Read Rules of Vengeance for Free Online

thought.
    No matter how committed jumpers were, they nearly always raised their hands to break their fall. The survival instinct was difficult to master. For Russell’s watch to have struck the stairs in that fashion, his arms would have had to have been relaxed, possibly hanging at his side. It crossed her mind that Russell might have been sitting on the balcony railing and somehow fallen asleep. Instances of drunken students falling from their college windows after dozing off were common enough.
    She ran the notion past Cleak. He shook his head, as if she were daft. “Look at the railing. Barely wide enough to set an elbow on.”
    “Yeah, you’re probably right.” Kate returned her attention to the body. It was then that she noted a prominent bump on the crown of Russell’s head. She parted his thick blond hair. The scalp bulged as if a golf ball had been inserted beneath the skin. In a moment her eyes traveled from Russell’s shattered Rolex to the balcony and back to the grotesque lump on the dead man’s scalp. It was obvious that at some point, either during or prior to the fall, Robert Russell had been hit on the head.
    “Interesting,” she whispered, almost to herself.
    “Excuse me, boss?” said Cleak.
    “There’s nothing below Russell’s balcony. I mean no terrace, no window box, nothing.”
    “And so?”
    “Gather up Lord Russell’s belongings,” said Kate, no longer whispering, but speaking clearly in the competent voice of a senior homicide investigator. “We’ll need his wallet and his phone. And be sure to check all his pockets. Catalogue everything. I don’t care if it’s a used hankie. Next, find all CCTV cameras within fifty meters. I’m sure there’s one somewhere along the street that was trained on the stairs. Check the park, too. I know it was dark, but maybe the boys in the lab can find something. Put the doormen into separate rooms. I’ll want a word. Oh, and get on to the alarm company. Find out what time Russell came home last night. And I mean to the minute.”
    “Yes, boss.”
    Kate stood and peeled off her gloves. “I’m officially declaring this a crime scene.”
     
     
     

Chapter    5
     
     
       “Hands in your pockets, ladies and gentlemen.”
    Kate Ford opened the door to Lord Robert Russell’s flat, followed by Reg Cleak and several members of the forensics squad. She took one look at the high ceilings and the expansive living room with its view of Hyde Park and whistled. “Not bad for a starter flat.”
    “Just a wee bit nicer than Lambeth Walk,” said Cleak with sarcasm.
    “Touch anything and that’s where I’ll send you.” Kate examined the bolt locks embedded in the doorframe. One functioned vertically the other horizontally. A biometric sensor was built into the wall, below an alphanumeric keypad and a video screen to show the faces of whoever was coming to visit. “Who was he trying to keep out?” she asked Cleak. “I’d have thought that three doormen on call day and night and that medieval portcullis downstairs would be sufficient.”
    Cleak pointed to the passive infrared sensor positioned high on one wall. “That’s not all. He has himself a state-of-the-art system inside, too.” Just then his phone rang and he stepped away to take the call. “That was the security company,” he said afterward. “Alarm was set at 1830. No activity reported until Russell returned from his parents’. He disarmed the system at 2:41:39 and turned it back on at 2:41:48.”
    “And he fell before 2:45,” said Kate. “Whatever happened, it happened quickly.”
    They walked into the living room. Kate opened the sliding glass door and stepped onto the balcony. She observed that the railing was slim and metal, certainly too narrow for a man Russell’s size to sit on. With a downward gaze, she confirmed that there was nothing protruding from the building that he might have struck as he plummeted to his death. From her vantage point, it appeared as if