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‘No closer than five metres,’ Keats called over.
‘Overkill maybe?’ Penn asked bravely. It was like a scene from the filmContagion.
Keats fixed him with a hard stare that was obvious despite the respirator. ‘My apologies, Doctor Penn. Clearly, you’ve identified the toxins in the man’s body and have determined that it’s nothing that will vaporise and poison us once we make incisions into the flesh. Please explain why you haven’t shared this knowledge and saved us all this bother.’
Two words. He’d only uttered two words and now he felt like a primary school kid who’d misspelled a word he should have known.
‘Sorry, Keats, never done this before,’ he muttered, trying to get himself out of the naughty corner.
‘Then it’s a good job I have,’ Keats said, turning back to the body.
Penn hadn’t considered that whatever had killed Eric Gould might be waiting to wreak further havoc, and he was kind of relieved that Keats had forced him to take the necessary precautions. He couldn’t afford to be so blasé about his own well-being. He had Jasper to think of. He also now had Lynne in his life, and his current concerns in that department were another story completely.
‘As you can see, Penn, we’re going to be doing this one a little differently. Only the four of us will be allowed in the room. If anything needs to leave, it will be transported by Andy, who will remain clean of any potential splashes or spillages. All equipment will remain on the tray or in my hand. Jimmy will hand me anything I need or move anything that’s in my way. You will not step forward, and if I tell you to leave, you’ll do so immediately. Understood?’
‘Absolutely. Am I allowed to ask questions?’
‘Of course.’
‘Do you have any idea what you’re looking for?’
‘Not at all. It may be nothing, but since Litvinenko was poisoned by the Russians in 2006 with a radioactive compound, we have to be as careful as we can be.’
‘Was he injected?’ Penn asked. He knew the name but he couldn’t remember the exact circumstances.
Keats shook his head as he removed the sheet covering Eric’s body. ‘It was administered in a cup of tea. Equally as creative was the attempted murder of the Skripals in 2018 with the nerve agent Novichok.’
‘Perfume bottle?’ Penn said. He’d watched documentaries.
Keats nodded.
‘You think the Russians killed Eric?’ Penn asked with a smile.
‘I’m ruling nothing out at this point.’
‘Why the elaborate methods though? The tea, the perfume bottle. Why not a simple injection?’
‘The people sent to murder the victims I’ve mentioned had no connection to them. They were hired killers, paid to do a job. There was self-preservation in not getting too close or being recognised by witnesses. Injecting someone is both risky and personal. It’s like stabbing. It requires an intimacy, a desire for physical contact, maybe even a need for recognition, like wanting the person to know it was you. I’m no psychologist, but in this case, it feels like our killer wanted Eric to see him.’
Penn pondered that thought while Keats began his external examination of the body. Eric wasn’t a small guy. He would have taken some overpowering to be made to do something he didn’t want to do. Unless he knew the person who’d caused his death.
He continued to watch as Keats meticulously searched the body literally one inch at a time. He motioned for Jimmy to assist him with turning Eric very slightly onto his side. He bent in closer with the magnifying glass focussed on the left hip.
‘Got it,’ Keats said, turning his way. ‘Puncture wound in the left thigh. So now we know how it got there, we need to find out exactly what “it” is.’
‘May I?’ Penn asked, motioning towards the door.
Keats nodded. ‘Andy will assist.’
Most times Penn stayed for the whole event, but he needed to contact the boss and he couldn’t do that while he was tied up like an Egyptian mummy.
She would want to know that Eric’s death had been confirmed as murder and possibly by someone he most likely knew.
EIGHT
‘So, what’s up?’ Bryant asked, driving into the car park.
They’d only travelled a mile from Teresa Fox’s home when Kim had asked him to pull into the McDonald’s.
