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had served in the Queen’s Guard years ago. “Standard army issue. Ten bullets in the clip, one in the chamber. Not a lot of range, mind you, but plenty of punch if you use it close in.” He picked up the pistol by its nose and sniffed the barrel. “Hasn’t been fired in a while.”
    “What do you suppose Russell needed one of those for?”
    “Same thing he needed the bolts on the door and the
Star Wars
alarm system for. The man had enemies.”
    “I want to review the apartment’s security videos for the past seventy-two hours. Both interior and exterior. Someone was in this apartment waiting for Russell when he arrived home last night. He didn’t get that bump on the noggin hitting his head on the doorway. There has to be footage of the killer somewhere inside the building.”
    “Yes, boss.”
    “Have the body transferred to the coroner’s office. Tell them I need a preliminary examination completed by lunch. I want to know just how seriously that blow to the head affected him.”
    Cleak nodded, listing each instruction on his notepad. As he did so, he made a not-so-quiet sucking sound. He stopped abruptly, aware that Kate was looking at him. “Two impacted wisdom teeth. Six-month wait to see an NHS dentist, or I can cough up a thousand quid to visit a private doc on Harley Street.” He shook his head. “The wife has her heart set on Christmas in Bethlehem. I’ll have to wait, won’t I?”
    “I can loan you the money. I’m flush. Got Billy’s insurance. Have to spend it on something.”
    “Wouldn’t hear of it,” said Cleak, in a tone that said that was the end of that. He opened a package of chewing gum and folded two sticks into his mouth. “That’ll cure it for a while.”
    Kate nodded, then turned back to Russell’s desk and pulled the keyboard close to her. She hit the return key, thinking that the PC was in slumber mode. No one turned computers off anymore. The screen remained dark. She tried again, then rebooted the CPU. Finally the screen came to life. Dozens of icons indicating various files appeared, but the titles were all gobbledygook: letters, symbols, wingdings. “What’s this, then?” she asked.
    “The hard drive’s been defragmented,” said one of the forensics men. “Mind if I have a go?”
    The tech took Kate’s place and began to tap away at the keys. “Whole thing’s shot. You’ll have to take it to the lab, but even then I don’t think you’ll have much luck.”
    “What about the backup?” asked Kate.
    “It’s ruined, too. Someone did this deliberately. Two independent systems don’t crash on their own. The hard drive’s one thing, but not the backup. If you ask me, I’d say someone ran a very powerful magnet over both drives. It’s like putting all your papers through a shredder at once, except worse. Not only is the stored data ruined, so is the hard drive holding it. Might as well have stuck a grenade inside the computer and set it off.”
    Just then the large flat-screen television built into the wall came to life. Kate looked at the keyboard, wondering if she’d somehow activated it with her typing. “I thought you said it was broken.”
    “Sshh!” said Cleak.
    Activity in the room ground to a halt as all eyes focused on the screen, where a young woman sat in a dimly lit room staring into the camera. She was plain and disheveled, her brown, shoulder-length hair matted and uncombed, and she wore wire-rimmed specs and a black V-neck sweater.
    “What the hell?” Kate looked over her shoulder.
    “It’s a live feed,” said the computer technician. “Coming in off a DSL line. Must be independent of Russell’s rig.”
    “Can she see us?”
    “I don’t know. The rest of Russell’s computer is broken. I imagine that the camera is, too.”
    “Rob, you there?” she said. “It’s seven. I know I’m early, but I had to reach you. Why aren’t you answering your phone?” She looked to her side, then back into the camera. “Are you there? I