Free Uprising by Scott G. Mariani

still fresh, too. Not been in the water more than six, seven hours tops. Cut a long story short, it looks to me like this young lady has been completely exsanguinated, even before she was dissected.’
    ‘In English,’ Carter said.
    Joel answered for Brier. ‘He’s saying something drained her blood.’
    ‘Drained her blood,’ Carter repeated flatly.
    Brier nodded. ‘Every last drop of it.’
    Joel was still staring at the pieces of the girl’s body as Brier got to his feet and went off with Carter to confer with some of the others. Just then, his phone started to vibrate in his pocket. He fished it out and saw that the call was from Dan Cleland.
    ‘And for my next miracle,’ Cleland said.
    ‘You got the results already?’
    ‘Just in. Specially for my favourite CID officer.’
    Joel tensed. Dan was one of those guys who liked to string things out for effect. ‘Well?’
    ‘The arresting officer was right about the pills. Not top stuff, but definitely ecstasy.’
    ‘And the blood test, Dan?’
    ‘Goodness, we are in a tizzy today.’
    ‘If you were standing here looking at a dead girl’s head in a bag, so would you be.’
    ‘All right, all right. Well, if your man’s dealing, he doesn’t use from his own stash. Blood test was clean.’
    ‘What about alcohol?’
    ‘Zilch. Soberer than a Sons of Temperance convention.’
    ‘You’re sure about that? Quite certain?’
    ‘When have I ever been wrong?’
    ‘Never. Thanks, Dan.’
    ‘You owe me now, Solomon.’
    ‘Right.’ Joel ended the call and was about to flip the phone shut. Then he stopped. Glanced around him. Brier was deep in conversation with his colleagues and Carter was getting belligerent with someone on the police radio. Nobody was watching him.
    He quickly turned on the camera function on his phone, crouched down in the grass and took two snaps of the victim. One of her face, the glassy eyes staring right into the lens.
    And the other of the spider tattoo on what was left of her neck.

Chapter Eighteen
    Villa Oriana, forty miles from Florence
    1.50 p.m. local time
    The butler in the crisp white jacket emerged into the sun carrying the tray with the chilled lemon vodka, prepared exactly the way his employer liked it. He climbed the steps to the balustraded terrace and set the drink down on the marble-topped table at the man’s side.
    Jeremy Lonsdale ignored him, didn’t even glance at the drink until the butler had disappeared back inside the villa. Only then, he reached for the glass and winced as the iced vodka burned away the aftertaste of the lobster he’d eaten for lunch.
    He closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair and felt the sun on his face. Soaking into him, its glow burning orange through his closed eyelids. Even in early November, it was still easily warm enough to have breakfast and lunch outside. That was one of the things Lonsdale loved most about his Tuscan bachelor hideaway. The gloom and drizzle of that piteous little island called Britain depressed him. He had no affection for the place and certainly no allegiance. He was just one of the ones lucky enough to ride the wave and enrich themselves before the remains of the dying empire imploded into the Third World country it was waiting to become. Whenever he could, he’d jump on his private jet and come out here to soak up the sun. There’d come a day when he wouldn’t return. That had always been his plan.
    Lonsdale had been a multi-millionaire for twenty-seven years, which at forty-nine was well over half his life. He could have retired a long time ago, if it hadn’t been for his love of his political career. He was passionate about that whole world of lies and deceit. He loved the way he looked in the public eye when he took up some worthless cause to champion the innocent victims of…whatever. He loved the flash of the cameras and the simper of the media as he kissed babies in Manchester or Liverpool, while the arms companies that earned him millions a year in