Free Night Vision by Jane A. Adams Page A

God, oh my God.’
    â€˜Call an ambulance,’ Alec said again, though instinct and experience suggested it was far too late for that. Travers lay on the floor beside the bed, eyes open, his right hand reaching for something and—
    So much blood, Alec thought. He had interviewed several finders of bodies during his career, and that phrase had been one he had heard many times. People saw the blood first, amplified the amount of it. Told him, even if the wound had bled little or been largely out of sight. Oh God, there was so much blood . . .
    Alec thought it now, but he had no need to exaggerate. Travers was covered in it, the carpet sticky with it. Knowing he should stay back, wait for the medics to arrive, knowing he was interfering – probably needlessly – with a crime scene and that Travers was likely beyond anything he could do, Alec still went into the room and knelt beside his friend.

EIGHT
    P ast nine o clock, and the ambulance had long since driven from the scene. Eddison had arrived half an hour before, and Parks and Munroe had followed shortly after. Alec had called them, not knowing what else to do, and found he was pathetically grateful at the sight of familiar faces, despite his misgivings about these new colleagues.
    Eddison had taken charge, managing the scene. ‘You touched nothing else?’ he asked again, his voice quiet and calm and surprisingly gentle.
    Alec shook his head. ‘I saw him lying there. I was sure he’d gone, but I needed to – I thought there might be something I could do.’
    Eddison touched his arm. ‘Any of us would have done the same,’ he said. ‘The human reaction takes over: we do what we feel, not what we know we should.’
    Alec nodded. ‘I knelt down there, and I touched his hand. Nothing else. When I left the room I back-tracked as near as I could remember.’
    Eddison nodded. ‘Good, good.’ That verbal tick again. Alec hadn’t noticed it so much that day. ‘Go and get changed, get cleaned up. Then come back here to me.’
    Alec nodded, suddenly horribly aware of the wet patches on his knees where he had knelt beside Travers. Knelt on carpet soaked with his boss’s blood. He escaped to his room, closed the door and stood just inside the entrance, listening as though suddenly afraid that whoever had attacked Travers might also come for him.
    â€˜Stupid,’ he told himself. ‘Stupid.’ But he still checked the locks on the windows and the latch on the door before going into the tiny bathroom.
    He showered. The CSI manager had given him bags for his clothes. Gingerly, he emptied pockets and slipped the bloodied clothes and shoes inside. How often had he explained to those first witnesses on scene that they might have picked up something significant on their clothes and shoes as they bent over the body, that it was just procedure? How often had he heard them tell him, shamefacedly, that it made them feel like a criminal, handing their clothes over like this? He tried to shake that same thought now, but found he could empathize. It made him feel somehow unclean, blood on his clothes and shoes, those same clothes and shoes slipped now into evidence bags.
    Dressed, and a little more composed, he carried the bags back into the reception, handed them over to the young woman responsible for collating and listing the evidence. He watched as she sealed and labelled his possessions and then got him to sign the forms, stating when and what he had handed over. Chain of evidence, Alec thought as he confirmed the time of handover and placed his initials beside hers. Then he returned to Travers’ room. Eddison glanced up as he entered; he was crouched down beside one of the CSIs.
    â€˜Found something?’ Alec was surprised but relieved that he sounded almost normal.
    Eddison straightened up. ‘A scrap of paper,’ he said. ‘When DCI Travers fell, it was trapped under his body. It