“It’s all a question of timing now. I want to see that system he’s got installed. I want to know if the computer recorded the time of the alarm being set, when and where the first motion sensor was tripped, and who was responsible.”
Reilly had found a pile of CDs on the floor. “Plenty of these but nothing to play them on. Looking at the marks on the wall I’d say they had a whole lot more than this.”
“Burglar obviously has a market for them – and the hi-fi.”
“Might be a good place to start asking questions. The market.”
Gardener was about to venture into another room when one of the CSIs caught his attention. “What’s up?”
“The pathologist would like a word, sir.”
The two officers left the living room and headed up to the bedroom. They found Fitz kneeling by the side of the body with a thermometer in his hand.
“You called?” said Reilly.
“Yes. I think you need to see this.”
Fitz had positioned Jane Carter onto her back and her negligee was now up around her shoulders. The pathologist pointed to two bruises on her stomach. Both were large, inflamed. The outer edges of both were red, the centre deep blue.
“There’s a lot of swelling around the abdomen. It looks unnatural, and in my opinion, this lady will have suffered terribly before she died.”
“Any idea what caused them
?” Gardener asked.
“Not until I have the chance to examine her thoroughly.”
“You don’t think it’s anything to do with the tablets?” asked Reilly.
Fitz stood up. “No. In my opinion these are contact bruises.”
“What, like a truck?”
Fitz continued, “There’s no external bleeding, but I suspect she has some damage to the internal organs, which has caused them to swell – pain would have been quite intolerable.”
“So she’s been attacked with something,” said Reilly.
“Very possibly.” Fitz pointed to the smaller of the bruises. “That one, I really have no idea.”
“And the other?” Gardener sighed.
“It’s a different shape, I could hazard a guess.”
“Go on,” pushed Gardener. “A footprint, maybe.”
Chapter Six
It was after twelve when Manny returned to consciousness. He immediately wished he hadn’t. Rolling round to squint at the clock on the bedside cabinet, he winced. He had a headache to compete with the world’s best. The little men with hammers were working up a sweat. His eyeballs really hurt, as if someone had taken a pan scrubber to them. The inside of his mouth felt like he’d chewed a carpet that had been in a skip for six months.
“Oh, fuck me, is that what time it is?” Manny sat up far too quickly. His head fell forward, his eyes nearly vacated the premises, his stomach lurched and his toes curled as a shooting pain passed through his body like a wave of radiation.
“Have a fucking heart, Lord. I know I’ve misbehaved but the punishment does not fit the crime.”
He laid back down, but that only made things worse. As he tried to leave the bed, his foot became caught in a sheet and instead of disentangling he simply dragged the whole thing with him to the bathroom, where he faced the sink and dry-heaved for what felt like forever, leaving his stomach muscles tender, as if they had been put through a mincer.
Manny fell to the floor. “What the fuck did I do?”
Despite the sun shining through the bathroom window he still felt cold and shivery.