Fever of the Bone by Val McDermid

Author:Val McDermid [McDermid, Val]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Psychological Thriller
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2009-12-30T05:00:00+00:00

DC Sam Evans was glad to be back in what he regarded as fully fledged civilisation. A place where coffee and bacon butties were possible, where it never got truly dark and where there was always somewhere to shelter from the rain. It didn’t hurt that he’d had the rare pleasure of leaving everybody at the morning briefing gobsmacked.

The only problem now was following up on the small bombshell of the extra body in the lake. He had to walk a tightrope here. While he was waiting for the forensic team to come up with some leads, he had to make it look as if he was busy. If she thought he was twiddling his thumbs, Carol Jordan would reassign him to some donkey work on the live caseload. And if he was out of the office when the forensic evidence came in, someone else could pinch the case from under his nose and nick the glory. And that was something he wasn’t prepared to put up with.

Sam took out his notebook and flicked back a couple of pages, looking for the number of the Cumbrian DI he was supposed to be liaising with. He was about to call him when his mobile rang. He didn’t recognise the number. ‘Hello?’ he said, never willing to give anything away for free.

‘Is that DC Evans?’ It was a woman. She sounded brisk, youngish, confident.

‘Speaking.’

‘Are you the officer who emailed me a set of dental records?’

‘That’s right.’ CID had obtained a set of records from Danuta Barnes’s dentist back when she’d first gone missing and, at the suggestion of one of the Cumbrian cops, Sam had forwarded it to the University of Northern England at Carlisle.

‘Good. I’m Dr Wilde, forensic anthropologist at UNEC. I’ve been taking a look at the remains from Wastwater. I’m not done yet, but I thought you’d appreciate an update.’

‘Anything you can give me,’ Sam said. Thank you, God.

‘Well, the good news, depending on your perspective, I suppose, is that the dental records match the smaller adult skeleton, which I am pretty certain is that of a woman aged between twenty-five and forty.’

‘She was thirty-one,’ Sam said. ‘Her name was Danuta Barnes.’

‘Thank you. I’ve got my students working up DNA for all three sets of remains. We should be able to establish whether she’s the mother of the child. Who is aged between four and six months, I’d estimate,’ Dr Wilde continued.

‘Lynette. Five months,’ Sam said. He’d been struck by the pitifully small bundle sandwiched between the two larger ones. He wasn’t given to sentiment, but even the hardest heart couldn’t avoid being touched by so early and unnecessary a death.

Dr Wilde sighed. ‘Hardly a life at all. Not much of an epitaph, is it? “Lived for five months: made a great teaching aid.” Anyway, as soon as I can confirm that connection, I’ll let you know.’

‘Appreciate it. Anything you can tell me about the other body?’ Not that he was expecting much from a bag of bones and some slurry whose components he didn’t want to think too much about.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.