Under the Skin (Ritual Crime Unit) Read Online Free

sleep through their after-dark raid and hear about the results in the morning, but Maitland’s interference and the news of a death in police custody had dragged him out of bed and back to work.
    And Pierce was the one who got called onto the carpet to account for it. If Maitland’s two men were getting a bollocking for their part in this fiasco, it was taking place in private, with no opportunity for her to stick her oar in.
    Which was a pity, because she had plenty to say. “Sir, the team from Counter Terrorism came waltzing in throwing their weight about and overrode all our procedures,” she said. “My people would have checked the prisoner for ritual markings if they’d only been allowed to do their jobs. We’re lucky it was just a suicide rune and not something worse. He could have taken half the station down.”
    “Lucky,” he echoed, with a bitter twist to the word. He whirled about to face her. “Yes, Claire, I feel exceptionally lucky that the resource-intensive, high-profile raid you persuaded me to authorise has resulted in two injured officers, one suspect escaped, and another one dead in our custody!”
    Now was not the time to argue. “Sir.” She acknowledged the words with a carefully neutral expression, staring past him at the crime statistics posted up on the wall. The RCU lagging behind, as usual.
    Palmer spent several more moments pacing himself out before he stopped and heaved a defeated sigh. He fixed her with a cool gaze. “A suicide rune,” he said.
    “Yes, sir.” She nodded. “It would have been tattooed on the inside of his mouth. He only needed to hold his tongue against it for a set length of time to trigger the rune.” She’d seen it before, though it had been over a decade ago; some ridiculous apocalypse cult or other with a vow to take their secrets to the grave.
    He ran a hand back through his thinning hair. “Then it couldn’t have been prevented?”
    “It might have, if they’d allowed a team with the proper expertise to take charge,” she said. “Sir, I don’t know who these people are, or what their interest is in this skinbinder, but there’s no way they’re half as qualified as the RCU to handle supernatural crime. This should be our case.”
    Palmer pressed his lips together and gave another sigh, pulling the chair out from under his desk to sit down. “That’s as may be, but it’s not your decision to make—or mine,” he said, shaking his head as he leaned back. “This is coming from above my head, Claire. The Counter Terror Action Team have full autonomy to do as they see fit, and we are to give them our cooperation.”
    “No questions asked, of course.” Pierce scowled.
    He gave her a stern look. “You understand perfectly well how important information security can be. Loose lips sink ships, and all that.”
    “On the other hand, maybe if we’d loosened some, we might have found the suicide runes hidden behind them.”
    He threw up his hands. “I can see that you’re not going to drop this, but there’s only so far even you can get running on stubbornness.” He checked the time on his fancy silver watch and gave a grimace. “Go home, get some sleep, and consider this case off your desk and best forgotten. It’s the Counter Terror Action Team’s problem now.”
     
     
    P IERCE HAD LEARNED to sleep like the dead no matter how grim a day she’d come home from, but that alone didn’t make three hours substitute for a night’s rest. She dragged herself reluctantly out of bed, skipping the minimal time she had to make breakfast in favour of a phone call to Sally’s husband.
    He sounded more exhausted than she was, but he told her that Sally was stable after the doctors had given her a tracheostomy. She tried to call Leo, but he didn’t pick up; she left a message on his phone asking after Sergeant Henderson.
    The grim reminder of the raid’s ugly results undid any work the rest might have done towards cooling her temper. The queue at the