.’
He led the way into the hall and up the stairs. Everywhere were signs of the intruders’ recent presence. Furniture had been overturned, pictures ripped from the walls and ornaments smashed.
‘It looks like my own place after the kids have had a party,’ Chiltern said, grinning.
They found the next body sprawled on the landing. It was the body of a middle-aged man of Indian appearance. A bullet wound in the back of the left leg indicated that he had been brought down trying to run away from his attackers. Thereafter someone had made a crude attempt at interrogating him. A heavy metal file had been applied to the surfaces of his teeth until they were almost completely rubbed level with the blood-soaked gums.
‘That’s an old Spetsnaz trick,’ Don said in amazement.
‘Who?’
‘Spetsnaz. Soviet special forces.’
Chiltern winced at the gruesome spectacle. ‘What the fuck would they be doing in Southall?’
Don shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but during the Cold War they sent training teams abroad, just like we did.’
‘Passing on their techniques, you mean?’
‘Exactly.’
The man’s eyes were wide open and staring, bulging out of their sockets with the agony. A cloth had been stuffed at the back of his mouth to prevent him screaming and he had been finished off with a bullet to the back of the head.
‘Who was he?’ Don asked.
‘Just a guy who ran a chain of curry restaurants in the area,’ Chiltern replied. ‘I’ve ordered takeaways from them myself. Bloody good they were too.’
‘Any idea why anyone would want to do this to him?’
Chiltern shrugged. ‘Not a clue.’ He smirked. ‘Perhaps someone got Delhi belly after his vindaloo.’
Don ignored the wisecrack. ‘You said there were a couple of bodies?’
The policeman pointed to an open door. From inside Don could hear the click and whirr of an automatic camera. He stepped over the dead man and went on down the corridor. The bare legs were the first thing he saw, protruding from behind the bed. The police photographer looked up.
‘Nasty. Very nasty. It’s as clinical as an execution.’
He moved aside to allow Don a clear line of sight to the body. It was a woman. Presumably the man’s wife. They seemed to Don to be of a similar age. She was dressed in a bright-blue sari trimmed in gold. Expensive. He studied the room. It was obviously the home of a well-to-do family.
Unlike her husband’s, the woman’s eyes were tightly shut; clenched, as if trying to shut out some unpleasantness. One hand was clasped to her throat in shock and the other held a candlestick.
‘Looks like she tried to defend herself,’ Chiltern said.
A single bullet between the shoulder-blades had thwarted any such attempt, ending her life immediately.
While Chiltern spoke to the SOCO, who had now finished in the garden and climbed up the stairs to start work in the house, Don wandered out on to the landing again and explored the other rooms. There were two bathrooms, a guest bedroom, tastefully decorated but unlived in, and a large room clearly belonging to an older man. There were smashed photograph frames on the floor, and a walking stick snapped in two.
But it was the last room that caught his attention most. Posters hung off the walls, pictures of pop stars and horses. The furnishings were in pinks and pale, gentle shades, and the clothes torn from the ransacked drawers were those of a young woman. More interestingly, there was a single small stain on the carpet close by the door. Don stooped and examined it. The next moment he shouted down the landing to the SOCO.
‘I think you’d better take a look at this.’
The SOCO and Chiltern padded down the corridor towards him.
‘What is it?’
Don pointed at the stain. ‘Looks like blood, if you ask me.’
The SOCO sighed in exasperation. ‘Is that all? The whole sodding house is awash with blood, and you raise the alarm over one tiny stain.’
‘Yes, but look at the room. Someone’s been in here recently.’
‘Brilliant! I can tell you’re army.’ The SOCO shook his head.
But Chiltern saw what Don was getting at. ‘Don’s right.’
‘Thank you,’ Don said. ‘Have you found the body of a girl yet?’
The SOCO blanched. ‘No.’
‘Then I suggest you start looking for her because there was a girl in this room less than an hour ago. Look.’ He pointed at the dressing table. ‘The make-up’s open. Don’t tell me the intruders wanted to touch up their lipstick.’
‘Shit,’ Chiltern hissed. ‘If they’ve taken her we could have a hostage crisis on our hands as well as a quadruple murder. What the hell’s going on here?’ He turned on his heel and marched back to the stairs. ‘Don, you come with me. This is police business now. I shouldn’t have allowed you in here in the first place. Your assistance and interest are much appreciated, but I’ll handle things from now on. Oh, and by the way, I suggest you end that exercise of yours. Reality’s got in the way. Thanks for everything, but you can return to Hereford. Send me a report on the guys you think might have passed when you’ve got a moment to write them up.’
He led Don to the front door and ushered him out into the front garden. It had started to rain again and as he sauntered back to his car Don turned up the collar of his jacket and hunched his shoulders against the sharp cold. He had seen more than his fair share of action, but the sight of the murders had shocked him. There was something particularly repulsive about the sight of a dead body in an otherwise normal setting. It was bad enough on the battlefield, but in a comfortable house in the middle of suburbia it smacked of the most appalling decay. Two of the men on his course had been butchered in cold blood and in a way he felt responsible for it. They had radioed in to report their sighting of a van and although it had been a police responsibility to dispatch assistance, Don had noticed that there had been little sense of urgency. No one had really believed Paul’s message, assuming it to be just another part of the exercise programme. Because of the delay they were dead.
He unlocked the door of his car and got in, turning the key and gunning the accelerator as the engine fired. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. He could be home in Hereford by teatime. All of a sudden he wanted nothing more than to be out on the motorway and burning up the miles of tarmac between London’s dismal outskirts and the fresh air of the Severn estuary, the green hills of Wales
