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  'How did they get in?'

  'Rammed the door with a stolen Land Rover. Nothing else taken, although I nearly lost a large python. They smashed its tank.'

  'At least snakes don't get too far too quickly,' Claire added, more for conversation than anything else.

  'Ah well, you don't need to go far in London to create trouble if you're a python.'

  Claire raised her eyebrow.

  'That's how I knew where he'd gone. One of the neighbourhood cats had unfortunately got a bit too inquisitive. You should have heard that woman scream. There was only a tabby tail left when the owner found it. She's threatening to sue me now.'

  Claire didn't think he seemed too upset about the impending lawsuit, more like a proud father whose son had just knocked out his opponent in a street brawl. He clicked on a file of photographs and the screen filled with a mass of snake images. They all looked the same to Claire, but she guessed she was about to be given a tour of the family album.

  'In the weeks running up to the break-in, do you remember anyone coming in and asking about the Cobras? Maybe getting information about how you look after them, or handle them? Anyone who wasn't a usual customer? It's likely they would have done a reccy before the robbery, and if they're not used to handling cobras, they'd have wanted to know how to deal with them.'

  He folded his eyebrows together and stopped to think.

  'Actually, there was one guy. Came in with his girlfriend, she was Filipino I think. Pretty thing. He said he'd lived over there and had been interested in the snake charmers in Asia. Wanted to know if he could train one himself. One of those quiet, strong types. I thought he wanted the snake for a party trick and wasn't keen on him having one, but he asked a lot of questions.'

  'Really? And he hasn't been back since?'

  He shook his head.

  'Would you have CCTV images of him?'

  He sighed and sagged his shoulders.

  'That was about three weeks ago, I'd have wiped them.'

  'Could you describe him?'

  'I could try. If I saw him again I'd recognise him.'

  'Great. I'm going to get you in with a police artist, see if we can build up a picture of him. Was there anything else he said that might help identify who he is? He said he lived in the Philippines, anything else?'

  The eyebrows folded together again.

  'Nothing I can think of right now. He did ask a lot of questions though. Damn, wish I'd thought about him before.'

  Claire stayed long enough to get the CCTV images of the raid and to ensure the portraits of the stolen snakes were emailed to her work address. The CCTV was disappointing, there was nothing to identify the lone robber who was fully covered up from head to toe. She'd need to track down the forensics on the Land Rover.

  She was glad to get out the place, not because the snakes bothered her, unlike her boss she didn't mind them, it was the large variety of Tarantulas creeping around their tanks that gave her the creeps. Snake man promised to let her know if he thought of anything else and she asked him to write down all the things he could remember of the cold-caller from a few weeks ago, as well as suggestions for the kind of equipment they'd need to take care of the cobras.

  Before she got back in the car, Claire checked out the other premises in the area for the further potential of CCTV. They were mostly small retail units or offices. All shuttered up and closed, but she took a few photographs. One for the team to chase up tomorrow - or maybe even Monday.

  As she drove back to the station, the London sky occasionally coloured with the burst of fireworks, and the draft of spent gunpowder found its way into her car, drowning out the stale burger and fries. She headed past pubs and clubs, where had people spilled out onto the streets to smoke, snog or argue. Claire was always on high alert, the prospect of a drunken reveller appearing suddenly from behind a parked car in front of her vehicle made her wary. An image from two decades ago twisted into her mind, only it hadn't been a drunken reveller then. Claire quickly pushed the memory away and re-focused on the case. Time may heal but it didn't let you forget.

  4

  Claire, Saturday 4th November 2017, London

  Walking into the Major Incident Room was like coming home. The puppy faced D.S. Tom Knight, nearly crashed into her as she came through the door. He gave her an 'alright?' by way of greeting and apology - as though it hadn't been months since she'd last worked with him.

  Sat almost directly in front of the door was Detective Sergeant Lewis. His balding head caught the fluorescent lights and her eye. He was quick to respond to her arrival, looking up and beaming a big smile her way. She'd bumped into Lew lots of times around the station. They’d often grabbed a coffee and he'd kept her up to date with everyone's personal lives. How he managed to know all the gossip she didn't know. She hadn't seen him for a couple of weeks though and it was his smile that she noticed now straight away. He'd had that broken front tooth fixed. Claire hoped it wasn't for her benefit. Since she and Jack split up, Lew had been conspicuously attentive. She liked him a lot, but as a friend, that's all, and she didn't want to fall out with him. She gave him a big smile in return. Maybe it was time she went public about her and Mark Rodgers.

  Her arrival was perfectly timed, Bob breezed out of his office with purpose, ensuring everyone in the room looked up and took notice.

  'Ten minutes. Gather what you have, I want a full update.'

  The room flurried into action, Claire quickly logged into the nearest available computer, opposite Lew, and started cross-checking the snake images she had with those that had been removed from the car. She also looked again at the CCTV. She'd pass it onto Sam, their analyst, who always saw things they missed and had the latest image enhancement software, but first she wanted to do a quick comparison of the CCTV taken from the murder scene.

  She watched the grainy images of a Pizza delivery moped and its rider pull up alongside David's car. He got something out of his pocket and did something to the passenger door - that must have been when he sealed it shut so David couldn't escape. Then he waited, pretending to look at a map and his phone, until the figure of David Lyle could be seen approaching. It looked like they exchanged a greeting, but then as soon as David was in the car, he pulled one of those pizza keep warm bags out of the moped top box, then quickly unzipped it as he yanked open David's car door and threw in the contents.

  It wasn't great quality, taken from a building down the road with just street lamps to light the scene, but you could see the blurred outline of David Lyle's panic, his attempt to escape from his seatbelt and get out the passenger side, then the driver's door. You could also see the calm way in which his assassin leant against the car and waited for the man inside to become paralysed and unable to get help. It didn't take long. As soon as David Lyle's head lolled to one side, he sealed the driver’s door and was off, back on the pizza delivery bike and out of view. It was hard to tell, but she'd say it could be the same man who stole the snakes. Similar build for sure.

  Claire got her latest evidence logged. She also put in a request for the forensics on the Land Rover. If they were lucky, it might even still be in the lock-up and they could double check any specifics with those from the scene. She knew everyone would be out looking for the stolen moped, but she also figured their murderer was too smart to leave them any nice forensics in the helmet. That would either never be found or the whole lot would be burnt and unusable.

  This was a clear pre-meditated assassination. Someone really didn't like David Lyle, or didn't want him saying something. It was now their job to find out what and who.

  'Since pizza man seems to say hello to our victim, and there was no recognition, we are going to assume they were not acquainted and the likelihood from the way in which he carried out the murder, is that he is a hired hit man.' Bob addressed the team, pulling up information on the smart board in front of them. 'He appears calm and organised, this has been meticulously planned out. Claire, what news on the snakes?'

  'It's the
same snakes that were stolen a week ago from premises in north London. But four were taken, so we still have two unaccounted for. We've a few possible enquiry lines, firstly the owner remembers a man coming in a few weeks before. Might be worth dusting the shop for prints as although there are going to be a lot we can't account for, if we think our perp is a pro, we may have him on record. I've also put in a request for a photofit expert to get up there as soon as. He reckons he'd recognise the bloke again so if we do have any suspects it might be worth showing him some photos once he has been with the artist. I've also put in a request for the forensics from the break-in.'

  Bob nodded.

  'Also Sir, the snakes are not easy to handle, they need to be kept in warm and humid conditions so we should check for anyone who has been buying specialist equipment because he's had to keep them alive for over a week somewhere.'

  'Yup, these snakes could be his weak link. We're getting tests done on them at the moment, although I'm not holding out much hope for a forensic breakthrough there.'

  While Bob talked, the door had opened and a tall figure came in to stand against the right hand wall. Without looking, Claire knew it was Mark Rodgers. From the corner of her eye she could sense his broad athletic frame and his eyes on her. As Bob took his attention away and asked Lew for his update, she allowed herself to look over. Mark was too professional to wink, but she caught the dilation of his pupils and suspected hers responded in the same way.

  'Just one CCTV in the area, but as we know pizza man was wearing a helmet and the bike was stolen, so although it shows us exactly what happened, it doesn't help us identify him. We're checking every camera around the area to log his movements. We know that a neighbour reported a pizza delivery rider arriving at the Lyle household just after Alice had left. She didn't see what he did or where he went. It tells us that he knew exactly what time David Lyle was going to get into his car. Did he also plan to lure Alice out of the house, or was that just a fortunate coincidence?'

  'Do we know why David went out?' Bob asked Lew.

  'She says he'd told her he needed to pop to the office to pick something up. Boss couldn't tell us what that could have been so we're working on the assumption it may have been a cover to do something else. As it looks like he was lured to the car at that precise time, we're in the process of getting access to his phone records to see who called him in the hours before his death, but his laptop and his mobile are missing - stolen during the break-in. We know he'd left his mobile behind because his wife said she'd seen it on the kitchen table after he'd gone. She'd clocked it because it was unusual for him to go out without it.'

  'OK, that needs to be a priority, find out who got in touch. I also want our Twitter video cameraman fully checked out. That video was why Alice left the house, perhaps it saved her life, or perhaps it was part of the plan. Pathology?' barked Bob.

  Mark pushed himself away from the wall to stand attentively as he gave his brief report.

  'Pretty much what you're going to expect. Obviously this is prelims, I haven't opened him up yet. He was bitten multiple times by the two Cobras. Bearing in mind they have one of the biggest volumes of venom in the snake world - one bite is enough to kill twenty people - it's obvious that his likelihood of survival was slim.'

  'Why put two snakes in then if one was enough?' Bob asked.

  'Sometimes they have what's called a dry bite, for some reason they don't release any venom. Two would have been insurance. I can't tell yet if both injected him with venom, but if someone was hell bent on killing him then they were just making sure.'

  Mark looked back down at his notes and continued with his report while Bob brought up an image of David Lyle's corpse, in situ in his car, on the board.

  'He would have experienced extreme pain and then paralysis of his muscles, including in the neck, which is why it looked like his neck had been broken. It wasn't. This would have been quickly followed by coma and then respiratory failure. The neurotoxins in the venom attack the central nervous system. The flushed face is also typical and you can see around the bite areas that there is some necrosis. The skin is discolouring and swelling and starting to disintegrate. All these are classic cobra bite symptoms. I'm not sure what else David Lyle is going to tell us but I'll crack on with a full post mortem first thing.'

  Bob nodded his thanks and Mark slid back out of the room with one final glance Claire's way. She had the urge to rush out the room after him, but she knew she couldn't. Instead she pulled her mind back to concentrate on Bob.

  'The focus is obviously on finding the motive. We know how, we are almost certainly looking at a professional hit, so someone with money wanted him dead. We need to go through the Lyle household with a fine tooth comb, perhaps they missed something. What could David Lyle have been involved in? Get someone to his office and look into the firm he's working for. What did he do in his spare time? I want a complete picture of who David Lyle was and who he associated with. We can bet our bottom dollar that there's a strong chance big money is involved somewhere, so get hold of his bank records.'

  The room was silent but fizzing, you could almost hear the adrenaline as the team's minds whirred through the evidence and the next steps.

  'I know it's Saturday night and your weekend plans are now shot, but I don't need to tell you that not only is our killer going to have no doubt planned his getaway with the same precision he carried out the murder, but he still has two more snakes. That means he could be planning another hit. The quicker we make connections with David Lyle, the more chance we have of thwarting him. Get to it.'

  Claire stood up to move back to her desk, but Bob waved her over and nodded towards his office. She followed him in, a little nervously.

  'How are you doing?' Bob asked her, analysing her face.

  'Fine, absolutely fine. Why?'

  'Look I know you've not had an easy year and you've made some questionable judgement calls, but we all do it sometimes. You've got to put Rachel Hill and the SoulMates agency behind you.'

  'I know.'

  'What you know and what you do aren't always the same thing.' Bob talked at her now, school teacher and parent in one. 'Rachel Hill is a missing person. Sally Rochester has failed to draw her out so right now I'm concerned for her welfare. We have nothing to say that she has ever broken any law or even that it was definitely her who drugged you. You know as well as I do that forensics found traces of unaccounted for individuals in Rachel's house. We are not a missing persons' unit. You have to forget about her because I need you to focus one hundred percent on this case. Do you understand?'

  'Yes of course.' Claire replied, taken aback by the sudden lecture.

  'I'm going to be honest with you, it wasn't straight forward for me to get you back in my team, but they weren't sure where else to put you. You are being watched DI Falle, so please prove what an excellent investigative officer you are and concentrate on finding the murderer of David Lyle.'

  'Yes sir. I will.' Claire didn't know what else to say, she felt like she'd been slapped in the face. She knew Bob was doing her a favour, and she knew she was going to have to prove herself again, but the knowledge that nobody else wanted her on their team - that was tough. She had to make absolutely sure she didn't let Bob down. Her stomach churned and bile rose up as her body reacted to her mind's stress. She hadn't been like this for a long time, but she knew what to do next. Claire excused herself and went to the ladies’ toilet, where she quietly and with precision, vomited into the bowl.

  5

  Young Claire, Aged 10, 1995, Jersey

  She stood there as usual, while everyone else got picked first, until it was just her and fat Louise left. The dead weights, one for each team. Sharon Saunders pointed at her, but the other girls had already lost interest and turned away into their gaggles, deciding who should play where. She hated games lessons and she particularly hated netball. What was the point of chucking a ball to someone else who may or may not get it into a hoop? The others got so annoyed if she mis
sed the ball, or let the opposing team get it. It was just some poxy game.

  This morning she'd tried to get her mum to write a note to excuse her, sore tummy she'd told her. However her dad had unfortunately overheard the conversation and insisted that she did the games lesson.

  'It's important for your health,' he'd said to her, 'you want to be fit and slim don't you?'

  She'd taken the hint, yet another jibe at her slightly pudgy state.

  Her older brother, Christopher, winked at her, helping push the tears back. He'd even offered to carry her sports bag on the walk to the bus stop, but she'd refused feeling guilty. There was no stomach ache, just a knot of dread ahead of the usual humiliation of games.

  Claire tried to make herself invisible. While the other girls shouted, pushed and shoved to get control of the ball, she slipped to the furthest edges of the netball court and hoped the ball wouldn't come her way while she waited for the end whistle to blow. Her bare legs were raw pink in the chill wind, her teeth chattered. She just wanted this over.

  The changing rooms weren't much better. The 'in' crowd paraded their naked confidence while Claire shrank into the corners.

  Once the break bell went, Claire could be in a different world. Sharon and her mates, who didn't give her a second glance in the classroom or on the netball court, might even say a few words to her. Give her one of their cheap smiles. It wasn't for her benefit of course, but for her brother's. Christopher was one of the school heart throbs, physically mature beyond his years, muscular and handsome. She suspected it had been all the sports he'd been corralled into doing with their dad.

  The one thing Claire was thankful for was that her brother wasn't an idiot. He strung Sharon and her gang along sometimes, but airheads weren't his thing. He was going to go into the police force, just like their father, as soon as he left school. He carried that knowledge, that air of authority with him, even at this young age.