James Patterson - Private London

Any evidence could be vital – the merest speck of fabric or mud or blood. Nothing could be taken for granted. The whole scene would be processed, photographed, recorded, analysed. And it all took time.

Some half an hour later the plastic sheet that had once wrapped the body now lay either side of it. The gruesome package opened up like some macabre gift.

Adrian Tuttle moved in closer, the flash mounted on his camera making the bright light intermittently even more glaring as he shot photo after photo. The white skin of the dead woman almost bleached in the flashes.

It was now quite evidently a woman, likely in her early twenties as Doctor Walsh had concurred. Impossible to tell her exact age without proper forensic analysis. But the long dark hair, the exposed pelvic bone, the remains of her breasts that hadn’t been mutilated or cut or simply eaten away, all pointed to the sex of the victim.

A young woman. Taken. Murdered. And left for rodents to feed on in the squalor of a backstreet lock-up.

‘What?’ Chloe Wilson practically shouted the word but she might as well have whispered for all the difference it made.

Loud music still played continuously in the underground student union bar and the noise of it reverberated off the thick walls like a swelling, bouncing wave of sound, making it hard for Chloe to think, let alone hear what her friend was trying to say to her. She had to shout again even more loudly against the music and the raucous conversation that surrounded her. ‘I can’t hear you! What did you say?’ she said, feeling the strain in her throat.

Her friend Hannah leaned in closer, attracting the attention of two young first-year students. Flushed with acne and alcohol, they tried surreptitiously to peek down her low-cut blouse at her ample bosom. Hannah flicked them a finger and put her arm around Chloe’s shoulder. ‘I said it’s my shout, Chloe,’ she said, her accent pure West Coast of America – the rich part of it. ‘Fancy another vodka?’

Chloe took a sip of her half-finished drink and shook her head. She was a little dizzy again. Feeling the heat flash through her face, she put a hand on the cool marble surface of the bar to steady her balance. ‘I need something to eat,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling a little light-headed. Let’s get a pizza first and then hit some bars in Soho.’

‘Good thinking, girlfriend,’ said Hannah. ‘Bunch of goddamned horny schoolboys in here, is all.’

Chloe nodded again, not quite as vigorously this time.

‘I need to pee first, though, honey.’

Chloe watched as Hannah looped her arm through the arm of her other friend, Laura. She dragged her away from a shaggy-haired gangling youth wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches, who was attempting to chat her up, and headed off to the ladies’. Chloe took another small sip of her drink and flapped her hand in front of her face. Christ but it was hot in here, she thought for the hundredth time in the last half-hour. Maybe it wasn’t food she needed, just some fresh air.

‘You all right, love?’

A male voice, friendly enough – but Chloe would have snapped back, telling the guy to get lost. Not in the mood for being chatted up herself. Then she saw that it was just the barman who was speaking to her. A reasonably good-looking guy, she supposed, in his mid-twenties or thereabouts. A postgraduate student reading history of art, if she remembered correctly. He was quite smitten with Laura if Chloe was any judge, watching her with puppy-dog eyes whenever they came into the union. And who could blame him? Laura was gorgeous. Bright, clever, gorgeous. Dangerous things in a woman, as Chloe’s godfather would say – thinking himself quite the comedian.

She shook her head at the barman, trying to remember his name. ‘I’m fine, thanks. Just need some air.’

‘Sorry, we don’t sell that.’

Chloe laughed and regretted it immediately. The room seemed to spin a little more again and she took a deep breath and steadied herself. Back on the wagon tomorrow, she thought. She couldn’t afford to get drunk. ‘No, I’m good, Ryan,’ she said, finally remembering his name.

‘Have a glass of water,’ the barman said, handing her a glass he had just poured out.

‘Cheers.’ Chloe said, taking a grateful sip of the water.

‘Chloe, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Reading psychiatry and law?’

‘You been researching me?’

The barman flushed a little. ‘No, your friend Laura told me.’

‘Come on, Chloe, stop chatting up the help,’ Hannah called out to her as she led Laura through the heaving masses towards the door. Chloe caught Ryan watching the two of them leave, Hannah putting on the extra bit of wiggle, giving it the Shakira shimmy – knowing that Ryan would be watching. Chloe felt a twinge of sympathy for the barman. He wasn’t even watching Hannah, his gaze was fixed on Laura. Fixed on her with the wet-eyed, puppy-like devotion of the truly lost cause. Chloe smiled ruefully. Laura was going to break a lot of hearts at CUL over the next two years before she finally tossed her mortar board in the air. Hell, Hannah would too. The pair of them drew attention from the men in the bar as they passed like a powerful magnet draws iron filings. Some of them getting an angry look or an elbow in the ribs for their trouble from unhappy girlfriends.

‘Catch you later,’ Chloe said to the still-distracted barman. Finishing the glass of water, she turned to leave but her right leg seemed to give out under her and she crashed towards the floor.

‘Dan Carter,’ I said to the willowy blonde standing imperiously behind the counter at the reception of Scott’s restaurant.

Might seem strange to some to come straight from a murder scene in King’s Cross to a swanky restaurant in Mayfair. But the sad truth was that you got used to it. You had to. Otherwise you didn’t function. It wasn’t that you didn’t care. It was that you couldn’t make it personal. You couldn’t afford to.

Scott’s had always been popular, but the currently highest-paid actress in the world – you know, the brunette with the killer smile – had recently declared it her favourite restaurant in London. And now Scott’s had taken over from The Ivy as the place to be seen dining.

I flashed the receptionist a charming grin. She didn’t exactly sneer as she looked down at her bookings list but the fraction of a millimetre that her left eyebrow moved conveyed just the same emotion.

I looked down at the deck shoes I was wearing. Maybe she thought I should have been wearing socks?

‘Don Cotter?’ said the receptionist.

‘That’s Carter,’ I said. ‘Dan Carter.’

She beckoned us forward, led us into the restaurant proper and up to our table.

‘See, Alison?’ I said. ‘As good as my word. Private appreciates the business you throw our way.’

‘You and your associates do a good job, Dan. It’s that simple. Keep doing it and we’ll keep hiring you.’

Alison Chambers was the niece – and the apple of his eye – of Charles William Chambers of Chambers, Chambers and Mason. Private London operates in a number of diverse areas. Personal security and detective work for people rich enough to afford us and who don’t want police involvement for whatever reasons. And on the other side of the coin we worked with the Metropolitan Police on contract with our forensic division. But we also did a great deal of financial and corporate investigation. Industrial sabotage, intellectual theft, fraud. Computer forensics.

So it suited us well to keep in with the firm that occupied the offices below and it suited me to keep in with Alison Chambers. Her uncle might have had his name on the front of the building but Alison was the powerhouse in the firm.