Killed in King’s Cross
Cassie Coburn Mystery #6
Samantha Silver
Blueberry Books Press
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Also by Samantha Silver
About the Author
Chapter 1
The knock at my door was brisk and official. It couldn’t have been Violet; she never knocked. Either she texted that she was coming, or, as was more common, she simply let herself in. The fact that I kept my front door locked at all times was in no way a deterrent for her.
Getting up from my spot on the couch, where I had been casually browsing Etsy for Christmas presents on my iPad – what do you get a woman like Violet as a present? – my cat Biscuit meowed his disapproval as he was forced to move off my legs, where he had been comfortably snoring away.
“Sorry, buddy,” I muttered as I made my way towards the front door, and shooting a look back to the couch, Biscuit had obviously decided that the warm spot I’d left was a great place to continue his nap as he had already curled himself up in it and gone back to sleep by the time I was unlocking the front door.
As soon as I opened the front door, I found myself facing an official-looking man, tall and slim, with a sour expression on his face, holding up a white card and black badge identifying him as a member of the Metropolitan Police. Behind him were two uniformed officers.
“Cassie Coburn?”
“Yes,” I replied, the curiosity in my voice evident.
“Do you know the whereabouts of Violet Despuis?”
“She’s not home?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Then no, I don’t know where she is.”
“We were told you were the woman closest to her.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not her mom. She’s a grown woman, she can go where she wants without telling me. Frankly, I prefer it that way.”
I had a feeling Violet generally got into situations that I absolutely did not want to know about.
“Are you able to get into contact with her?”
I shrugged. “I can text her.”
“Well, do so.”
“Why?” I asked, my eyes narrowing.
“Because a member of the Metropolitan police told you to, that’s why,” the man said, standing taller.
“Yeah, that’s not a good enough reason,” I said. “I want actual details before I’m going to bother Violet.”
The man looked like he wanted to argue with me, then eventually sighed. “There’s been a murder at King’s Cross, and her presence is requested to consult on the crime. Tell her DCI Kilmer requested her.”
I raised my eyebrows. “At the train station?”
“Yes, at the station.”
“Alright, I’ll let her know,” I said. “I can’t guarantee she’ll come.”
“Good. Tell her it’s urgent.”
With that, the man spun on his heel and headed back towards the street, like spending an extra second with me was one more than he was willing to do.
Still, if the cops were trying this desperately to get a hold of Violet, it had to be an important murder.
I sent her a text straight away. Murder at King’s Cross Station. Police just came by asking for your help, if you can make it.
I tossed the phone on the couch, looked over at a comfortable-looking Biscuit, who was fast asleep in my spot, sighed and leaned against the arm of the couch as I turned on the TV and switched the channel over to BBC news.
A smart-looking woman of Indian descent was reporting into the camera, the familiar scene of one of London’s busiest train stations behind her one of complete chaos.
“All we’ve been told at the moment is that King’s Cross station has been closed due to a police incident. Onlookers reported a body falling from the sky and into the main area of the station. We have no indication yet as to whether or not terrorism might be involved.”
I turned off the TV and looked at Biscuit. “I figure it’s probably worth going myself, don’t you?”
I took the total lack of response from Biscuit to be a yes. Evidently, my presence wasn’t needed here for him to have a good nap.
Grabbing a jacket – it was coming up to Christmas, after all – I made my way out of the apartment, looked up to Violet’s windows, which were drawn, checked to see that she hadn’t replied to my text, then ordered an Uber. Normally I would have just walked and taken the subway, but I figured if King’s Cross was closed completely, then the underground was going to be complete and total chaos at best.
It turned out that traffic was just as bad; by the time the car I was in got onto Marylebone we were absolutely crawling. By the time we reached Warren Street, I gave up, thanked the driver, got out of the car and figured walking the last fifteen minutes was going to be faster than driving.
I was definitely right.
As I got closer to King’s Cross station, the chaos in what was already normally a pretty chaotic place was just off the charts. News vans from dozens of stations with offices in the city were set up on the street, blocking traffic even as uniformed police officers yelled at the drivers to get out of the way. Crowds of bemused onlookers stood around, hoping for a glimmer of information or for something interesting to happen, while harried-looking men and women in suits rushed by on their phones, their plans for the day evidently disrupted by the closure of one of the biggest train stations in the world.
I wandered around the front of the station slowly, absorbing the scene all around. Yellow police tape cordoned off the entire station, with strict-looking cops stationed every few feet, making sure no daring member of the public was going to dart past to get a closer look.
“What’s going on?” I asked a pleasant-looking young couple who whispered to themselves, pointing inside the station. “Any idea what’s happened?”
“They’ve closed the whole station,” the girl replied. “Never seen anything like it before.”
“Apparently, someone went nuts and stabbed a bunch of people,” the man replied. “That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.”
“No, dummy,” the girlfriend replied with a playful nudge. “Someone killed themselves. That’s what Anna texted me.”
I nodded and wandered off. I really didn’t know what I was doing here. After all, no one here knew me, and even if they did, there was no reason for me to be let in on the investigation. Sure, I was a little bit curious about what had happened, but that was it.
“It appears that the curiosity, it has gotten the better of you,” a French accent said from behind me, and I turned and smiled at Violet. Despite the fact that it was the middle of winter and most of us looked more like the Michelin Man than normal human beings, Violet still managed to be the most elegant-looking person I’d ever met. With her long ponytail draped over one shoulder, and a long, black woolen coat covering everything except black-legginged legs and black boots, she looked like she had just walked straight out of the Paris version of this month’s Vogue.
“Well, the cops seemed pretty desperate for you to come help them, so I got a bit curious,” I admitted.
“Good. Then come, we will go see what this murder is all about.”
&n
bsp; I couldn’t deny the fact that my heart jumped with a bit of glee at those words. For as much as I wasn’t a cop, and had absolutely no detective skills whatsoever, I did enjoy joining Violet while she did her thing. It was a little bit like watching the best athlete in the field, or watching an incredible artist work: seeing Violet at a crime scene was an art in and of itself.
And, if I was completely honest, it was kind of cool getting an inside look at a scene that most people were never invited to see.
“Let’s go, then,” Violet said, and I scurried after her as she made her way towards the yellow cordon.
Chapter 2
As soon as we reached the cordon, Violet slipped under it.
“Miss Despuis,” the uniformed officer told her, but then held out a hand as I went to pass. “Sorry, miss. I have strict orders to let Violet Despuis through, but no other civilians.”
“Cassie’s presence is invaluable to me,” Violet told the man. “If you refuse to let her pass as well, I will not make myself available to assist the police. You can either let her through and tell that to your superior, or you can explain to him how you were the reason Violet Despuis did not come to help at a murder where my help is obviously badly needed.”
The officer shifted from foot to foot for a minute, obviously not sure what to do, before muttering something into his radio. When, a moment later, he got an answer back, he motioned for me to follow.
Violet raised her eyebrows. “The man who cannot make a decision for himself and must rely on a superior’s orders at all times is not a man who will go far in life,” she told him, before striding off. I gave the guy a half-sympathetic smile – Violet could be very cutting when she wanted to be – and continued on after her.
Before we even reached the front door, the same tall man who had been at my apartment came over towards her. Without even acknowledging my presence, he began to tell Violet about the case.
“The first calls to 999 came in at two minutes to two this afternoon. CCTV footage shows the man falling one minute before that. Victim is a thirty-year old male, local.”
“And why am I here?”
“The sheer magnitude of this thing. It’s going to be all over the news, around the world. We might be dealing with a serial killer, here.”
“So you do not want my help so much as you are ensuring that should anyone question your investigation you can tell them that you have hired me to help with the case.”
“Well, um, your help is considered valuable,” the man muttered, and I hid a smile. It was obvious Violet had just hit the nail on the head.
“No matter. You will not have to face difficult questions if you allow me to help, as I will find your killer. Now, take me to the body.”
The man dutifully led us along Pancras Road, through the entrance, and into a half-moon-shaped area lined with shops. I’d had an absolutely God-awful spelt and quinoa scone at one of the shops here after Violet had dissuaded me away from the much more appetizing chocolate croissants. I didn’t know King’s Cross super well, but I had been here a few times. Obviously, I had to take a selfie at the platform 9 3/4 , and I may have spent a little bit of cash at the souvenir shop down the hall as well.
But now, I was here for an entirely different reason. This entrance was rather ornate: directly in front of us was the brick façade of the old train station, with a modern, white diamond-patterned funnel leading the eye. In the center of that funnel was a body surrounded by broken glass. The man was dressed well, in slacks and a fancy jacket, with a scarf spread around him. There was only a little bit of blood near the body.
My focus wasn’t immediately on the body, though. Instead, my focus turned to a smartly-dressed man hunched over the body, his face focused and full of concentration as he inspected it.
“Jake!” I said, and the man looked up, his features breaking into a grin.
“Cassie. Fancy seeing you here.”
I made my way over to my boyfriend, one of the pathologists for the city. Jake Edmunds looked more like he belonged on a beach in Australia than the middle of a murder investigation in London, with his sandy blond hair and muscular build.
“What’s happened here?”
“He fell through the roof,” Jake deadpanned, motioning to the glass around us. I looked up to the ceiling. Sure enough, one of the large, rectangular glass panels above was missing its pane. Looking closely at the man, his face was covered in cuts from where he had gone through the glass.
I frowned. That wasn’t right; someone who had jumped through a pane of glass should have gone feet first. Or, at the very least, he would have instinctively protected his face. And yet, his arms seemed to be relatively cut-free, at least compared to his face.
“He was killed before he jumped,” I said to Jake, who nodded.
“Yeah. His face wouldn’t be that cut up if he’d been alive. Besides, who kills themselves by going headfirst through a pane of glass?”
“Someone who wants to be really sure it worked?” I offered, and Jake gave me a grim smile.
“Well, whoever did this definitely made sure it worked,” he replied. “Because this guy was killed before he hit the ground, one hundred percent.”
“Do you know what the cause of death is, yet?” I glanced around the body; there were no obvious marks that might indicate the cause of death, like a gunshot wound, or having his head bashed in.
“Strangulation,” Jake replied with a nod. I took a pair of latex gloves Jake handed me wordlessly, slipped them on, then moved the collar of the man’s jacket carefully. Sure enough, a belt-shaped purple bruise around his neck was a pretty good indicator of the cause of death.
“Petechial hemorrhaging confirms it,” Jake said as my eyes widened slightly at the sight of the bruise.
“Yup, that’ll do it. Sending him through the glass was definitely overkill.”
“Or it was done on purpose, as a display,” Violet said from behind us.
“Someone showing off?” I asked, and she nodded.
“Yes. In fact, I think it incredibly likely.”
“How do you know?” I asked, looking over the man once more. After all, I knew about the medicine – though it wasn’t too difficult to figure out that a guy with a giant bruise on his neck had been strangled – but how on earth Violet knew more than that was beyond me.
“Well, to begin, look at where the body has been dumped. This man was not dropped in a back alley behind a non-descript building. He was not dumped in the Thames with the hopes that his body would be washed to sea before being discovered. No, he was dropped headlong into the center of London, in what is arguably the busiest part of the city at any given moment. And on top of that, look at the man’s shoes.”
I looked down towards the feet, and my eyes widened. “They’re too big for him!”
“And not simply by one half a size, or something similar. Those shoes are at least two sizes too large. His jacket as well, it does not fit him, despite being of good quality. It is much too loose in the shoulders.”
I looked over the man more carefully; I wanted to see if I could spot anything myself. “His hands… his fingers, they’re quite dirty,” I said, and Violet nodded.
“Yes, it has been quite some time since this man has last bathed. I presume that he is, in fact, homeless. The nice clothes, the location chosen, it has all been to create a certain spectacle.”
As I looked closer at the man, I could see Violet was definitely right. Not only were his fingers dirty, but a few of the cuts on his face were too straight, like they were shaving nicks. Someone giving this man a bad shave would have definitely done it. His hair was quite greasy, as well, despite the decent-looking haircut.
“Do you think it might be terrorism?” I asked, my mind turning back to the words of the BBC reporter, but Violet shook her head.
“No, I do not think that. For a terrorist, it would not matter what the person looked like. The only thing that would be important would be that people be scared that it could happe
n to them as well. A man who was able to get a body to the roof of this building without anyone noticing, and was able to get away after dropping the body to the ground, is a man who could have easily dropped a bomb, which would have caused far more chaos and terror. No, I do not believe this was terrorism.”
“We don’t believe it either,” DCI Kilmer said, making his way towards us. In his hand was a sealed plastic envelope, the type the police used to preserve evidence. “This was found on the body.”
Violet looked at the note, then handed it over to me.
Hickory dickory dock.
The note was printed on regular paper, as far as I could tell, in Times New Roman font. It couldn’t have looked more generic if it tried. I passed the note over to Jake, whose eyebrows rose when he read it, then he passed it back on to Violet.
“We don’t know what this means just yet,” DCI Kilmer said.
“Have you identified the man?” Violet asked.
“Not as of yet. We’re running the man’s fingerprints through the system now in the hopes of getting a match, but a well-dressed man like this? I doubt he’s ever been arrested.”
A hint of a smile flittered on Violet’s lips. “I believe you will find this gentleman was homeless, DCI.”
“Homeless? A man dressed in shoes that cost two hundred pounds, at least?”
“A man dressed in two hundred pound shoes that are two sizes too big for him, yes,” Violet replied. “I cannot say whether or not this man has been arrested before, but he is not an ordinary rich citizen of this great city.”
DCI Kilmer puzzled over the body for a while as Violet moved from the corpse lying in front of us and began looking around, and then up.
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