Free A Man of Sorrows by James Craig Page A

the robbery.’
    Roche thought about that for a moment. ‘Lifted from the crime scene. That would take some balls. Do you really think that’s likely?’
    Carlyle scratched his chin. ‘It’s possible. Have we checked out the CCTV?’
    ‘Not yet,’ Roche sighed. ‘Not enough resources. I’ll see what I can do this morning.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘Any news on the shop assistant?’ Roche asked.
    ‘No, afraid not.’
    A mobile phone started ringing loudly, to the tune of ‘Breathe’ by The Prodigy. ‘Sorry,’ said Roche, reaching into her bag and peering at her BlackBerry. ‘Hello?’
    Carlyle watched her face darken as she said, ‘Where?’
    Knowing what was coming, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a fiver and some change, gesturing to Myron as he dropped it on the table.
    ‘No.’ Roche raised her eyebrows and looked at Carlyle. ‘It’s okay. He’s with me. We’ll meet the car outside the station.’
    Stuffing Abigail Slater’s letter back in his pocket, Carlyle got to his feet and was at the door by the time Roche finished her call. Pulling it open, he let her lead him out onto the street.
    ‘They’ve found the girl,’ she said, deftly sidestepping a dawdling tourist.
    ‘Great,’ Carlyle responded, following in her slipstream, not needing to ask if Paula Coulter was still alive.

ELEVEN
    It was a long way from home turf. Carlyle stood shading his eyes in the middle of a massive empty space, the size of maybe half a dozen soccer pitches, five minutes from the Westway, halfway to Heathrow. Poking at some rubble with the toe of his trainers, he scanned the site, which was bathed in bright sunlight. It had been completely cleared and fenced off but, aside from a couple of Portakabins in one corner, there was no sign of any impending building work. ‘What is this place?’ he asked.
    Standing ten feet away, Alison Roche pushed her sunglasses back up her nose and said, ‘This was going to be the Lex West Central Business Park. Then came the financial crash and its Arab backers pulled out. They’re still arguing with the developers over who’s responsible for it. The Mayor’s been talking about letting local residents use it as an allotment.’
    ‘The Mayor,’ Carlyle snorted, shaking his head. ‘Gawd bless him.’ He looked across at the crumpled body of Paula Coulter, who was being fussed over by a pathologist, with a couple of technicians in tow. ‘I guess it wasn’t an inside job then.’
    Roche wandered closer to the body. ‘Not involving her, at least.’
    Carlyle, squeamish at the best of times, had no intention of following his sergeant. He was near enough to see that Paula, face down, still in her work clothes, had been shot in the head. He was unlikely to gain any stunning insights into her demise by getting any closer to the corpse.
    ‘What have we got?’ Roche asked the pathologist, a fat, middle-aged guy called Evan Stone, who worked out of the Ealing station.
    ‘Well . . .’ Stone, on his haunches, tried to turn to face Roche and fell on his backside. Not bothering to get up, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the beads of sweat on his forehead. ‘For some reason, her killer felt the need to shoot her both in the face and in the back of the head.’
    ‘Idiots,’ Carlyle grumbled, under his breath. ‘Was it the same gun that was used in the robbery?’
    From behind her sunglasses, Roche shot him a rather exasperated look. ‘Too early to tell,’ she replied for the pathologist.
    ‘Fair enough,’ Carlyle said, returning her glare in a way that suggested he did not think it a totally unreasonable question.
    ‘Both shots were from close range,’ Stone continued, ignoring their little spat. ‘Either would have been more than enough to kill her.’
    ‘So why shoot her twice?’ Roche asked, still glaring at Carlyle.
    The pathologist looked down at the corpse as if it might offer up the explanation. ‘Maybe they thought they could try and delay