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Kim took a look around the immediate area. It was a bin store and what looked to be the unofficial smoking area. She could see one CCTV camera that was pointing the other way. This was a dark corner, completely out of sight, and the intention was to avoid the camera. She knew the uniforms would already be requesting a CCTV check from the control room.
‘Number of wounds?’ she asked, looking back at the victim, who appeared to be growing younger by the minute. He was little more than a child.
‘Nine, I think. I’ll let you know for certain once I get him back. Less stabs but more violent by the looks of it.’
Judging by the amount of blood, she thought so too. Just like Sandra, Azim’s hands were covered in blood where he had clutched his wounds. A couple of light nicks of the blade had caught his right forearm, indicating that he had tried to fight back. And exactly like Sandra, his mouth had been slashed into a gaping hole across his face. The rage was growing inside her. There was no such thing as a good victim but this was a lad barely out of school.
What the hell could he have done to have deserved this?
‘Only turned nineteen last week, guv,’ Bryant said, appearing beside her with his notebook open.
Seemed to her they’d gone down the wrong line with Sandra’s work and her murder had nothing to do with her being a psychic at all. This boy had either been attacked by a random knife bandit who was killing indiscriminately, or they were linked for some other reason.
‘Sergeant Lewis has been despatched to inform the parents. Address supplied by the boy’s boss over there,’ Bryant said.
‘Who would want this kid dead?’ Kim asked, struggling to make sense of it.
‘He’s a decent guy, guv, according to his boss. He’s respectful, polite, hard-working. He’d finished working a night shift and was having a smoke before getting in the car; his brother’s car. Family doesn’t know he smokes.’
‘What time did he finish?’
‘Seven this morning. His day shift boss came over here for a mid-morning cig and discovered him. She’s in a pretty bad way and not a speck of blood on her.’
Looking at the scene before her, Kim knew that was a total impossibility if she’d had anything to do with it.
‘Jeez, Bryant, why?’ she asked, shaking her head.
‘Well, guv, it might be linked to his job. Azim worked on the second floor. It’s a call centre.’
‘And?’ she asked, waiting for the punchline.
‘It’s a hotline,’ he explained. ‘A psychic hotline.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
It was twenty minutes later that Kim and Bryant mounted the steps to the second floor of Bridge House and the premises of the psychic hotline. They’d given Azim’s manager a little time to get herself together before asking her any further questions.
A petite blonde woman was waiting to keycode them in to the office space.
‘I’m Helen Leonard. Marina’s out back and not really in any fit state to talk. Her husband is on his way to pick her up. I hope that’s okay.’
Bryant had made sure they had her details for any follow-up, but Kim didn’t think the woman had witnessed anything that would help them. The killer had been long gone when she’d discovered Azim’s body. This conversation was to establish if they could identify the young man’s killer another way. Although she didn’t want to be talking to someone who knew Azim only as a person at a desk.
‘You knew Azim well?’
She nodded. ‘I was his direct supervisor for almost a year before my promotion.’
‘That’s fine,’ Kim said.
‘Do you mind if we talk here?’ Helen asked, guiding them over to a horseshoe-shaped sofa placed around a couple of coffee tables. ‘Everyone is unsettled enough without me walking you through.’
Kim nodded her agreement and took a seat which gave her a full view of the phone floor.
She could see five rows with seven or eight desks to each row. Less than half seemed to be occupied.
‘Our quiet time,’ Helen said, following her gaze.
‘There’s a busy time?’ Bryant asked.
