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

kill Snell, they needed an alibi. They were in London, shopping and eating out. CCTV everywhere. Helena called on her cousin. In return for a promise of a large pay day. And I was already involved, Hugo wanted me to corrupt evidence, or remove it altogether,” Amanda smiled. “Kerchenko was all for tying them up. He would have to take the shot, of course, and I would have to spot the bullet strikes and guide him in towards Snell.”

“But why kill the entire family?”

Amanda stroked Caroline’s cheek with the back of her hand. “Does that make you sad?”

“Of course it does!”

“Flesh, muscle, fat and bone. That’s all we are.”

“And feelings and emotion! Love, anger and kindness! Not to mention, unfulfilled potential.” Caroline shook her head. “You could have tied them up! You could have tied the boy up!”

“We were going to. But the man turned on Kerchenko and they got into a fight. He was mad and scared and fighting for his life. He took Kerchenko by surprise. I was carrying the rifle and I hit him in the face with the buttstock. When he went down, Kerchenko got out his pistol and aimed it at him and the man gave up. Then he lunged at Kerchenko when he thought he was off guard and Kerchenko shot him in the head.”

“And the wife?”

Amanda looked to the floor. “Kerchenko handed me his pistol and told me to do it. He wanted us both committed. He didn’t want to be the only one with blood on his hands.” She looked back into Caroline’s eyes. “And I did it,” she said. “I aimed the pistol at her head, saw the tears in her eyes, heard the please escape her lips, and I ended her life. Just like that.”

Caroline leaned forward. “It’s not too late, Amanda. We can blame it all on Kerchenko and you can let me go. I’ll tell them how you were coerced into going along with their plan, falsifying the pathology evidence.”

Amanda smiled. “Oh, you just don’t get it, do you? I think the moment I killed that woman was one of the best experiences of my life. I felt… free. Finally! Like, I’d lived my entire life to rules and expectation, but released my entire repressed soul in that one act. I went straight into that little boy’s room and I suffocated him. God, you should have seen the look in his eyes, like that moment was everything to him. As if nothing he had experienced in his life had truly mattered up until that moment. We shared something special, something infinite. Something truly unique. After that, I wanted to take the shot, but Kerchenko wouldn’t let me. The rifle had been zeroed. Viktor knew the exact distance and had used a laser range-finder and maps to get the range, and zeroed the rifle on a table with a vice. He’d taken his time, used a lot of ammunition on Bodmin Moor to get the rifle perfectly set up for the shot. Kerchenko was an experienced marksman in the military, but he still took three shots to hit Snell’s corpse.”               “You’re sick!” Caroline shook her head. “That poor family.”

“God, it gave me a taste for it,” she said emphatically. “Kerchenko gave me the incendiary device to plant in your cottage. I couldn’t wait to go along with that. I used the excuse of visiting your bathroom, but I planted the device in your bedroom. I also planted the tracker Kerchenko gave me in King’s travel bag. A cut with a scalpel, a few expert stitches and Plan-B was instigated, and all the while, super-agent downstairs was oblivious. Your sanctimonious boyfriend thought I was drunk, but I was pouring it down the sink, into the fireplace, behind the sofa. Everywhere! Acting like a drunken little floosy, and the entire time, he’s shitting himself because he’s got this unstable, and dare I say, desirable, woman fast getting out of control in his house, while his little woman is none-the-wiser!” She laughed, patted Caroline on the cheek and stood up. “I drove away, but only so he would follow. He’s a noble man, but that’s not practical in his line of work. I see it as a flaw. Because if he hadn’t chased after me, in my supposed drunken state, he wouldn’t have driven back into Kerchenko’s ambush.”

“It didn’t do Kerchenko much good though, did it?” Caroline retorted.

Amanda smiled. “Fair enough. But I was the one who pressed the detonator on your lovely cottage. Shame I missed King. But the tracker fooled him, and we would always get another chance. God, imagine if I’d killed him with that blast? I would love to be here, looking into those doe-like eyes of yours and telling you how he died. How he burned and screamed his way into hell.”

Caroline scoffed. “It will take a better person than you,” she paused. “You know? You’re not that great. You didn’t move the two missed bullets from the scene. Forget that? Or was Alex too quick for you, too thorough?”

Amanda laughed. “Well, I think from what I saw of his work, he got lucky.”

“He switched reports, or at least had them switched.”

“What reports?” she asked, incredulously.

“Snell’s medical report. His entire medical history.”

“So, what?”

“Ian Snell was a diabetic. King suspected he had to be more than merely asleep with a gun like a three-three-eight going off across the valley. He suspected he was unconscious, or dead already.”

“Rubbish!” Amanda looked uncertain, but she knew there was no way that her findings could look anything but fraudulent now.

“I can’t remember the medical name for it, but it was a diabetic coma, and massive organ failure that finished Snell,” she paused. “But you knew that. You just didn’t want anybody else to know that. And now that you have completed your autopsy with no mention of his condition,