AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He stopped speaking as her phone rang from her back pocket.
The caller was Keats.
Shit.
She stepped away.
‘Stone,’ she answered.
‘Bridge House, Waterfront. Be quick.’
The line went dead.
‘Bryant, we gotta go.’
He nodded his understanding.
‘Sorry we have to cut this short, Father George,’ he said. Bryant was ever the professional with enough good manners for them both. ‘Because,’ he continued, ‘I was looking forward to the part where I got to say that you do not represent any God in which I believe.’
Kim hid her smile as she and her colleague headed back to the car. There was no time to express her pride in him.
A call like that from Keats could only mean one thing.
They had another victim.
TWENTY-SIX
‘Well?’ Stacey asked, when Penn returned from the canteen with snacks.
‘Lemon meringue is all gone.’
‘Penn,’ she pushed. He’d been sent to the canteen to find out what the boss was heading towards. Although she wasn’t going to turn down the piece of fudge cake he’d put on her desk.
‘Not getting a lot of detail from uniforms. Been told I should keep the radio on.’
Although they weren’t obliged to carry a walkie talkie, most stations managed to free up a couple of hand-held units for the CID team. Bryant was pretty good at keeping one around but not while they were interviewing.
‘Didn’t the boss say anything?’
Stacey’s one trip to the loo had meant Penn took the call.
‘Only that Keats had called and they were on their way to Bridge House, Waterfront. I barely managed to tell her I’d found the threats on Sandy’s computer.’
‘Jeez, Penn, you couldn’t have interrogated her a bit more?’
‘Firstly, no, cos she’s the boss, and secondly, you know when she’s done talking and that weird thing happens when—’
‘The line goes dead,’ she finished for him. ‘Okay, fair enough, but bloody hell, Penn, I’m dying here.’
‘Best just crack on and wait until we’re needed then, eh, which for me is going through the missing persons reports to identify our John Doe.’
Stacey watched as he gathered up all the paperwork relating to other tasks he’d completed into neat piles. He always did this before starting a new task, as though the act was a refresh button on his mind.
She continued her own task of finding out as much about Sandra Deakin as she could, which included a lot of trawling.
She opened her mouth to speak to her colleague, but he’d already donned his headphones.
Despite the string of emails from one particular person, Stacey wasn’t finding a whole lot of negative press about the woman. There were no forums discussing her abilities or labelling her a swindler or fraud. There was nothing overly positive either. Although she’d done a few shows at small venues, she seemed to favour the dinner-party environment and one-on-one readings. She’d appeared on local TV and radio, but her reach didn’t appear to stretch beyond the borders of the Black Country.
