The Alex King Series by A BATEMAN (free ebook reader for ipad TXT) 📕

“That’s why,” he said. He fingered a clean slash of four inches or so. “Too clean for an animal to have made. Whether it was one wolf or a pack of wolves. Or even a wolverine,” King paused, looking at Lena. “What you might call a gulu-gulu.” He smiled. He’d done his research, too.

Lena forgot all about the smell and leaned in. She stared at the slash, looked up at King. “That does look like a clean cut…”

King dropped the length of intestine and walked over to the examination table and pulled on a length of paper towel. He wiped his gloved hands and turned back. He wished he could see some of Engelmann’s face under his incredible beard to gain insight to his colour. The doctor’s opinion had been called, but King wasn’t done yet. He looked closely at the thick nylon salopettes, gently ran his fingertips over the material.

“I noticed this,” he said. He circled his finger around a patch of bloodstain. “Here, this looks like a smudge. There are bloodstains all over, but this stood out…” He looked at Engelmann and added, “To me, that is.”

“What is it?” asked Lena.

“Blood,” replied King. “But inside the smear looks like fingertips. There is also thin and equally clean cut as on his intestines. Again, four inches or so in length and barely slicing through the material, but you can see a clean slice through the top weave. There is blood either side of the cut.” He straightened up, removed the gloves and tossed them at Engelmann’s feet. The bin was just as near, but he thought the man deserved to be rattled. “I think, or rather, I’m convinced that Fitzpatrick was gutted wide open and left for the wolves. That slash in his guts would denote that.” He pointed at the smear and the thin slice in the material of the man’s snow trousers. “Whoever did it then their hand and the blade clean. One way, and then the other. Most hunting knives are sharpened and honed on a stone and do not have an equal edge. The blade leans, ever-so-slightly, to one side or the other. The person wiped one way, then the other and the knife edge just kissed the material enough to cut through part of the weave. Not all the way through. The blood smears from thick, through to thin. The marking is unnatural, but the cut in the material confirms that he was killed, murdered.” He looked back at Engelmann. “I’m surprised you missed that, doctor.”

King turned back to the cadaver. The left hand was missing, the flesh taken clean off the bone all the way up to the elbow. The right hand was intact, although the wolves had chewed most of the way through the thicker parts of the meat and stripped most of the bicep away. Survival was about taking the easiest option, and animals were masters of survival. Fitzpatrick had been disembowelled and that had opened the store cupboard. The animals had taken the pungent and malleable internal organs. Rich in minerals and calories with little effort expelled. The torso was soft and there was plenty to eat without working through bones. King could picture the scene, the carnage. He just hoped the MI6 man had been dead before the animals had started feeding. He studied the intact hand. He could see the frostbite on the fingers, the broken nails. He suspected how that had happened, but he decided not to divulge anything more.

“I… I must have been taken in by the severity of the trauma,” Engelmann said quietly.

King stared at him for a few seconds before answering. His stare was as cold as the temperature outside, his eyes glacier blue and unnerving. “Yes, that must have been it,” he said coldly.

10

“So, have you ridden a snowmobile before?”

Like so much in his life, King had to think. He had compartmentalised much of his existence, put incidents to bed far too often. He shook his head, still unsure. Better to get a briefing anyway.

“Forget anything you’ve ridden or driven before,” she paused, doing her utmost to supress a smile. “These things are on another level for acceleration.”

King studied the machine in front of him. He decided he hadn’t ridden a snowmobile. But he had ridden plenty of quadbikes, a couple of fast motorcycles and even driven a Jaguar F-Type. The supercharged one. He was quietly confident.

“Fully automatic,” she said. “Neutral select here, press it before you start and when you stop. Accelerator here, or what some people call the throttle. It revs like a chainsaw, so no gears.” She indicated a thumb lever. “No front brake as there is on a motorcycle, but the left one is a brake to the belt-drive, and it’s severe. Because of the traction of the snow, as soon as you take your thumb off the throttle, the machine will slow dramatically. The brake will be like dropping an anchor.”

King had already sussed the controls. Similar in layout and function to the last quadbike he had ridden except for the front brake lever. He had already looked at the starter button and like most utilitarian machines, there was an idiot instructional block of pictures stuck to the frame.

“I’ll do my best to keep an eye on you, but take note if you see me do this…” She held up a fist. “That means I’m stopping suddenly. The lake is wide, and we will avoid the islands, but you might still want to ride in my tracks, as the going will be easier.”

King nodded. “I think I’ll be okay,” he said confidently, if with a little arrogance.

Lena shouldered the sling of the Tikka hunting rifle. It was made of polymer composite and the barrel and bolt were stainless-steel. No outer cleaning or maintenance