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

It wasn’t a moment he wanted to interrupt, nor be a voyeur to, but a man had died here yesterday, and he had been tasked with investigating before news of it got out. Amanda looked at him and he shrugged. “You go back downstairs, and I’ll go and look.”

“You can’t!” she exclaimed. This time a little too loudly. The noises stopped altogether.

King glared his annoyance at her, then turned towards the door at the end of the landing. He imagined a couple, frozen in embrace, daring not breathe or speak for fear of drowning out further noise like the one they’d just heard. That was exactly what he found as he paced across the landing and pushed the door open. But for only a fraction of a second, because the man was off and up in an instant and bounding towards King with the toughest and most ruthless of expressions upon his face. King backed up, took the pistol out from his waistband and almost got it aimed, but the man was both quick and skilled and was already too far into disarming him for King to resist and fall fowl of an arm restraint. Instead, he let go of the weapon and barged the door into the side of the man’s head using his shoulder. He followed with a kick to the man’s groin. The man was naked and bore the brunt of the blow, but doubled up fast absorbing it, bringing his left hand around in a blow that caught King on the brow. King was surprised how fast and skilled the man was, and what started as drawing the weapon to threaten and stop the man in his tracks had turned into a fight for survival. This man wasn’t going to back off now with a few choice words. King dropped low, kicked out and caught the man’s kneecap. He yelped and favoured his leg, but he was closer to the pistol on the floor than King was, and he was already reaching towards it. King already knew that the man would know what to do with it if he gained possession and he dived forwards, over the man and into a roll. The man reached the weapon and was aiming it at the empty space to his right. It wasn’t a smooth motion to bring the pistol back around another one-hundred and eighty degrees and it bought King a split second. He rolled backwards, both knees coming back down either side of the man’s shoulder blades and pinning his arms to the floor. The man still had the weapon, but King was already sending his second punch into the back of the man’s skull. It was only when the man’s face dropped to the floor and he rested still that King could hear the woman behind him screaming. He picked up the pistol and rolled back onto his heels. She was pulling the bedsheets up to cover her breasts and launching into a tirade of abuse.

King tucked the weapon back into his waistband and looked at her. He understood Russian, enough to know his parentage had been brought into question. He shrugged it off. It meant nothing. He’d gone most of his life being called a bastard, the people not knowing how true it was, or that he even cared. He smiled at the woman in front of him. Dark hair, long and straight, eyes as dark as jet. Her skin was pale, and her features were sharp. She was attractive, but not beautiful. She looked predatory. Something animalistic and ruthless about her. Like she got what she wanted and gave very little in return. She was lithe, but had spent some of her husband’s money on cosmetic surgery. He had caught a glimpse of her before the sheet had covered her assets. She had been a dancer before she had met Ian Snell. At least that’s what the file had called it.

“Helena Snell, I presume?” King asked, but he already knew the answer. Formerly Helena Milanovitch, thirty-three and from Kiev. She and Sir Ian Snell met when she was twenty-eight. He was twenty-three years her senior and recently divorced. They had married a year later.

“Who the fuck are you?” she drawled, her accent thick, her tone heavy. “And what the fuck are you doing in my house?”

The man on the floor was coming around. King noticed how muscled and toned he was. He was tattooed too. Military and prison artwork. King took the pistol back out and took another pace away. It had been a tough and unexpected fight. He could tell that the man had experience and feared nothing. But he’d never met King before.

“I’m with the home office,” he said. “I’ve been assigned to Interpol to investigate the recent murders by the terrorist group, Anarchy to Recreate Society.”

“Well you’re too late. He’s dead,” she spat at him. “What kind of investigator are you? A rubbish one, I bet! My husband is dead.” She looked forlorn, like she was holding back tears. “My poor husband!”

“Yeah, I can see you’re all about the grieving,” King said coldly.

“What do you know!” she snapped. “I am sad, I needed company…”

“Get out of bed,” he said. “Your husband’s not even cold yet. Get up, get some clothes on, wake up lover-boy and come down stairs. I want to talk to you both.” He turned around, side stepped the man, who was moaning and starting to roll rhythmically from side to side, and slammed the door shut behind him.

“What the hell?” Amanda asked as King walked towards her.

“The grieving widow,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Less than twenty-hours after Snell was shot, and twelve-hours after she would have been told the news.”

22

Cape Town

South Africa

Ryan Beard had dropped Caroline Darby back at The Victoria and Alfred Hotel. She