Detective Chief Inspector Selmy showed his warrant card to the watchman on the perimeter and was met by Detective Watchman Hunt near the front gate of the expensive Rosby property that was now the site of what would probably be the biggest investigation of his career.

"Details, Hunt."

"Sir we've got four dead bodies. Three guards, one in the car on the street, one on the front porch and one inside, all killed by single gunshot wounds to the head. No casings so far, but the guy on the porch was killed with a rifle so we could get something when we find the nest."

"Bullets?"

"Might get something from the guard in the car, but the porch round is misshapen by multiple impacts, unsuitable for comparison."

"What about the fourth man?"

"Tywin Lannister." Barristan turned to Hunt in shock. Tywin had been the head of the city's underworld for the past two years, a crown won when Tywin's men riddled a local restaurant with bullets. A restaurant that was hosting a wedding reception that his main rival Eddard Stark had been attending, killing him, several of his men and crippling his son in the process. The case the drugs squad put together to bring down the rest of Stark's gang, including his son and brother in law, had just been an afterthought. Not that anyone had been able to prove anything. "He died a bit harder."

The two men walked through the richly appointed house and out into the backyard. There were more forensic techs taking pictures, this time of a blackened corpse lying amidst the ruins of what had probably been an expensive wooden chair on the stone patio.

"They set him on fire," commented Barristan.

"And shot him six times." The two men turned to see Detective Sergeant Tarth, all six feet, three inches of her, standing on the patio.

"How do you know it was six?" Hunt asked.

"Police work, Detective." She beckoned and they followed. "Tywin had security cameras on all the external areas, including the back yard." She led them upstairs past the third bodyguard, who had been killed as he ran down the stairs, and into a small room with a half dozen screens. Brienne tapped a few keys and the screens reset. The one on the top right and top centre showed the street in front, while the top left showed the front porch. The back patio was shown on the bottom centre screen.

A KLCW patrol car pulled up behind the parked car. The man who got out was in uniform but it was impossible to see any identifying marks and he was wearing what appeared to be a balaclava. He tapped on the window and when it was rolled down the man pulled out a suppressed pistol and fired a single shot into the car. At exactly the same time, the guard on the front porch stiffened and fell to the ground. The faux-Watchman went back to his car and pulled out a battering ram. A car pulled up to the gate and three men got out, all wearing balaclavas and with their bodies securely insulated against the King's Landing winter's night. They walked up to the front door and two of the men used the battering ram to smash it open. A few minutes later, the men reappeared, this time dragging a half-naked Tywin, an expensive looking wooden chair, and a can of petrol.

Tywin was tied to the chair and appeared to make some cutting remark right before one of the men put duct tape over his mouth and another upended the tank of petrol over his head. The fourth man, shorter and slighter than the rest and who hadn't done any physical labour so far, pulled a lighter from his pocket, lit it and tossed it at Tywin, who immediately burst into flame. He struggled, a sight made all the more horrible by the absence of sound, but Barristan forced himself to look. Then the leader pulled out a pistol and fired some shots – six in fact – into Tywin, who went almost instantly still. The group waited a moment and then they left, walking out the front door.

Brienne manipulated the controls and the top left screen reversed slightly. As Tywin was being burned out the back a woman was running out the front, dressed in a short skirt and clutching a jacket and shoes. She headed down the street and didn't look back.

"Who's that?"

"As far as we know Tywin didn't have a steady girlfriend, but we'll ask around."

"We should check with Vice." Hunt offered. Brienne and Selmy regarded him. "I mean, the way she's dressed, no purse, in a place like this, with a guy like him, they'd probably know who she was.

Barristan couldn't argue with that. "There are bigger problems too; this is going to create a vacuum, which a dozen players are going to attempt to fill. King's Landing was going to bathe in blood no matter what we do."

"Not to mention that Tywin's own people are going to be out for blood, the man had a lot of friends" pointed out Hunt. He didn't add what the three of them were thinking, that those friends were on both sides of the law, and a lot of pockets were going to be getting lighter in the months to come.

"Lot of good those friends did him," stated Brienne, matter of factly.

There's something in that. What it is I don't know.

"Detective Chief Inspector, sir." The three men looked up to see a young Watchman – Payne by his name tag – Selmy wondered if he was any relation to Sir Illyn Payne, Tywin's pet Judge.

"Yes"

"DCI Slynt is here to see you." The way the boy said the name of the head of the Narcotics unit told him that, related or not, the boy wasn't part of the network of dirty Watchmens Tywin had kept on his payroll.

"Did he say what he wanted?"

"To offer his assistance to the investigation."

Hunt looked at Brienne. "Many hands do make light work."

Barristan didn't trust Slynt as far as he could throw him, but he couldn't piss him off either, the man had powerful friends, even with everything in flux. "Let's all play nice for now."

Slynt was waiting on the back patio. "They set him on fire."

"And shot him six times," piped in Hunt.

"Does the drug squad know who Tywin's enemies were?" Brienne asked.

"The Essosi maybe, though I never heard anything about disagreements." And you would know, thought Barristan. "Maybe the Martells, but after twenty-five years…"

"The Starks?"

"One's dead, one's in prison, one's a cripple, one's a psychopath going around slaughtering low level dealers and leaving spray painted wolves as calling cards, and one's sixteen."

"And Sansa?"

Slynt and his men started laughing, Detective Inspector Deem was holding his sides while Slynt was bent nearly double. "She doesn't have it in her."

"You just ruled out all the other suspects."

"There could be someone we don't know about. Besides the girl's supposed to be up in the Gulltown or something."

"It wouldn't even be the first time today something we believed to be true wasn't."

"What do you mean?"

In reply, Brienne indicated the mortal remains of the most powerful man in the city. "He's supposed to be untouchable."

Before Slynt could contort Brienne's words into a slight on his non-existent honour, Barristan decided to turn the conversation in a more neutral direction.

"What about one of Tywin's captains?"

"After the unpleasantness with the Reynes, I rather doubt it."

"That was thirty years ago," pointed out Hunt.

"What about rivals?" asked Brienne.

"Tywin didn't have rivals, not anymore." Gods the man has drunk the kool-aid, he probably couldn't put together a decent investigation that wasn't fixed and by all accounts his men couldn't follow a child to school without being made and labelled perverts. Tywin had at least one rival, who had just set him on fire. And shot him six times.

"Alright, let's just pull in all the major drug dealers in the city, work over the informants and see if we can't find a suspect. Who knows, forensics might even give us something."