20 Minutes Before Christmas by Daniel Hurst

Author:Daniel Hurst [Hurst, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Calibre
Published: 2020-12-09T23:00:00+00:00

Paula

23:50

Paula Walsh studied the graphic images on her computer as if she was expecting to see something that she had missed on all the other occasions when she had looked at them.

The blood.

The torn clothing.

The lifeless face of Ruth Robertson.

She had been scrolling through the digital files for most of the evening and was so lost in her work that she had failed to notice the late hour. It was almost Christmas Day, and she should be at home with her family. Instead, she was sitting at this police station in East London, poring over the evidence for the murder investigation that she was leading. Work had always come first for Paula, and in her world, Christmas was no different from any other day of the year.

Not when there were cold-blooded killers still walking the streets of the capital.

As the Detective Chief Inspector heading up this Major Investigation Team in the Metropolitan Police, Paula hadn’t got to where she was by going home early and losing herself in a little mindless television. She had grafted and ground her way to her prominent role in the male-dominated world of British policing, and she wasn’t done yet. But it wasn’t just sheer ambition that had seen her rise up the ranks from a lowly Constable to the person in charge of this specialised homicide squad.

It was more old-fashioned and boring than that.

She wanted justice for the victims.

Rubbing her weary eyes, Paula took a sip from the plastic coffee cup on her cluttered desk before returning her focus to the evidence on screen. This particular murder investigation had begun after the discovery of the body of a forty-eight-year-old woman at her home in East London on Halloween. The victim had been found lying dead in her hallway with several stab wounds to her neck and torso, and it was a very violent and graphic crime, as evidenced by the large amount of blood that had been shed as well as the fact that the victim’s fingers had been cut off her left hand. Paula knew that was most likely because Ruth had scratched her attacker, so the killer had taken the required precaution of removing the fingers and, in the process, removing any DNA evidence beneath the nails. That told Paula that this had been a planned attack by somebody who knew enough about what they were doing to avoid leaving an obvious clue behind for the police to find. But the only question that mattered was who had committed the crime, and as of this evening, Paula had been unable to answer that.

The fact that the crime had been committed in the victim’s home suggested that Ruth may have known her attacker and allowed them inside whilst being unaware of their sinister intentions. But the fact that it had been Halloween on this particular evening meant that poor Ruth had most likely opened her door to several people throughout the night, all of them in masks and fancy dress, which obviously made the whole thing much more complicated.

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