Relentless by Simon Kernick

over again at the body.
'Far too early to say,' replied Lambden. 'He was only discovered
an hour ago by a woman walking her dog, which was
lucky as this isn't really a well-used path. We got here at half
past four, and we've only just finished sealing everything off.
The doctor's given a preliminary time of death of between two
thirty and three thirty, so he's not been this way long.'
'It looks from the prints like two people were chasing him,' said
Mo. 'Those trainers slipped twice in the mud on the way up here.'
'Three times actually, and you're right, it does seem like it was
two people. We've checked out the downstairs of Mr Calley's
house and the side door was wide open. There's also a fresh
partial footprint at the end of his garden by a gate that leads
directly on to this path. The gate was also open. It looks like the
suspects confronted him in his house and he managed to escape
out of the side door through the conservatory, which goes out
into the back garden. They chased him up this path and caught
him here. There was some sort of struggle. He ended up with a
bleeding nose and facial bruising, and you can see where his
shirt's been ripped.' He pointed over at the body and they both
saw that there was a large tear running underneath the arm of
the rugby shirt where he'd obviously been grabbed. 'My guess is that one of them held him while the other put the belt round his
neck and either strangled him then and there and hung him up
afterwards, or put him up there while he was still alive and let
him die like that.'
They all fell silent. Whichever way any of them cared to look
at it, it was a particularly nasty way to go.
'They were certainly determined to make sure they killed
him,' said Bolt. 'But no-one saw anything?'
    'We'll be making the usual appeals for witnesses but no-one
called us until the dogwalker who found him.'
'Poor bastard,' said Mo, getting back to his feet. 'I guess we
can rule out robbery. They wouldn't have bothered chasing him
up this path if they just wanted to burgle his house.'
'And nothing appears to be missing from it either,' said
Lambden. 'My guess is that he knew his killers. There's no sign
of forced entry at the front of the house.'
'A professional hit, then, boss?' suggested Mo.
'Well, it doesn't appear as though there was anything random
about it. What do you think, Keith?'
'Again, too early,' answered Lambden, with a hint of reproach
as if they were enthusiastic young rookies running ahead of
themselves. 'AH we can be certain of is that the people who did
this were physically strong, and very nasty indeed. Not the sort
you'd want to meet on a dark night.'
Bolt moved closer to the body. He waited while the police
photographer took some close-up photos of Calley's corpse,
then inspected it from a couple of feet away, ignoring the
pungent odour that clung to it.
Calley looked young, maybe early thirties. He was good
looking too, with clean-cut, middle-class features and a big build. A man who should have been, and probably had been, a success
Istory. Not the sort you'd associate with being a victim of crime. fFhe dead man's features were slack, the mouth turned down a
le at each corner in a mildly doleful expression, the eyes
Hazing blankly in Bolt's general direction.
; Death, like the onset of age, terrified Bolt. He wasn't a
ristian, having become convinced that the world's secrets
Id be better explained by science than spiritualism while still
his pre-teenage years. He believed then, as he did now, that
    when a person died, that was it for them. The end of their
journey, the big sleep. It was this lack of faith in something
beyond which made him fear it so much. Sometimes he truly
wished he could embrace religion, as many do when age takes
them closer to the end, but he knew that it wouldn't work. His
own beliefs were too deeply ingrained. Standing here, viewing
sudden, unexpected death at first hand, brought the fear right
back to the forefront of his mind. A few hours ago, Jack