Excerpt: The Murder Club

Chapter One

The face of the corpse was a curious shade of purple, tinged with flecks of blue, the eyes bulging and wide open, the mouth a silent scream. The rope creaked as the body swayed slowly back and forth, a horrific pendulum, fingers clawed, grasping at nothing.
Harker knew a violent death when he saw one.
Around the body, Jenny Griffin's forensic team did their ghoulish work, photographing the dangling body from every angle, capturing every nuance, the hanged man a celebrity now in death. The cameras flashed again and again, freezing the corpse in time, intensifying the surreal reality of the scene.
Harker had seen a lot of death in his time, but it was the unusual ones such as this that always stayed with him: a lone body, dangling by the neck from a rope, in the centre of a small, darkened room. Once seen, never forgotten.
Other members of the forensics team carefully dusted and took notes, taking samples, drawing diagrams, the contents of the room faithfully recorded, diligently captured. Harker shuffled on the spot, not wanting to look at the corpse, forcing himself to do his job.
"Want me to take a look around, guv?" Harker turned to DS Critchley behind him, already eager to begin, his enthusiasm barely restrained. Harker envied Critchley's response to such horrors. How did he find it so easy?
"Don't let them take the body down until every inch of this room has been photographed and catalogued," Harker replied. It was a familiar, nervy instruction.
"Yes, I think they know that, guv," Critchley smiled, brushing deftly past his boss, treading carefully around the forensic team, his gaze darting around the room, taking everything in.
"I don't care if they know it," Harker snapped, "Make sure of it anyway. It's what you're here for. Don't let them miss a thing."
Harker took another look at the corpse. The body stared back at him, glassy eyed, screaming to be allowed down from the rope, begging for the torture to end.
"So do we reckon this was a suicide?" asked Critchley, slipping his Blackberry from his pocket, typing in notes, taking a few photographs for himself. "I've not seen a hanging before, do they all look like this?"
"If this was a suicide," Harker began, taking another look at the face of the corpse, quickly tearing his eyes away from the horrified stare, "then he changed his mind at the last minute. That isn't the face of a man who went peacefully to his death."
Critchley stepped closer to the corpse to get a better look, ignoring Griffin's raised eyebrow. "Please be careful," she reminded him, "I don't want your feet stepping on anything important."
"Don't worry, luv, I know what I'm doing." Critchley leaned into the corpse, studying the face, lingering for a few moments, scratching at his goatee thoughtfully. "He does look a little startled, I'll give you that. Could it have gone wrong? Maybe he intended to break his own neck as he dropped, and it didn't happen. The rope tightened around his neck, he's stuck there, slowly throttling himself to death...? It's not like he could practice it first or anything."
"If you're going to hang yourself," said Harker, looking around the room, looking anywhere but at the ghoulish corpse, "then that's a pretty elaborate way to kill yourself, don't you think? If you're going to go to all that trouble, I'd say you're pretty damn sure you want to end up dead."
"What are you getting at?" asked Critchley, stepping over the fallen stool under the body's feet.
"If you're that determined to be dead, why struggle?"
"Panic?" asked Critchley. "People panic when they can't breathe, it's an automatic reaction."
Harker grumbled, taking another look around the room, scanning it, storing it. "I'm going outside for a cigarette. Come and get me when the body's been taken down."
"Will do, guv," replied Critchley, watching as his boss turned and left, smiling with slight embarrassment at Griffin. "You know what he's like," he offered. Griffin tutted audibly, continuing with her work.