Dead on Your Feet by Stephen Puleston

Author:Stephen Puleston [Puleston, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense, Welsh Suspense, Thriller, Wales, Murder, Murder Investigation, Detective Inspector, police, Police Procedural, UK, Serial Killer, Art World
ISBN: 1546898808
Goodreads: 34952591
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2017-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Drake returned to headquarters by lunchtime that Friday after his visit to the father and son who had smashed Hopkin’s car. Hopkin’s death had left them unaffected… even pleased.

‘We hated him,’ the father had said to vigorous agreement from his son.

‘Did you know Gloria Patton?’

‘Who?

‘She was involved with the Orme Arts Festival.’

The father guffawed. ‘Is that some poncy arty-farty thing with paintings?’

Drake had opened his mouth but decided that explaining about fine art would be a complete waste of time. When both men had launched into a detailed itinerary of their holiday in Tenerife for the time of Hopkin’s and Patton’s death, including the names of the bars they visited each day, Drake knew he was wasting his time.

Their farmhouse stank and Drake detoured back to his apartment to take a shower. The smell had got into his nose and even clung to his clothes.

The Incident Room had an end-of-the-week feel. It was going to be a day of tidying the loose ends in the hope that by Monday the investigation would have minds fresh from the weekend. Drake settled into reading the complete forensic report from Hopkin’s home, which only confirmed the paucity of evidence. Fiona Blackwell’s fingerprints were all over the property as well as Hopkin’s and two others from the bedroom that weren’t on record. The glass shards scooped up by the back door yielded no evidence, which troubled Drake. If it was a typical burglary he expected some forensic trace, a piece of fabric caught on the door, soil or gravel brought in on the soles of shoes. It meant the culprit was well organised and forensically aware: exactly like the Patton scene.

Finally, he read again the post-mortem report on Hopkin. Unlike the report on Patton it used the common language for a violent murder and death from a repeated attack with a large knife and massive blood loss. They had no murder weapon and no DNA evidence to help them. After a final catch-up session with the rest of the team Drake headed home. On Saturday he was taking his daughters bowling and for pizza.

* * *

He woke that Sunday morning refreshed from a good night’s sleep, knowing his time yesterday with his daughters had done him good. He recalled the smiling faces of Helen and Megan as they squealed with delight as the pins fell to their accurate bowling. And their disappointment that they couldn’t play for longer. Afterwards, over pizza and ice cream, Helen had asked if he was searching for a serial killer, and he’d realised his daughters were growing up too quickly.

After breakfast he couldn’t stop thinking about the culprit as a deranged artist whose tweets and YouTube videos really did reflect what he thought. Or else he was a sick individual who wanted to deflect the attention and make the WPS think it was an artist at work. So he decided to spend an hour at his desk.

In the Incident Room he scanned the images of the persons of interest as he mentally ticked them off.

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