Death & the City Book Two by Lisa Scullard

noise they make," she confides in me. "They don't know what's happening to them."
    "Any casualties with burns?" I ask. "I don't necessarily want to see, I'm as squeamish as you - just give me details."
    She passes me the admissions list, where brief notes are scribbled before the patient is seen by the veterinary team.
    "A muntjack with a scorched flank, otherwise very perky, was going for my sandwiches," she remarks. "And a kestrel with burnt feathers on one wing, could only fly in circles."
    "I spoke to head office on the way over, they've asked for chemical tests for gas," I report. "Blood and swabs and hair samples. Or feather, I'm guessing."
    "Cool. I'll pass onto the vet that the University Chemistry lab is waiting," Drury nods, and glances over the list again, pointing at an entry. "He was the worst one. Poor buck came in with a wooden stake through his neck. Missed all the major veins and arteries, and just grazed his oesophagus. They reckon he'll be all right, though."
    "What was it, a piece of fencing or something?" I query.
    "I'll show you."
    She goes through a door, and returns with an object in a clear plastic bag, about as long as my forearm and pointed. Someone has labelled the bag with a permanent marker. Wooden Tent Peg.
    "Tent peg?" I ask.
    "A lot of camp sites in the area, must have come across similar before in incidents."
    "I don't think this driver was the happy camping type," I ponder. "What were they going to do with this, do you know?"
    "We're retaining any pieces of car shrapnel, but I think that was going in the bin," she says. "Not enough evidence linking it to the car."
    "I'll let Connor have a look at it first," I say. "Always better to have someone else's interpretation. Just in case."

    I head for the school to pick up Junior, in a thoughtful mode. I know that something about this situation as it develops is barking for my attention, but I'm not sure what it is. And for once I'm not talking about Connor. I feel as though hints have been gently dropping all around me, while I was preoccupied with what was going on over him.
    I'm also aware that looking for an underlying ongoing story, while life carries on in its usual random meaningless fashion, is a sign of psychosis. But continuity is something I don't have, aside from in my job. I've learned to ignore the little voices I hear filling in the gaps of what I do see of the world, outside my life and Junior's, and progressive generations of computer simulated Zombie Pets . But now I'm involved more behind the scenes, not just waking up and falling out of bed when the phone rings, I feel as though something else is appearing in those gaps - which I hadn't even considered.
    I press Speakerphone as Connor rings, my phone lighting up the dashboard, with the promise Warren's given me that War In A Box won't detonate no matter how many other gadgets Junior and I play with in the car.
    "Hey," I greet him.
    "We just lost a uniform marksman," he tells me. "Stupid tosser tried to pick up a foreign contract out playing Paint-Ball on a stag do with a real gun, and head office sent Jag Nut. He got the marksman and two other guys after a payout for the same contract, who were both doormen. He's not bad. Probably was his ideal scenario, dressing up playing soldiers and having his idea of fun."
    "Sounds about right," I remark. "Was it anyone you knew?"
    "Yeah, nobody special though, just some guy liked to brag on Facebuddy about being licensed to kill," Connor grunts. "The contract he was after is a bit of a mystery one. Someone's offering a lot of cash for this little Haitian guy to turn up dead. Maybe they think he's a zombie, and want proof otherwise."
    "Maybe," I reply, not inclined to disagree. "How do you think your workmate got wind of that one? Not shuffling through police files on his overtime, was he?"
    "No," Connor says. "Head office reckoned he got it from an online console War gaming forum, along with the two doormen who showed up. That's why all