Final Account
Chapter One
The uniformed constable lifted the tape and waved Detective
Chief Inspector Banks through the gate at two
forty-seven in the morning.
Banks's headlights danced over the scene as he drove into
the bumpy farmyard and came to a halt. To his left stood the
squat, solid house itself, with its walls of thick limestone and
mossy, flagstone roof. Lights shone in both the upstairs and
downstairs windows. To his right, a high stone wall buttressed
a copse that straggled up the daleside, where the
trees became lost in darkness. Straight ahead stood the barn.
A group of officers had gathered around the open doors,
inside which a ball of light seemed to be moving. They
looked like the cast of a fifties sci-fi film gazing in awe on
an alien spaceship or life-form.
When Banks arrived, they parted in silence to let him
through. As he entered, he noticed one young PC leaning
against the outside wall dribbling vomit on his size twelves.
Inside, the scene looked like a film set.
Peter Darby, the police photographer, was busy videotaping,
and the source of the light was attached to the top of his
camera. It created an eerie chiaroscuro and sudden, sickening
illuminations as it swept around the barn's interior. All he
neede ... read full excerpt from Final Account ebook
