Fallen Angel Read Free Page B

border of the crime scene and watched closely as the three series BMW pulled up close to where he stood. He only got as far as ‘You can’t park there, miss …’ before Stacey Collins flashed her ID in his face.
    ‘DI Collins, I’m the SIO for this case.’ The young man immediately stepped aside and lifted the tape, allowing her to pass underneath. As she walked along the path towards the church, she secretly prayed that she’d been given the wrong information. But even in this house of God her prayers were not about to be answered.
    The first thing that struck her was the smell: a mixture of blood, vomit and death. In seventeen years of policing she had never witnessed a scene like the one that now unfolded before her eyes. Up in the gloom of the rafters was a sight she knew she would never forget: the body of a young boy.
    It wasn’t just the poor child’s youth; it was the look in his eyes – that of terror personified.
    Perhaps it was the environs of the church and the mythological images on the stained-glass window that made the DI remember a book her parents had when she was a child. It had shown pictures of the nine circles of hell. The looks on the faces of the tortured souls hadbeen so distressing to her that she used to insist on checking that the book was closed and safely hidden away before her lights were turned out at night. The same look was on this poor dead boy’s face – exaggerated fear, a hideous caricature. She knew she would not be able to describe it to anyone who hadn’t seen it, nor would she want to. Some things shouldn’t be shared.
    With her eyes, she followed the line of the rope that was attached around the boy’s neck. From the ceiling rafters, it went down on a diagonal to the end of one of the heavy wooden pews on the left-hand side of the church, where it seemed to be tied in a firm knot.
    The pews to her left were soiled with vomit, and the sound of a man’s pitiful sobs, coming from a room adjacent to the altar, echoed around the church walls. She assumed both came from the priest who had found the body. She looked above the altar at an ornate statue of the Madonna, her hand held forward in a gesture of benediction, her gaze beatific. To Collins, it somehow seemed gruesome.
    The fire brigade were quietly erecting a scaffolding tower around the body in preparation for lifting it down, but nothing could be done until the forensic scientist and his team of SOCOs, along with the pathologist, finished their initial examinations. There were still procedures to be followed, even in such difficult circumstances.
    ‘DI Collins? What are you doing here?’
    Collins turned around to see DCI Colin Blackwell moving towards her.
    ‘I was on call.’
    Blackwell’s face fell a little. ‘I was told Watson was on call.’
    ‘He was supposed to be, but he’s ill so I took his slot. Is there a problem?’
    ‘No. Of course not. I need to give you some background on the victim.’ His voice had a tone of disappointment in it that he couldn’t hide.
    ‘You know who this is?’
    Blackwell nodded and began to relate the events of the last few days, doing his best to avoid eye contact with the junior officer.
    Blackwell and Collins had run into each other a few times over the years, and there was little love lost between them. She was well known in certain circles of the Met but not well liked. Blackwell had first heard about her through an old colleague, DCI Sean Baxter, who had spilled the beans about her after a few pints. He was at his wits’ end. She was insubordinate and a loose cannon without any thought for proper procedure or authority. But his hands had been tied: the DCS insisted that she should have a free hand, as long she continued to get results – which she did with astonishing regularity. Baxter knew that one day she would go too far, and that when she did, she would inevitably take good officers down with her.
    They were three pints down when Baxter’s tongue started to