The Alex King Series A BATEMAN (summer reading list txt) 📖

There was a moan further down the tunnel and King said, “These people aren’t going anywhere,” he paused, looking at both Caroline and Stewart. “Let’s see if we can help.” He pushed past them both and said, “Come on!”

Three rooms down on the left part of the tunnel had given way. The entrance was pinning a woman down in the doorway. Her husband was trying to move the block of ice. He looked up and his face said it all.

“Oh, thank god!” he said. “Here, help me with this…”

King looked at the woman on the floor, then back at Caroline. He didn’t know quite what to say. Caroline took the lead and stepped into the room, put her arm around the man’s shoulder.

“She’s gone,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry…”

The man had clearly been unable to accept the obvious, given the woman’s head injuries, but he seemed able to comprehend Caroline’s words and her sympathetic tone.

“Come on,” she said, easing him around his wife’s body and both King and Stewart, who both appeared awkward and uncertain what to do next. “They’ll take good care of her. Let’s get you back into the warm and see to your injuries…”

The man did not seem to be aware of his bleeding forehead, or that his right shoulder looked considerably lower than his left. Whether it had been damaged in the ice fall, or whether he had dislocated it trying to lift the slab of ice would be unclear, but Caroline could see that he had just realised, and the pain was kicking in. He was about to follow, then fell to his knees and kissed his wife on the cheek. He whispered something to her, then allowed Caroline to guide him to his feet and walk with her down the ice tunnel.

King stared at the woman’s body. He did not see her. His mind full of images of a note on the kitchen table, his sullen footsteps up a rickety staircase, the longest walk he’d ever taken. Ten paces that seemed an eternity. His wife’s body slumped on the bed, lifeless and the smell of death in the air.

“Come on,” Stewart said. He bent down and gave the woman’s legs an almighty heave. “Ease the ice off her and I’ll yank her out…”

King wanted to stop him, show more respect, but found himself heaving on the ice until the body pulled clear and Stewart stumbled back against the ice wall. He let go of her legs and stood up, breathless.

King tidied the woman’s limbs and gently closed her eyelids. Despite the massive head trauma, she looked at peace. He stood up, covered her with one of the animal skins, and said, “Let’s get back to that room and see what delights await us there.”

They stood in the doorway and stared at both pairs of legs under the slab of ice.

King took a deep breath, sighed and said to Stewart, “Here, help me with the other end.” He walked around the plinth which acted as a bed and caught hold of a corner.

Stewart stood opposite and heaved in time. The slab slid off enough to reveal the faces of the couple. They looked as if they had died sleeping. Whatever the case, death had been instantaneous. Their bodies were crushed flat.

“Oh, no,” Caroline said quietly. They looked up as she spoke, then turned back to the macabre sight. “It’s the couple we met as we left the tunnel.” She looked at them, deathly still and silent. She noticed the resemblance the woman had to her own features. The dirty-blonde hair, a similar age. The man was tall and powerfully built. Much like King. His hair was brown and short. Not flecked with a hint of salt and pepper like King’s, but close enough. “Oh, no,” she said again.

“What?” King asked tersely. He remembered how rude he had been, barging past them in his haste to discover who had been spying on them.

“I think they were mistaken for us,” she replied quietly. “Look at the woman,” she said. “And we were in this very room only hours before, when someone had been watching…” she stopped herself from saying more and looked at Stewart. “You were coming up the steps,” she said.

“When?” he asked, his tone hostile.

“Earlier this evening,” she said.

“I went out for a mulled wine and a chance to see the Northern Lights,” he replied.

“Convenient.”

Stewart took a step forward. “Watch your mouth, young lady. Maybe somebody needs to shut it for you!”

“And it will be the last thing you ever do,” said King from behind him, his tone low and menacing.

Stewart looked at them both, shook his head incredulously and said, “Forget it.” He barged past Caroline and stormed off into the tunnel.

The two Russian men entered carrying a shovel and an iron bar. The manager followed, he was wrapped up from head to toe and carried a camera and a clipboard.

“We are recording what we see,” he said. “For the coroner, when he can get up here. In the meantime, we will seal off one of the undamaged rooms and use it as a morgue,” he said quietly. “It is cold enough, obviously.”

“Too cold,” said Caroline. “The bodies have to be cold, but not frozen. It will corrupt the results.”

King touched her on the shoulder. “It will be okay, love,” he said. “I think the results will be cut and dry.” He walked back over to the slab and crouched down, then turned back to the manager. “Here, take some photographs of this.” He pointed to a blackened area, peppered with hexagonal pieces of metal. “These pieces are shrapnel. They are the outer casing parts of a pineapple fragmentation grenade. Russian specification, I suspect.” He stared at both Russians, but they clearly couldn’t care less. They were as indifferent to him as his aspersions.

The manager