Preface to Murder

whiteboard. It was the official press photo taken from inside the dust jacket of Diane’s latest book, and showed her in an arty black polo-neck jumper, gazing at the camera with a thoughtful expression on her face.
‘Sixty years of age, an academic at the Blavatnik School of Government, and author of A Deadly Race: How Western Governments Collude in Sales of Arms to the Middle East. She was found dead in her bed this morning. The cause of death isn’t yet known, but a pinprick was discovered immediately below the victim’s left breast which could have come from a hypodermic needle.’
Bridget took a deep breath before pressing on. ‘As you no doubt already know, Diane was under police protection following receipt of a death threat.’ There was no need to remind everyone that Bridget had been responsible for that protection. They were already well aware of the delicacy of the situation. ‘I delivered her safely to her home last night shortly after ten o’clock. A marked car was in place outside her house all night, and the property was searched before Diane was left alone in her house.’
Bridget locked eyes briefly with Jake, whose face immediately drained of colour. He was obviously feeling just as bad as her about what had happened. She flashed him a quick smile of reassurance before moving on.
‘Her body was found this morning when I arrived at the house to collect her.’ Bridget pointed to her next photograph, showing the open back door of the house. ‘The intruder gained access by smashing a pane of glass in the kitchen door to open the lock. Diane was still in her bed when I found her. There was no sign of any violent struggle.’
Ffion’s hand immediately went up.
‘Yes?’ prompted Bridget.
‘If the glass in the back door was smashed, why was the victim still in bed? Why didn’t she wake up and go to investigate the noise?’
‘Good question. I don’t have an answer to that yet. Diane may have been a particularly heavy sleeper.’
‘Might she have taken sleeping pills?’ suggested Ryan.
‘We’ll need to find out. Whatever the reason, it would seem that she was unaware of the break-in, and the intruder was able to attack her in bed while she slept.’
‘How did they get access to the house at all?’ asked Ryan. ‘I thought we had a couple of uniforms keeping watch outside.’
‘We did,’ said Bridget. ‘SOCO are examining the possibility that the killer climbed over the garden wall. Although it’s not an easy wall to have scaled and there are no obvious marks like a footprint in the soil.’
‘Maybe the guys in the panda car had forty winks or sloped off for a kebab,’ said Ryan.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Bridget. Although if it turned out that Sam and Scott had lied to her, she would have their guts for garters.
‘The needle mark in the victim’s chest,’ said Andy, ‘does that suggest the use of poison?’
‘It’s too early to say.’ Bridget recalled what Sarah had told her. ‘We’ll need a full toxicology report as well as the post-mortem, but the initial signs are that there were no physical injuries to the body and no indications of a struggle.’
‘Consistent with the victim being killed in their sleep,’ noted Ryan. ‘She couldn’t just have had a heart attack, could she?’
‘We can’t entirely rule it out, but we have to bear in mind that an intruder entered the house. And then there’s the matter of the death threat.’ Bridget tapped the whiteboard where a photocopy of a handwritten letter was pinned next to the picture of Diane. It was written in blue ink on a piece of cheap stationery. The words, penned in a rather elaborate hand, read:
You think you are clever when you write about guns and bombs. But did you know that words can be just as deadly? Cancel your book, or it will be the last thing you ever write. We will cancel you.
‘We have to ask ourselves whether the person who sent this is our killer, and if so, who might that be.’
‘It’s a bit old-fashioned, isn’t it?’ said Ryan. ‘Don’t people just send their death threats on Twitter these days?’
‘Not if they’re serious about carrying them out,’ said Ffion. ‘And most of the abuse on social media tends to be illiterate. This is all correctly spelled and punctuated.’
‘I bet that had her worried,’ quipped Ryan. ‘What’s scarier than a killer who can wield grammatically correct sentences?’
‘Well, whoever sent this was clearly very serious about their intent,’ said Bridget. ‘So finding out who wrote it is a top priority. The original letter is still with forensics. All I can tell you for the moment is that it was sent to the writer’s home one week before her death, and carried a London postmark.’
‘What exactly was her book about?’ asked Andy.
‘Arms sales to the Middle East,’ said Bridget. ‘In particular, to Saudi Arabia.’
Andy made a note in his notebook. ‘So if the death threat was related to her work, we need to look at the interested parties.’
‘A Middle Eastern government,’ said Jake.
‘The British government,’ said Ffion.
‘The American government,’ said Ryan.
‘MI5,’ said Harry, looking pleased to have finally made a contribution.
‘Arms manufacturers,’ said Andy.
Bridget wrote all the suggestions on the whiteboard. It was quite a formidable list of adversaries. Could one of these really be responsible for murdering Diane Gilbert? If so, they could be looking at the work of a professional assassin.
‘The letter refers to “we”,’ said Andy. ‘That certainly seems to imply a group or an organisation of some kind.’
It occurred to Bridget that if Diane’s murder really was linked to the publication of her book, she was going to have to wade through the five-hundred plus pages of A Deadly Race herself – an appalling prospect. She saw the book’s