Ivory Nation Andy Maslen (best short novels of all time TXT) 📖

our killer was shot through the frontal bone of the skull. The black stippling is gunshot residue, indicating a close-range shot.’

He took a slender transparent plastic wand and inserted the tip into the crater on the top part of the head.

‘The head is, what? Shall we say fifty percent decerebrated?’

‘Sorry, doc, what?’ one of the DIs asked.

‘Tammerlane blew the bloke’s brains out,’ a second detective said.

‘Or half of them, at any rate,’ Mitch said.

The mortician passed him a pair of trauma shears, which he used to cut off the man’s clothing, one garment at a time. He kept up a running commentary for his digital recorder and stepped back periodically to allow the photographer to take pictures. The socks and shoes went last.

When the corpse was naked, Mitch pointed to the thin gold chain and Star of David around the throat. He then indicated the dead man’s circumcised penis.

‘It would appear our assassin was Jewish.’

‘Princess Alexandra made that speech at the pro-Palestinian event last month, didn’t she?’ one of the DIs said. ‘Think it’s connected?’

‘Let’s not jump to conclusions, gentlemen,’ Robinson said. ‘Carry on please, Mitch.’

Mitch nodded and went back to work. After opening the thorax using the traditional Y-incision, he began removing the internal organs one by one. He handed the stomach, a soft, squashy pink bag, to the mortician, who took it to a side-bench and slit it open with a broad-bladed scalpel.

Squeezing it gently, he ejected the contents into a white plastic washing-up bowl.

‘You might want to take a look, Mitch,’ he said.

Mitch peered into the bowl.

‘Interesting. Our man had a meal quite soon before he was killed.’

He moved the tip of a second plastic rod through the remains of the dead man’s last meal. Scattered throughout the sharp-smelling liquid were small fragments of a greenish, brown, grainy substance. Deep fried, to judge from the golden brown coating on the outer edges.

He picked a piece up with a pair of plastic tweezers and brought it up to his nose. He inhaled sharply, in a short, huffing series of breaths.

‘Do you know,’ he said, turning to the detectives, who were wincing and wrinkling their noses, ‘I believe our killer ate falafel for his last meal.’

‘Can you pack up a sample please, doc?’ one of the DIs said. ‘We’ll get Forensics on it, see if it can tell us anything.’

Back at West End Central police station, Robinson re-read the initial report on the killer, which had arrived on her desk while she’d been attending the autopsy. She shook her head. It made no sense.

He’d been carrying an Israeli ID card identifying him as Dov Lieberman. The intel team had worked fast and had come up with CCTV from Heathrow airport showing Lieberman arriving at Terminal 4 the morning of the royal wedding.

Checks with airport security had confirmed that he had arrived on an El Al flight from Tel Aviv.

With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she picked up the phone. As she waited for the MI5 man to answer, she shook her head.

‘Way above my pay grade,’ she muttered.

‘Andrea, what news?’ Jim said.

‘The shooter arrived in the UK from Tel Aviv the morning he killed her. He is – was – an Israeli citizen. A Jew. Name, Dov Lieberman. ID number, 22-9-3-20-9-13.’

‘Shit.’

‘Do you want to contact MI6 or shall I do it?’

‘I think it had better be you. There’s always been a certain,’ he paused, ‘friction between our respective services.’

Robinson next dialled a number in her contacts she had only ever used once before. Her heart was thrumming in her chest. It wasn’t so much she was nervous of speaking to spooks, she’d just rather have been doing something else. Like enduring a root canal. Without anaesthetic.

‘Liaison.’

‘This is Detective Superintendent Andrea Robinson of the Metropolitan Police. Collar number 7609.’

‘Hold, please.’

She could hear a keyboard clicking. A DI put her head around the office door, mouthing ‘coffee’.

‘Please,’ she mouthed back.

The MI6 liaison came back on the line.

‘Yes, Detective Superintendent, how may I help you?’

‘I’m the SIO on the princess’s assassination. The shooter appears to have been an Israeli citizen. We have his ID card.’

‘Name and number, please.’

‘Dov Lieberman. ID number, 22-9-3-20-9-13.’

‘Thank you. I’ll call you back. Please do not investigate him any further until you hear from me.’

She placed her phone on her desk and ran her fingers through her hair.

The DI reappeared bearing a cup of steaming coffee.

‘Thanks, Marie,’ she said, and took a careful sip.

‘Everything all right, guv? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘Just been talking to a spook. That close enough?’

‘About Lieberman?’

‘Yup.’

‘Think they’ll take it off us?’

Robinson blew out her cheeks.

‘I bloody well hope so.’

Her next visitor was the Met’s Director of Forensics.

‘Mark, what have you got for me?’

‘I’m not sure, to be honest. We just got the results back on the G3. We recovered four sets of prints.’

‘Go on,’ she said, sitting forwards and motioning him to sit.

‘Set one: Sarah Furey, the AFO. Set two: the shooter. Set three: Ty Stafford, the SCO19 armourer.’

‘And set four?’

‘That’s the weird thing. A partial, off the underside of the telescopic sight. Not on IDENT1. I’ve sent it to Europol and Interpol and told them it was urgent. But what I can tell you is a fourth person handled that rifle.’

Lieberman’s wasn’t the only autopsy that Mitch handled in the crucial hours after the assassination. He’d also examined Sarah Furey’s body. Cause of death was a massive cut into her throat by a bladed weapon. The blade, he estimated, was four to six inches long, not serrated but extremely sharp. It had severed not only her carotid arteries and jugular veins on both sides but damn-near gone through her spine as well.

8

TEN DAYS LATER

[Official BBC News transcript: 5.57 a.m.]

Dawn Bradley, Political Editor: Mr Tammerlane! Mr Tammerlane! Do you have a few minutes for the BBC?

Joe Tammerlane: Of course, Dawn. What do you want to know?

DB: The obvious question. How does it feel to have come from nowhere to