‘In a suitcase in the wardrobe.’
‘Prints?’
‘Done. We’ll send them all for digital testing too.’
‘Excellent.’
‘Did you get the attachment from the phone with the footage on it?’
‘I’m just about to look at it now.’
She left the room and found a bench along the second-floor corridor to sit on her own to watch the video taken by the podcaster of the aftermath of when Jamie fell to his death. It was a curious thing to do, to take out your phone when faced with a dying man, covered in his own brains, to film him. It showed a deep lack of humanity that sat badly with Kelly. It smacked of a lack of empathy that was fast becoming prevalent in modern crime. They saw it all the time. Violence was becoming commonplace. Force was used excessively, and perps seemed to enjoy inflicting suffering, as if the crime itself wasn’t enough. People had become desperate for kicks found in the worst places.
The young woman who’d filmed the scene had been questioned at length and she’d been threatened with arrest if she’d used the footage online before the police seized it.
She’d assured them she hadn’t, but a search of her X account told them otherwise. She’d been taken to Penrith for questioning. She’d broken data protection laws if nothing else. She’d interfered with an ongoing investigation and solicited clickbait. But that wasn’t Kelly’s concern. She’d be dealt with by the CPS.
It was peaceful up here, she thought. The corridor was brightly lit and decorated pleasantly. The huge window at the end overlooked the lake and threw in light.
She opened the attachment and found the footage. She pressed play.
People screamed and some ran, while others stood stock still. The footage was shaky but clear. The woman filming walked closer to the person lying on the floor and Kelly saw the amount of blood spreading quickly beneath him. He didn’t stand a chance.
Nobody helped him.
Until Lee Lovett took charge and tried to block the filming with a sheet or tablecloth. But then he slipped and fell on Jamie. It was desperate and extremely distressing.
Jamie was still alive. Even she could see that from the footage.
Then she saw the woman identified as Doctor Sandy Cooper screaming, which was a little excessive for a colleague but Kelly knew that people reacted to shock in different ways. She watched Lee struggle to get up and raise a bloody hand to the camera, and Sandy throw herself over the body.
Then she watched it again with full sound.
She rewound it over and over again, stopping and starting.
Two things stood out.
One was somebody behind the camera talking with an American accent. The other was the bodyguards with drawn weapons.
Chapter 11
‘Have you heard of FairGro.com?’ Kelly asked Ted when she returned to the ground floor. They stood near the stairwell. The feature was impressive and stunningly beautiful.
‘Yes, in fact I have. I get promotions on drugs all the time, like all doctors. They want to sell me their stuff constantly. I ignore most of it, but this company is huge. They’re responsible for most of the anti-cholesterol drugs being pushed by GPs at the moment.’
‘So, they’re not just health and wellness then?’
‘No, it’s owned by a pharmaceutical company.’
‘So, pharmaceuticals are into food supplements now?’ she asked.
He peered at her down his nose and raised his eyebrows in his unique way. It said to Kelly that she was either being very naïve or foolish. She grinned.
‘The clue is in the word “supplement”,’ he said.
‘Like Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer, Roche, AstraZeneca?’
‘Yep, as well as Hampton-Dent, Merck…’
