Read Online The Kill by Jane Casey - Free Book Online

least one occasion. It was a weird thing to be embarrassed about but I was embarrassed.
    ‘No one ever thinks it will be them.’
    ‘The odds are against it,’ Godley agreed. He was staying close to Lowry’s car, following him through the quiet streets. ‘It’s still the sort of job that makes you a target. Like that PC in Lambeth a couple of weeks ago. What was his name?’
    I knew who he meant. ‘Gregory. Philip or Peter or something.’
    ‘Crossing the road, in uniform, on duty and he gets hit by a car. A walking target. He was lucky.’
    ‘He jumped,’ I said, remembering some of the details. ‘I think he broke an arm or a leg though. Did they get anyone for that?’
    ‘They haven’t even got a suspect. It was a residential street. No CCTV. No witnesses. He didn’t get more than a quick look at the car himself and he was single-crewed.’ Godley shook his head. ‘I don’t think they’ll get whoever did it. My guess is that someone attacked the uniform, not the man. It was the day after Levon Cole was shot. You don’t have to look too far for reasons for us to be unpopular at the moment.’
    Levon Cole was a teenager who had been shot by police officers in murky circumstances. It was just the latest reason for people not to love the Met. ‘Do you think Terence Hammond was killed because he was a cop?’
    ‘It’s possible.’
    ‘Maybe he was killed because he was having an affair.’
    ‘Also possible.’
    ‘So when do we ask the grieving widow about whether her husband was faithful to her?’
    Godley’s mouth twitched. ‘Derwent would ask her straightaway.’
    ‘Which is why he’s hanging out with the dead man in Richmond Park.’
    ‘That’s one reason.’
    ‘It’s good enough.’
    ‘To answer your question about Mrs Hammond, I’m not sure how I’m going to do this yet. I’m going to let Lowry take the lead with breaking the news and offering her whatever consolation he can. Then I’ll talk to her. I haven’t decided how I’m going to approach it. I want to wait until I see her. I’m assuming she’ll want to find her husband’s killer. If she’s strong enough, she might want to talk about their ups and downs. If she falls apart we’ll have to rely on friends and family to get a picture of how Hammond was at home.’
    ‘I have no sense of his personality at all,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t even see what he looked like.’
    Still driving, Godley dug in his pocket and handed me his phone, tapping in the PIN code without looking down at the screen. ‘Check my emails. I got someone at Isleworth to send me an up-to-date picture of him.’
    I navigated to the emails, scrolling through many messages to find the right one. The picture was formal, a head-and-shoulders shot. Hammond had just missed out on being handsome, I thought. He looked like a rugby player, thick-necked and short-haired with a heavy jaw. Straight eyebrows. A nose too small for his face. I knew not to read too much into a single image – a formal picture at that – but I couldn’t help trying to invest his face with character. There was something to the tilt of his head, the droop of his eyelids, that made me think he was arrogant. Maybe that was just because I knew he’d died with his flies open and some unknown person’s face in his crotch. I flicked back to Godley’s inbox.
    ‘It’s Sunday morning and you’ve had about twenty emails since the one with Terence Hammond’s picture. How do you find the time to read all of these?’
    ‘I don’t.’
    ‘What if they’re important?’
    ‘They’re never important.’
    ‘Seriously, though.’
    ‘Seriously, if it’s important, I get a phone call. If it’s rubbish, it comes as an email. The ones with the Excel attachments are the ones I read last. If ever.’
    There was something giddy about Godley – as if he was excited but suppressing it. Maybe it was because the end of his marriage spelt liberation. In almost three years of working for him I’d seen him