Bleed for Me by Michael Robotham

Hegarty retired from the force eight years ago and set up a security business - doing alarms, CCTV cameras, patrols and personal protection. He had offices in Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester.
    He had a meeting in Glasgow on Monday afternoon and stayed overnight before driving to Manchester the next day. He was supposed to stop overnight and fly to Dublin on Wednesday morning for two days of meetings but the trip was cancel ed. Instead he drove back to Bristol and had a late lunch with a business partner.
    ‘Bottom line - he wasn’t expected home until Friday - not according to his wife.’
    ‘Where was Helen?’
    ‘Working at St Martin’s Hospital in Bath. Her shift started at six.’
    We pul up outside a house on the eastern edge of the vil age. Six uniforms stand guard, blocking off the street. Blue-and-white crime-scene tape has been threaded between two cherry trees and the front gate, twirling in the breeze like old birthday decorations. A large white SOCO van is parked in the driveway. Doors yawning. Metal boxes stacked inside.
    Nearby, a forensic technician is crouching on the front path taking photographs. Dressed in blue plastic overal s, a hood and matching boot covers, he looks like an extra in a science-fiction movie.
    Positioning a plastic evidence tag, he raises the camera to his eye. Shoots. Stands. When he turns I recognise him. Dr Louis Preston - a Home Office pathologist with a Brummie accent that makes him sound eternal y miserable.
    ‘I hear they woke you, Ronnie.’
    ‘I’m a light sleeper,’ she replies.
    ‘Were you with anyone in particular?’
    ‘My hot-water bottle.’
    ‘Now there’s a waste.’ The pathologist glances at me and nods. ‘Professor, long time no see.’
    ‘I would have waited.’
    ‘I get that a lot.’
    Preston is famous for terrorising his pathology students. According to one apocryphal story, he once told a group of trainees that two things were required to conduct an autopsy. The first was no sense of fear. At this point he stuck his finger into a dead man’s anus, pul ed it out and sniffed it. Then he invited each student to fol ow his lead and they al complied.
    ‘The second thing you need is an acute sense of observation,’ he told them. ‘How many of you noticed that I stuck my middle finger into this man’s anus, but sniffed my index finger?’
    Urban myth? Compel ing hearsay? Both probably. Anybody who slices open dead people for a living has to maintain a sense of humour. Either that or you go mad.
    Turning back to the van, he col ects a tripod.
    ‘I never thought I’d see Ray Hegarty like this. I thought he was bloody indestructible.’
    ‘You were friends?’
    Preston shrugs. ‘Wouldn’t go that far. Mutual respect.’
    ‘How did he die?’
    ‘Somebody hit him from behind and then severed his carotid artery.’ The pathologist runs a finger across his throat. ‘You’re looking for something like a razor or a Stanley knife. It’s not in the bedroom.’
    Cray helps him move a silver case. ‘When can we come inside?’
    ‘Find some overal s. Stay on the duck boards and don’t touch anything.’
    The two-storey semi has wisteria twisting and climbing across the front façade. No longer in leaf, the grey trunk looks gnarled and ancient, slowly strangling the building. There are stacks of old roofing tiles beside the garage doors.
    Two things stand out about the house. It’s the sort of place that should have had a long sweeping drive - al the proportions suggest it. Secondly, it’s partial y hidden from the road by a high wal covered in ivy. Tal trees are visible beyond the slate roof and chimneys. The curtains downstairs are open. Anyone approaching would have seen the lights on.
    ‘Was the door locked or unlocked?’
    ‘Open,’ says Cray. ‘Sienna ran. She didn’t bother pul ing it closed.’
    Stepping on to the first of a dozen duckboards, I fol ow her through the front door and along a passage.
    ‘ Tread lightly, she is