Condemned, R.C. Bridgestock [most romantic novels TXT] 📗

such time as we know for certain that there is nothing else to find on the site JT Developments will not be allowed back on site,’ Charley stated before she sat behind her desk. Annie sat opposite her.

Eyes down, flicking through the post, Charley continued, to reassure herself, ‘It’s still early days. The identities of the bodies are still unknown.’

Ricky-Lee tapped on the SIO’s door waving a bag in his hand, like a white flag. ‘Bacon, and egg, with tomato sauce; just as you like it,’ he said. He was smiling broadly. Charley eyed him suspiciously. ‘What’ve you done?’

Ricky-Lee looked crestfallen, ‘Moi?’

Mike, close behind, pushed him further into the office. The sergeant’s eyes questioned Annie, who with straight lips shook her head at him in little jerky movements.

‘A win on the horses?’ Charley was not ready to give up on her questioning.

Ricky-Lee lowered his eyes and slumped in a chair.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That’s all I needed to know.’

Mike opened their meeting. ‘The intelligence relating to baby-face Brad and Brittany Dixon reads like a horror story. They’re ruthless, they’re dangerous, they’re still at large,’ he said, handing the most recent picture of them around for the others to see. ‘That big, evil-looking woman and her weasel of a husband have proved time and time again that they are loyal, but only to each other.’

The phone rang, and Charley picked up.

‘Eira White from Forensics,’ said the sharp, curt voice at the other end. Charley’s eyes turned upwards, and rested on her colleagues’ faces.

‘Go on,’ said Charley. A phone call from Forensics so early in the morning could only mean one thing – there was news.

‘The dagger,’ said Eira.

‘What about the dagger?’

‘We’ve found traces of human blood in the shaft.’

For a moment it felt like her heart had stopped beating. ‘The victim’s blood?’ she said.

‘Most probably, but whilst we were working on the DNA profile this brought up not just one blood type, but two. We will know which is the victim’s when we can match that to the DNA from the skeletal bones. When that’s confirmed then we can run the other through the national database to see if there are any hits.’

‘That’s great, it’s just what we need this morning, something positive.’

No sooner had she replaced the phone, than it rang again. This time it was Ballistics. Liam told her that the 9-milimetre casing was confirmed to be from a semi-automatic pistol, a Baikal handgun, of Russian origin, the criminal’s choice of weapon and one that was easily adapted from guns that were originally used for firing gas canisters, not bullets.

Charley’s heart sank. ‘Does that mean we’re looking for a needle in a haystack?’

‘No, not at all,’ said Liam. ‘The striation marks on the casing are tell-tale signs, like fingerprints, and will give us an indication as to whether the gun has been used previously. If it has, it’s going to be on the database.’

Charley’s spirits rose. The type of weapon was confirmed! Good news came in threes, and she wondered what the third would be?

‘Ricky-Lee, I want you with me today,’ said Charley. The detective frowned. His expression seemed to say, Why me? ‘While Wilkie and Annie are visiting Lily Pritchard at St Anne’s Church, I could do with a lift.’

‘A lift?’ he said. Putting a hand to his lower back, he pulled a face and groaned.

‘I want to see if there is any way of getting inside Seth Alderman’s grave to see what’s inside.’

‘By anything inside, I presume anything other than a coffin?’

‘That’s right! You’ve got a problem with that?’ she asked.

Ricky-Lee shook his head ‘No, no… not at all, boss. How do I do that?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure all that time that you spend at the gym recently will have considerably strengthened those muscles of yours.’

Chapter 21

From where Charley and Ricky-Lee stood at the gate to the graveyard, they could see Lily Pritchard opening the door of her home, within the cluster of church buildings, to Annie and Wilkie. When the old wooden door closed with a judder, and Charley heard the latch drop, she beckoned Ricky-Lee to follow her. Carefully she negotiated the moss-covered gravestones, which, in the absence of a path, formed a slippery walkway to Seth Alderman’s resting place. ‘Tell me, what else do you think we might find in his grave?’ Charley asked, in a hushed tone.

Hands in the pockets of his suit trousers, Ricky-Lee shrugged his shoulders. ‘A skeleton?’

Charley turned sharply, ‘No one likes a smart Alec!’ Then she paused, one eyebrow raised at the detective, before she turned and walked on. ‘That’s the best you can come up with, is it?’ she said, over her shoulder, ‘a skeleton’? Her voice sounded flat and controlled, which was far from what she felt inside towards him.

At the perimeter of the gravestones, the two detectives stood in silence looking down at the exposed cracked limestone slabs that lay on top of displaced broken bricks. Ricky-Lee was the first to lift his head, and in doing so, scanned the rest of the graveyard through slitted eyes. He looked at his watch, delved into his jacket pocket, and pulled a single pill out, immediately throwing it to the back of his throat.

Charley could feel the tremble of rage creeping over her. ‘Am I boring you DC Lee, because I can soon get you off the case, and back in uniform today, if you’d rather be elsewhere?’

Ricky-Lee jerked as though he had been electrocuted. ‘No! ’Course not,’ he said. Unable to meet her eyes, he made a half-hearted attempt at a laugh.

‘Course not what?’ she said crossly.

He hung his head, ‘Course not, boss.’

Head down, he kicked the grass with the toe of his scuffed shoe. Suddenly a shaft of sunlight burst through the heavy, low-lying clouds and settled on Ricky-Lee’s face. It showed Charley the dry flaky skin on his pink eyelids, the dark rings underneath his eyes, his chapped lips, and the cold sores at the corners of his mouth. His hands were