The Borgia Ring Read Free Page A

but Deb was staring straight at her and saw a red circle appear on her forehead. It ran down the side of her nose and Kath flicked a finger at it, mistaking it for sweat. Suddenly Deb stopped dancing and watched in horror as three more red marks appeared on her sister’s cheek. Kath froze and stood dabbing at her face.
    They both looked up at the same moment.
    Three metres above the dance-floor, a large air-vent cover started to come away from its fixings. First, one screwmoved a millimetre. The metal slot into which it fitted yielded a fraction. Another screw began to loosen. The cover yawed open, sheared away from the support bracket and spiralled towards the dance-floor.
    One edge hit a dancer, knocking him to the ground with a fractured shoulder. He collided with a couple close by. They too were sent sprawling. Then a large, soft object slid through the hole in the ceiling and plunged into the fetid air of the club. It landed on the floor with a dull thud that no one heard.
    A dozen people screamed simultaneously, but over the thumping beat and the sizzling computer-generated melody no one could hear the sound. Everyone stopped moving. Hands went to faces, features froze … a dozen Edvard Munchs.
    Kath and Deb were just a few feet away from where the object landed. They saw a blurred shape falling through the air and hitting the ground. More liquid splashed across their faces. Deb touched her cheek and stared uncomprehendingly at her red fingertips. Then, as though a power switch had been tripped, the music stopped. MC Jumbo lurched away from his deck and wobbled down on to the eerily silent dance-floor.
    Deb had started to shake, her fingers held up in front of her terror-stricken face.
    With remarkable calm, Jumbo crouched down and rolled over the huddled object. They could all see its smashed face, the hair matted with dried blood, the white of one eye. Then, as the DJ pulled himself quickly to his feet, another object tumbled from the air-vent and landed next to the body. Jumbo jumped back instinctively, as though nudged by a cattle-prod. Kath screamed. A muddied workman’s boot lay on the floor beside the dead man.

Chief Inspector Jack Pendragon grabbed for the receiver, missed and knocked the phone to the floor along with a glass of water and his alarm clock. He could faintly hear the voice at the other end of the line as he scrambled in the dark to locate the receiver.
    ‘Pendragon,’ he said, trying to sound as together as possible.
    ‘Inspector Grant. I’m sorry to call you so early, sir. Something’s come up.’
    Pendragon rubbed his right eye and switched the phone to his free hand as he inched back up the bed. He glanced at the clock on the floor. The red letters told him it was 3.05 a.m.
    ‘What’s up?’
    ‘Best see for yourself, guv. I’m …’ there was a pause ‘… four minutes from the crime scene.’
    ‘Can you be a bit more precise?’
    ‘A body in a club. Don’t know much else.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Mile End Road. Some sort of bunker behind a jewellery shop called Jangles.’
    ‘Okay. I’ll find it.’
    He ran the shower and waited for the water to warm up. He had only arrived at Brick Lane Police Station the previous evening. His commanding officer, Superintendent Jill Hughes, had shown him around and then gone through theteam’s files with him. He had two inspectors under his command: Rob Grant, twenty-six, hard-working, hard-nosed and tough, a high-flier; and Kenneth Towers, thirty-one, not terribly ambitious, a bit of a plodder. Then there was Jez Turner, one of three sergeants under him and the one assigned as his ‘principal sergeant’. Jez was twenty-two, keen, a bit of a lad, but a promising young cop who would, in theory at least, follow him round like a loyal puppy. But, like all the staff at the station, Sergeant Turner had in fact greeted Pendragon’s arrival with a blend of outward respect and barely disguised scepticism. He knew the score when it came to new