Page 111 of Silent Scream

As Kim descended the eight feet on the other side she thought that with any luck Richard Croft was listening to music too far away from the intercom to hear it. Or that the hi-tech entry system was broken and he was on his way down the drive to let them in. She preferred mildly annoyed to dead.

She ran up the drive, her legs noticing an incline that had not been evident in the car. As she approached the property she saw no signs of activity.

Simultaneously she banged on the door and rang the bell. She stepped back to see where the CCTV cameras were pointed. One was aimed at the front gate and the other at the damn cars. Nothing covered the rear of the house.

‘Keep knocking,’ she instructed Bryant who had caught up with her and appeared to be intact.

She ran around the side of the house and stumbled over a shovel that had been leaning against the wall.

She felt the crunch underfoot before she saw the broken glass panel.

She screamed Bryant’s name at the top of her voice. He appeared from the other side.

The entrance door to the orangery that ran the length of the house had been smashed.

She almost stepped into the house but paused before she put her foot down.

‘Follow me,’ she said, running back to the front of the property. En route she grabbed the shovel over which she’d stumbled.

She handed it to Bryant. ‘Break that window. I don’t want that back door contaminated before SOCO gets here.’

Bryant stood as far back as he could and swung the shovel. The panel crashed through on impact.

Kim picked up a brick to smash the jagged edge pieces to make the opening safe to enter.

She stood on the terracotta planter and leaned on Bryant’s shoulder for support. Her foot found a solid object beneath the window. She put her weight on it and it held. Only when she was inside did she see that it was an antique writing bureau and that she’d entered through the study.

Once on solid ground, she held out her hand to steady Bryant as he followed her through. The heavy oak door led them into the foyer. She turned left as Bryant headed up the stairs. The next room she entered was the lounge which she recognised from their last visit. She surveyed it quickly.

‘Lounge, clear,’ she called as she once again entered the foyer. She heard Bryant’s call that the master bedroom was clear.

She entered the door to the library and stopped dead.

Lying prostate in the middle of the rug was the figure of Richard Croft, an eight inch kitchen knife stuck in his back.

Kim called Bryant and then knelt down, careful not to touch anything. The pool of blood had soaked into the carpet either side of him.

Bryant appeared beside her. ‘Bloody hell.’

Kim put two fingers to his neck. ‘He’s still alive.’

Bryant took out his mobile phone and called for an ambulance.

Kim went searching for the intercom receiver and found it mounted to the wall beside an oversize Smeg freezer.

She pressed the release button and watched the monitor as the wrought iron gate began to move across.

She noted that the house alarm was not set. Kim marvelled at how people used intruder alarms for the protection of possessions when absent from the home. But not the preservation of life when old colleagues were dying at an unnatural rate.

She shook her head, ran to the front door and threw it open.

The paramedics now had access straight into the building.

She jogged around the side of the house and stopped six feet away from the point of entry. She turned and surveyed the rear garden. On first inspection she could see no obvious points of vulnerability. The back of the property was enclosed not by a wall, but a six-foot-high fence. Decorative trellis increased that height another foot and a half. All of the panels appeared intact.

‘Okay, you bastard, if you didn’t come over it you must have come through.’

Starting at the top panel, Kim walked the left hand side, pushing on each fence panel in turn. The posts were wooden but sturdy and all the panels down the left were uncluttered with shrubs. A low level herb garden ran alongside it. An intruder attempting entry through any of the side panels would have been immediately exposed to anyone at the rear of the house.