Lost - Michael Robotham [14]
“Why would someone shoot you?” asks Joe.
“Perhaps we had a falling out or …”
“Or what?”
“It was a mopping-up operation. We haven’t found any bodies. Maybe we’re not supposed to.”
Christ, this is frustrating! I want to reach into my skull and press my fingers into the gray porridge until I feel the key that’s hidden there.
“I want to see the boat.”
“It’s at Wapping, Sir,” replies the sergeant.
“Make it so.”
He spins the wheel casually and accelerates, creating a wave of spray as the outboard engine dips deep into the water and the bow lifts. Spray clings to Ali’s eyelashes and she holds her flapping hat to her head.
Twenty minutes later, a mile downstream from Tower Bridge, we pull into the headquarters of the Marine Support Unit.
The motor cruiser Charmaine is in dry dock, propped upright on wooden beams and surrounded by scaffolding. At first glance the forty-foot inland cruiser looks immaculate, with a varnished wooden wheelhouse and brass fittings. A closer inspection reveals the shattered portholes and splintered decking. Blue-and-white police tape is threaded around the guardrails and small white evidence flags mark the various bullet holes and other points of interest.
Ali explains how the Charmaine had been reported stolen from Kew Pier in West London fourteen hours after I was found. She rattles off the engine size, range and top speed. She knows I appreciate facts.
A SOCO (scene of crime officer) in white overalls emerges from the wheelhouse and crouches near the stern. Running a tape measure across the deck, she makes a note of the measurement and adjusts a surveyor’s theodolite mounted on a tripod beside her.
Turning, she shields her eyes from the sun behind us, recognizing the sergeant.
“This is DC Kay Simpson,” he says, making the introductions.
Only in her thirties, she has short-cropped blond hair and inquisitive eyes. She keeps staring at me like I’m a ghost.
“So what exactly are you doing now?” I ask, self-consciously.
“Trajectories, impact velocity, yaw angle, the point of aim, distances, margin for error and blood patterns—” She stops in mid-sentence when she realizes that she has left us all behind. “I’m trying to work out how far away the shooter must have been, as well as his elevation and how often he missed his target.”
“He hit me in the leg.”
“Yes, but he could have been aiming at your head.” She adds the word “Sir” as an afterthought, just in case I’m offended. “The shooter used Boat Tail Hollow Point ammunition with a velocity of 2,675 feet per second. They’re not widely available commercially but nowadays you can source almost anything from Eastern Europe.”
A thought occurs to her. “Would you mind helping me, Sir?”
“How?”
“Can you lie on the deck just here?” She points to her feet. “Half on your side, with your legs stretched out, one just crossing the other.” Letting go of my crutches I let her move me into position like an artist’s model.
As she leans over me I get a sudden image of another woman bending to brush her lips against mine. The air twitches and the picture is gone.
DC Simpson takes the tripod and angles it down toward my legs. A bright red beam of light reflects on my trousers above my bandaged thigh.
Pure fear rushes through me and suddenly I’m screaming at her to get down. Everyone! Get down! I remember the red light, a dancing red beam that signaled death. I lay in darkness, doubled over in pain as the beam moved back and forth across the deck, searching for me.
Nobody seems to have noticed me screaming. The sound is inside my head. They’re all listening to the DC.
“The bullet came down from here, entered your thigh here, exited and lodged in the deck. It nudged against your femur and tumbled end-on-end, which is why the exit wound was so large.”
She walks several paces away and uses a tape measure to check the distance between the side rail and another bullet hole. “For years people have debated whether momentum or kinetic energy is the best means of determining the striking power of a bullet. The answer is to merge the two parameters of bodies