Nine Lives, Anita Waller [best interesting books to read .txt] 📗

‘I’m here to help, ma’am, and make sure you’re ferried about today. We’re all really sorry to hear about DS Machin, and you’ve apparently been with her most of the night. Best accept today is about making you safe, and I’m your designated driver until I drop you off at home.’

She wanted to cry. Instead, she thanked him, and clambered down towards the river.

Ivor was in the tent and she popped her head inside.

‘Morning.’

He looked up. ‘Morning, Erica. And so we have another one. The River Porter seems to be the gift that keeps on giving, doesn’t it?’

‘Everything’s the same?’ She felt a rage building inside her.

‘It is.’ He gently lifted the girl’s breast, turning her arm slightly at the same time. ‘This is the needle mark at the base of the neck and we’ll do a full tox screen but I think we both know it will show Propofol. No clothing anywhere. As you can see, she’s posed so that her genitalia and breasts are on show, and once again she’s pretty with a good figure. Wants approbation, doesn’t he?’

‘Or she does.’

‘You think?’

Tiredly, Erica swept a hand across her brow, pushing back her hair. ‘God knows, Ivor. We’re getting nothing. This bloody rain keeps potential witnesses indoors, and washes away any forensics, as you know. The river seems to be the common theme but it’s about six miles long and I simply don’t have enough personnel to have them standing here on the banks twenty-four hours a day for the foreseeable future. And yet again we’ve no idea who she is, why she knew the person who gave her a lift – and that bit’s guesswork at the moment but it’s been a common theme with the others – and we’re probably going to have to wait until somebody rings in with a missing person query. I’m tired, I think we’re losing Beth, and I’ve got to go and face the bastard who hit her.’

Erica burst out crying, and Ivor quickly stood. ‘Hey, come on.’ He wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

She took in some deep breaths as she battled to control her emotions. The cameraman slipped out of the tent to give them privacy, and Ivor held her until she brought herself back to a kind of normality.

Ivor quickly changed his coverall and shoe protectors, then headed back into the tent. He’d never seen Erica anything less than the cool professional lady that she was, and he felt… startled… by the revelation. So she was human after all, he mused, and bent over the body. The ice lady had melted quite spectacularly.

Erica sent Flick and Sam around the Waitrose staff, interviewing them all, and concentrating on the three who had initially spotted the body. None of them had anything at all to add to the investigation. They were going off shift when it had been spotted, yes they had been on duty all night, and no, they had seen nothing untoward on the banks of the now-infamous river. Contact information was taken and they were finally allowed to finish their shift.

Erica was driven back to the station and much as she tried to dismiss her driver he was certain he was going nowhere, he told her. Steve said he was hers for the day, and he couldn’t disobey Steve.

She actually shook her head in wonderment. He could disobey the order of a DI when she said he could stand down, but he couldn’t disobey the order of Sergeant Steve. In the end she gave in, and sent him off to get them a sandwich lunch that had to include two of the biggest and best coffees Starbucks could provide.

Waiting for her was the report from Flick that she had requested concerning the weather back in twenty-fourteen. She wasn’t sure why it was relevant, but felt it was some knowledge she could acquire. On every single night the four girls had died, it had been heavy rain.

She sat back in her chair and let that fact run around inside her head, and knew it was yet further confirmation it was the same killer. Rain kept people indoors. Heavy rain even kept dog walkers confined to their back doors at night, with the poor dogs merely let out into the garden for their ablutions. Drivers hesitated before venturing forth in heavy rain, and children were made to stay indoors by parents who didn’t want to have to deal with sodden offspring and their clothes.

The killer needed time to set up the display, time for the rain to do its cleansing work in case there had been a transfer of bodily fluid, skin cells and suchlike, and most of all the effect of the body when it was discovered had to be perfect. He or she must have been incredibly fed up when Susie had been dislodged from her position in the pocket park and forced downriver to where she had been found.

Erica headed towards Flick’s desk, wrote a little note that said thank you for the weather report, smiled at the wording and headed back to her own office after a brief glance at the murder board. It would be extremely full once the new case was added.

Back in her own office, resplendent in the middle of her desk, was a large chicken and stuffing sandwich, an iced doughnut the size of one of the rings of Jupiter, and the biggest cup of coffee she had ever had. Her driver had scribbled a little note telling her to ring him when she needed to go anywhere.

Once again she felt close to tears. People really shouldn’t be nice to her, she wasn’t good at accepting niceness. Or was it simply that she was so goddamn tired and so worried about Beth that coping was a step too far.

And she still had that toerag Evan Yeardley to deal with. Word from the custody suite was that he was definitely under the weather