Relentless by Simon Kernick Read Free Book Online Page B

up being an unkempt
ibination of the two. He was a couple of years younger than lt, but could probably have passed for forty. His face was
wind and jolly and he had big bloodhound eyes under which
heavy bags, that had become more pronounced in recent
due to the trials and tribulations of his young family,
bad three sons under the age of five and a daughter of ten
    who thought she was a teenager, and it showed in the air of
permanent exhaustion that surrounded him. Without cigarettes
and copious quantities of coffee, it was doubtful he'd be able to
function, and people often asked him why he'd punished himself
by waiting so long after his first child before suddenly producing
three more. His reply was that he hadn't planned any of them;
they'd just come when they were ready, and rather than being a
punishment, to him they were a blessing. Mo loved his kids
deeply, and part of the reason he made such a good cop was
because, underneath the somewhat cynical exterior, he believed
in what he was doing and wanted to create a better society for
them to grow up in. Of everyone in the team, he was probably
the hardest working, and had never once shied away from overtime,
paid for or not, which was the reason Bolt enjoyed working
with him.
The path, which was little more than a dirt track, led up
a moderate, fairly straight incline and was muddy in patches
from the recent rain, revealing a number of partial and complete
footprints, several of which had already been enclosed by
phosphorescent-scene-of-crime tape. A line of it stretched up
the edge of the path, and they had to keep to its right to avoid
contaminating any possible evidence. As they made their way
along it, they could see that the prints belonged to at least three
sets of shoes. Occasionally, they were scuffed where someone
had obviously slipped. It didn't take much to figure out that
Calley had been chased by two people, probably men by the size
and style of their shoe markings.
They rounded a corner and the path became a wider, flatter
gully, and it was here that they came face to face with the body
of the man himself. He was hanging from one of the lower
branches of a gnarled beech tree on the left side of the path
    about ten yards away, his feet dangling a few inches from the
ground, a leather belt around his neck. He was dressed in jeans,
trainers and a white England rugby shirt, the front of which was
flecked with spots of blood. It looked as if he'd received a facial
injury but it was difficult to tell from the position of his head,
which was leaning forward so that he was facing the ground. A
thick fringe of dark blond hair hung forlornly down over it like a
curtain.
Five or six men and women, all in identical white suits, milled
around the body, taking photographs and samples in the undignified,
if necessary, manner that characterizes all major crime
scenes. As Bolt and Mo approached, one of the men standing on
the edge of the scene turned and came down towards them, an
inquisitive expression on his face. He was a tall man in his fifties,
with a well-kept moustache, a seriously receding hairline and a
vaguely regal manner that suggested the possibility he was ex
military.
'Can I help you?' he asked, stopping in front of them. The
question wasn't delivered in an unfriendly manner, but he wasn't
smiling either.
'I'm DI Mike Bolt, NCS. This is my colleague, DS Mo Khan.'
Mo nodded. 'We were coming here to interview Jack Calley.'
Bolt looked over at the body. 'I'm guessing we're a little too fete.'
" 'You are. I'm DCI Keith Lambden, Ruislip CID, the SIO on !4his case.' He put out a hand and»they shook. 'Can I ask exactly imhsA you were going to speak to Mr Calley about?'
Bolt gave him a brief rundown of their own case and Calley's
elationship with their supposed suicide victim. Lambden's eye
rows rose when they mentioned the Lord Chief Justice's name,
[butjje didn't speak.
    'Is there anything you've found so far that could link the two cases, Keith?' asked Bolt, looking