The Candy Cane Killer by Emmy Ellis

Author:Emmy Ellis [Ellis, Emmy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

The phone woke Bethany at five in the bloody morning, for God’s sake, and she sat up, groggy, grasping blindly for it in the darkness, slapping her fingertips on the bedside table. She grabbed it and stared at the lit screen. Too bright.

Ursula from the front desk.

Bethany sighed and swiped to answer. “Hi.” She leant on her elbow, hair falling over half of her face. Tickling. Annoying.

“Sorry, Beth . . .”

“Don’t be silly, can’t be helped. What have you got?”

“A body behind the warehouse at the rear of the homeless shelter.”

“Oh, sodding hell . . .” She pushed the quilt off and sat up.

“Isabelle is en route.”

“Ring Presley for me. I’ll deal with Mike. Any ID?”

“No. A Sandy Cossar called it in. Apparently, she was on the night shift at the shelter.”

“Yep, I know her. I’ll get down there as soon as possible. Ta.” She ended the call and rang Mike. “Soz, mate, but there’s been another one.”

“Christ. Okay, I’ll be ready in ten.”

“Give me twenty. I’ll bring the coffee.”

In the shower, she scrubbed herself quickly then got out, chilled by the room’s semi-warm temperature. The lowered, overnight heating hadn’t done much to combat the nip like it usually did, and she slung on some skinny jeans, a T-shirt, and a heavy jumper. Downstairs, kettle boiling, she pulled the window blind up.

“Fuck.”

That explained the temperature. Snow had made an unwelcome return, chunky flakes pelting down, creating a knobbly ledge on the outer sill. It must have been at it for hours, as her back garden was covered, perhaps three inches deep already. It had even landed on each line of her rotary, sitting on top of pegs, looking the same as the ends of cotton buds.

She walked off, disheartened. Head inside the hallway cupboard, she dug out her pale-pink wellies and thought about the white stuff wreaking havoc with any evidence left on the body. It would also bugger up the time of death estimate. She should be used to things rarely going right for them, but just once, it’d be nice if a case was clear-cut and solved without roadblocks messing it all up. Who’d have thought the weather would be the culprit?

Wellies on over thick fluffy socks, coffee made and in to-go cups, she stuffed her phone in her pocket, put on a waterproof jacket, and drove to Mike’s. She didn’t beep in case she woke his neighbours, but he came out straight away — must have been watching through the window — and sat beside her in a fat puffer coat and woollen beanie, rubbing his hands.

“Talk about annoying that it’s snowing again,” he said, taking a coffee from the cup holder between their seats. “Cheers for this, as usual.”

“Glad to see you dressed appropriately like me. If we’re going to be outside for hours, may as well layer up.” She gave him the details while driving. “So, what do you make of it then? Another homeless?”

“Got to be, hasn’t it?”

“Hmm. Can you ring Leona and get her in early? Leave Fran — she deserves to see that lovely little kid of hers in the mornings.

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