Inspector of the Dead by David Morrell Read Free Book Online Page A

“Inform the occupants about what happened. God willing, you’ll get there before the reporters tell them. Learn what you can.”
    White stone buildings stretched before him, one adjoining the other—imposingly different from the cramped, squalid hovels that Becker had patrolled in the East End. These expensive, four-story houses looked so much alike that, if not for discreet brass numbers near each door, it would have been impossible to distinguish them.
    The air felt colder. A growing breeze swept dark clouds over the sun. When Becker reached the address he’d been given, he paused at an iron gate and peered up the steps toward the entrance. All the curtains were closed, but in wealthy neighborhoods curtains were always closed, so that was no indication of whether anyone was at home.
    Becker pointed at two reporters who followed him. “Constable, make certain those men don’t come closer. No one passes this gate without permission.”
    So recently promoted that he felt awkward giving orders, Becker opened the gate and approached the house.
    How can I deliver the news about Lady Cosgrove? he thought. He recalled rushing to his mother in their leased farmhouse, frantically telling her that his father had fallen from a ladder in the barn and that his neck was twisted at a terrible angle. The devastated look on his mother’s face was something that Becker had never banished from his nightmares.
    After a deep breath, he climbed the steps. There were only five, but they seemed like more. At the top, he used the lion’s-head door knocker, its solid impact reverberating.
    Ten seconds passed. No one responded. Feeling like an intruder, Becker knocked again, this time louder. Again, no one answered.
    He looked down, braced himself to knock once more, and noticed a stain from a liquid that had trickled under the door. The liquid had dried. The color had dulled to brown. But after the events of the morning, there was no mistaking the nature of the stain—it was blood.
    Aware of the reporters watching from the street, Becker managed not to show a reaction. Testing the latch, he felt his pulse lurch when the door moved.
    He opened the door a few inches and shouted, “Hello?” People inside might have chosen not to respond to a knock on the door, but surely they would react to a voice.
    “Can anyone hear me? My name is Detective Sergeant Becker! I need to speak to you!”
    His voice echoed back to him.
    He pushed the door a few inches farther, trying to see as much as he could. But now the door encountered resistance, an object blocking the way.
    “Hello?” Becker called.
    He glanced over his shoulder. The two newspaper writers were stepping closer to the gate.
    “Constable, make certain they keep their distance!”
    Becker leaned harder against the door, felt the object on the other side move, and created enough space to step through.
    He smelled death before his eyes adjusted to the shadows.
      
    T he object on the other side was the corpse of a butler. His head had been bashed in. Blood had gushed from it, forming a pool, now dried, that had trickled under the door.
    Again Becker reached for the truncheon that had been on his equipment belt when he was a constable. Of course it wasn’t there. But he had a knife that Ryan had taught him to wear in a scabbard under his trouser leg. (“Use the blunt end before you use the blade,” Ryan had warned, “or there’ll be questions.”)
    Drawing it, feeling cold fear spread through his chest, Becker steadied himself against a possible attack and scanned the area. A murky vestibule led to a hall in which there were two doors on each side—both shut—and an ornate staircase that ascended toward the upper floors.
    Until now, Lord Palmerston’s mansion had provided Becker’s only experience with wealth. Although he’d been there on numerous occasions, he still had not adjusted to the contrast with the leaky shacks in which he had lived while working sixty hours a week in a