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

He didn’t check the other rooms. He already knew how this had played out. He holstered the revolver. It was a short-barrelled, or snub-nosed .357 magnum. Six shots, no safety catch, no jams or stoppages, fixed sights, huge stopping-power. He had cut down the hammer and filed it smooth, so that there was nothing to snag on the draw. It meant the weapon could not be cocked and would require a full trigger pull, but he had re-sprung and worked on the trigger springs and mechanism too. He had also removed the standard burred walnut grips and fitted Pachmayr textured rubber custom grips instead. It was technically old fashioned in appearance, but in recent years he had found an affinity with simple, fool-proof equipment. All he wanted was for it to work first time, every time. He expected it of a pen, absolutely required it of a weapon.

He scanned the landing. There was a large porthole framing the California house, with glimpses of the sea beyond. He was surprised it had not been stained out. Or bricked up altogether. Ahead of him was a child’s bedroom. A Keep Out! sign with the child’s name emblazoned on it. Liam.

Liam would have been about ten years old. He lay with his hands by his sides and his eyes closed. He looked peaceful, and King hoped it had been a quick end to an old too short life. He walked into the room and surveyed the scene. The curtains had been pulled back, the window closed. He suspected the shooter had done this, he would have known how long he had to wait, no sense in leaving the curtains drawn closed and arousing suspicion. Neighbours would have been few and far between around here, but they would always notice the apparently insignificant details. Like curtains drawn closed on a work and school day.

There was no blood. Not that King could see. He bent down closer and inspected what he could see without touching. There was bruising around the top lip and on the tip of the boy’s nose. King got even closer and looked at the point under the chin. Bruised, like a thumb-print. He could picture it happening; the index and middle fingers pinching the nose, the curled finger tips clasped over the boy’s mouth, knuckles pressing into the top lip, the thumb under the chin keeping the mouth shut. A classic method of suffocation using just one hand, and one used by the notorious Victorian serial killers Burke and Hare. Like them, maybe, the shooter had sat on the boy’s chest while he had done it. Most probably. Not only to stop the struggle, but to hamper the lungs from working effectively, speed the up procedure.

King straightened up. It had been a cold and calculated killing. On the face of it, little drama. But not for Liam. No, depending on whether he had snatched a breath beforehand, death would have taken at least three-minutes. That’s what he had learned from a lifetime around death. The rule of three. Like a Fibonacci number sequence. Three months without food, three days without water, three minutes without air or inflicted with an arterial bleed, or three seconds for massive brain trauma or severing the spinal cord.

So, Liam had been dealt three minutes. Three whole minutes of confusion, fear and bewilderment. And finally, acceptance. It would have been silent from outside the room. The grizzly act undetected.

Silent.

So, was he killed first? Or had the shooter ended the boy’s life once his parents had been taken care of? It mattered. Because either way, it told King something about the person behind the rifle.

6

Three weeks, two days earlier

Social media announcement

Anarchy to Recreate $ociety

We are overwhelmed that we have passed the one-million likes mark. We know how you feel, how you are as shocked as ourselves that five people are worth the same as the poorest 65% of the planet’s population. How can this be? How can we have created a world where people are richer than entire countries? That a day’s interest on their money could build a residential estate, a comprehensive school or a homeless shelter? That a week’s interest on their fortune could build a hospital? Feed thousands of people for a year? Did you know that the wealthiest fifty people own more than three-hundred homes around the globe? That fifty of those homes have not had a single residency in two years? Eight super yachts, each costing upwards of one-hundred million dollars have remained in port for more than three-years. The fuel in them alone would heat and power six-thousand UK or Northern US homes for a year. If tax avoidance over the past five-years by the wealthiest twenty people were to be paid, it would wipe out the national debt of the eight poorest countries within the EU. It would put the British National Health Service into the black and run at a 20% profit for the next twenty-five years. Enough! The multi-billionaires at the top, the five individuals who are worth 65% of the world’s poorest people need to pay! They need to pay now!

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7

King bypassed the next room, he could see it was a bathroom. The door was ajar. There were few rooms and it was at odds with the size of the house, but then he worked it out. The upstairs was serviced by two staircases. Either it had been split into two separate properties, and that was still the case, or it had reverted to one and no access remained from the second floor. Perhaps it had been to house to parts of the same family. Like grandparents on one side and their children, complete with their offspring on the other. Or maybe they rented