Free By All Means (Fiske and MacNee Mysteries Book 2) by Alan Alexander

levity where murder was concerned.
     
    ‘Stewart, what have you discovered about the availability of the drugs found in Keller’s body?’
     
    ‘Just because they’re used to execute people doesn’t mean they’re difficult to get.   I raked around the Internet a bit and found several sites offering to supply both potassium chloride and Pentothal.  You have to be a wee bit careful, though, or you’ll end up with potassium choloride, which is a substitute for salt rather than a murder weapon. The sites looked pretty accessible, with minimal checks on purchasers, mainly in Eastern Europe and the Americas.  I checked with our drugs squad and then with the SCDEA and they said that the only risk in sending for the stuff through the post would be its interception by customs, and in the absence of intelligence that’s unlikely.   The guy I spoke to at the SCDEA also said that if the purchaser could provide a medically-related identity, that would make it even easier.   The message is that these drugs aren’t all that hard to get and that the suppliers are unlikely to co-operate with us.’
     
    Vanessa said that this was such an unusual cause of death that it was unlikely that the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency would know any more about the drugs’ availability than her team did, but she commended Todd for his thoroughness.
     
    Duncan Williamson reported on progress so far with the 2400 hours of video material he had collected from GRH.   There were multiple sightings of Keller between Monday and Friday and in all of them he had his laptop bag over his shoulder.  He was having them brought together on one DVD so that people at the hospital could identify the locations.  This might give them a way into what he had been investigating. 
     
    ‘The last sighting of him was at four o’clock on Friday afternoon, coming out of the lift at the end of the corridor leading to the toilet where his body was found. He was on his own, and he was carrying his laptop. He appeared to walk towards where he was killed.  We’re now trying to identify everybody who came out of these lifts or up the adjacent stairs between three and five on Friday.  But it’s a painstaking business.  There are six wards and various other units that are accessed from that stairwell and lift, so there’s a lot of traffic.  We may need to use face recognition technology to match images with hospital personnel records.’
     
    Colin MacNee snorted.  ‘Hedelco are going to love that.  Please can I have the job of telling Donovan?’
     
    Vanessa laughed, weakly.  ‘A bit  below your pay grade, Detective Inspector.  But what you can do to earn your keep, is take over this meeting while I go to the loo’.  She was already on her way, looking a little pale.  If Sara Hamilton still had any doubt about what was ‘wrong’ with her boss, they vanished.
     
    ‘You all know about the ownership connection between Hedelco, who manage GRH, and Ebright, the operators of Vermont One.  We don’t know if that has any bearing on the murders, but we can’t ignore it.  Given that the most difficult financial document any of you ever deals with is your overtime claim, or maybe your credit card bill, we’ve called in some help.  DI Andy Hanna will get here later today on a two-week secondment from Strathclyde.  He"ll be analysing the financial state of Hedelco, Ebright and their parent company, Burtonhall, to see if anything crawls out that might throw some light on why these two men ended up dead on our patch.’
     
    DCI Fiske came back in, apologised for her abrupt exit and took over.
     
    ‘You’ve all met Dongle Donaldson…Christ, do I have to call you that?’
     
    ‘I might not answer if you don’t, Boss.  It’s who I am now.  I’ve almost forgotten my real name.’
     
    Everyone, except Esslemont, laughed, and Vanessa pressed on.
     
    ‘Dongle knows more about hard drives than anyone you’ve ever met.  He’s