SEVEN DEADLY THINGS (Henry & Sparrow Book 3), A FOX [good books to read for adults .TXT] 📗

‘Well, I didn’t know it was a crime scene until I’d entered it,’ said Kate, keeping her voice even. ‘I checked her pulse with sterile gloves on. Other than that, nothing has been touched. Mike here is Head of Security and needed to verify what he was being told, so he has stepped in and seen the body — then come straight back out again.’

Stuart pursed her lips and, pausing to put fabric slippers over her sensible black shoes, pulled the door open with gloved hands and entered the scene. As the constables began to gather notes from Mike and Gary, Kate followed the DS to the door, peering past the opened curtain.

‘I hope you weren’t planning to go home tomorrow,’ said Stuart, scanning the murder scene with the impassive expression of someone who’d seen it all before, and worse. ‘I had a feeling from your phone call this afternoon that my weekend was going to be wrecked.’

‘They’re connected,’ said Kate, keeping her voice low and directed away from Gary and Mike outside. ‘Martin Riley, who supposedly killed himself, was one of our party. There were seven of us here for a reunion weekend… and now there are five.’

Stuart fixed her with a jaded expression. ‘So you think there’s a connection, do you? Nice of you to help me out there.’

Kate gritted her teeth. ‘You have to admit it’s one big coincidence.’

‘I admit nothing,’ said Stuart, edging around the far side of the sofa to take in the full grimness of Julie’s death.

‘I’m sorry… but a suicide note on a sanitary towel?’

The DS jerked her head up. ‘How did you come by that information?’ she snapped.

Kate folded her arms and tilted her head. ‘Same way you would, in my position.’

The pair of them locked eyes for a moment and then the faintest twist of acknowledgement travelled across Stuart’s face. ‘Wait outside, please, DI Sparrow. We’ve got much to talk about.’

Outside, Gary was going into a low-volume meltdown and Kate couldn’t blame him. He was faced with a horrible situation. Happy holidaymakers were snoozing within metres of a murder scene. As soon as the full investigative team — complete with lights, tape and forensics boiler suits — showed up, a lot of families were going to be freaking out.

‘I think you’d better get the guests out now,’ said Kate. ‘Before it gets any later and before the full CSI team shows up. It’s only going to get worse.’ She glanced at the male and female uniformed officers. ‘Don’t you think? Shouldn’t they be getting the families moved away from here?’

‘What really happened to her?’ said Gary, in a choked voice, as DS Stuart emerged from the chalet to consult with the PCs. ‘Mike says someone smothered her in fat? Is that true?’

‘You’re going to need to get these other chalets emptied,’ said DS Stuart, echoing Kate. ‘As soon as my officers have questioned the occupants.’

Gary put his face in his hands.

‘Gary — listen — get your Bluecoats together,’ said Kate. She glanced at her watch. ‘They’ll probably all still be up, and hopefully not too plastered yet. They can help the police and make the whole thing less scary.’ She glanced up at Stuart, raising her eyebrows.

‘That sounds like a good plan,’ said Stuart.

Gary nodded. And then shook his head, looking wretched as the enormity of his task hit him.

‘Use your Blues,’ Kate urged again, squeezing his arm. ‘They’ll be really helpful in keeping the lid on all of this. And remember — everyone gets a free upgrade to the deluxe chalets, yes? You’ve got some spare? Made up and ready to go for drop-ins, yeah?’ She remembered that Buntin’s usually kept chalets ready to let out to last minute drop-ins, particularly on weekends.

‘Yeah,’ he nodded. ‘Yeah — that’s a good idea. OK. I’m on it.’

Francis arrived back on the scene as Stuart was quietly briefing her officers to work with the manager and his Bluecoats. He wandered up to her, looking tousled and tired and freaked out. ‘Jesus — this is your day job?’

‘Yup,’ she nodded, sighing and resting her forehead on his shoulder. ‘A dead body. The very thing we came here to get away from.’

‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘The next thing we know, Lucas Henry’s going to show up with his magic pendulum and find another one for you.’

‘He can’t be that unlucky,’ said Kate.

16

It was very hard for Lucas Henry to get to sleep that night. Largely because he was utterly spun out by seeing Kate.

But, at least partly, because Lady Grace Botwright was straddling him.

She had been waiting in the leather armchair in the corner of the galleried landing outside his room, wrapped in an oriental silk robe, her hair loose and her eyes dancing with promise. ‘I want to be clear, Lucas,’ she’d said, as he crept up the stairs. ‘I’m too old to bugger about. I find you divinely attractive and I simply want to shag you senseless at least once while you’re staying here. Is that wrong of me?’

He hadn't known what to say to that, so he just chuckled, shaking his head at the freakish day he was having. ‘It’s not wrong, as such,’ he said. ‘Not sure Lord Botwright would agree, though.’

‘Lord Botwright is perfectly happy with it,’ Grace had said. ‘As long as he gets to bang Giuliano in Rome for most of the summer.’ She smiled and winked. ‘We have an arrangement. I don’t take advantage of it very often, but this time…’ She stepped across to him and stroked his stubbly chin. ‘Unless you don’t want to, of course. In which case, I will vanish like the ghost of Lady Macbeth and we shall never speak of this again.’

Two minutes later they were on his bed and she was flinging her silk robe away, revealing a very pleasing naked physique, along with some very persuasive naked desire. He wasn’t particularly into the whole dominatrix thing but he very much enjoyed confidence and