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‘Still working on Father George Markinson. Something dodgy there. Doesn’t stay in one place for very long, so more work to do.’
Kim nodded. ‘Sandy’s laptop?’ she asked, looking from Penn to Stacey, unsure who had taken on the task.
Penn put his hand up. ‘Mixed bag on social media. Some folks love what she does and others troll her. She didn’t respond to the negative comments. She just blocked them and moved on. Her inbox hasn’t thrown up any serious threats but I need more time.’ He paused to signal a change in subject. ‘Nothing that we didn’t know from the post-mortem except that Sandy might have had an accident when she was a kid.’
Kim deliberately donned her ‘are you kidding me?’ face.
‘Keats was very interested as to whether the childhood accident gave Sandy her gift.’
Kim almost spluttered her coffee all over herself. ‘Keats believes in psychics?’
She didn’t have that on her bingo card.
‘I think he’d like to be convinced,’ Penn answered.
Just went to show that no matter how much you thought you knew someone, they could always surprise you.
‘Okay, and our John Doe?’
‘Got a couple of leads that I’d like to follow up tomorrow, if that’s okay?’
‘Yes. Give the man his name to be buried with and his family some closure.’
Kim knew that now his death had been ruled as due to natural causes, he would be quickly released to what was once called ‘a pauper’s funeral’ but were now called public health funerals, carried out by local councils.
A public health funeral took place for people who had died alone, in poverty or who were unclaimed by their relatives. The service included being provided with a coffin, a funeral director to transport them to the cemetery with dignity and a short service at the graveside. There were no flowers, viewings, obituaries or transport for family members, and burials took place in an unmarked grave, often shared with other people.
If he had family, they should at least know about his death and have the chance to bury him.
‘Okay, good work. We’ve learned that the psychic reading on Thursday wasn’t the fun night out we thought but we’ll go into detail on that tomorrow. Go home, eat food, give your wife an early birthday present.’
Stacey and Penn exchanged a look while Bryant chuckled.
‘But get some rest and be back by 7 a.m.’
‘Got it, boss,’ Penn and Stacey said together as they stood.
Stacey offered Penn a questioning look.
‘Come on – I’ll drop you off as long as you give me a good rating on my driver profile.’
They laughed as they walked out the door.
‘What do you reckon about today, guv?’ Bryant asked, grabbing his coat.
‘Too many people trying to hide too many secrets,’ she said, waving him out the door.
All the women appeared to have ulterior motives for attending the psychic night: abducted kids, criminal records, controlling husbands and dying wishes. Their lives were filled with personal issues and questions that might or might not have been answered by the psychic on Thursday night. Had they been secretly disappointed, embarrassed, angry? Enough to harm her? How much emotional investment had the women had in the readings? she wondered.
And more importantly, did any of it have anything to do with the murder of Sandra Deakin?
EIGHTEEN
‘It’s a bit dark,’ Stacey said, looking out the window of the first-floor flat.
‘That’s okay – we’ve got headlights,’ Devon answered.
‘Looks like rain,’ she said.
