Goodbye My Precious Child by M.A. Comley

Author:M.A. Comley [Comley, M A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-09-17T16:00:00+00:00

6

Friday came and went. It proved to be far longer than Sally anticipated. The team worked hard all day, sitting down in a huddle, going over every minute detail of the Pickrel case. At lunchtime, Sally decided to send Stuart and Jordan out to question Lucinda Barratt’s friends and work colleagues. That left her, Jack and Joanna discussing the Pickrel case. As promised, Simon rang mid-afternoon after he’d had a chance to go through the post-mortem results a second time in as many days.

“Hi, anything for me?” she asked.

“To add to your woes, nothing from what I can tell. The child died of asphyxiation. The original pathologist noted that the death was slightly prolonged, however.”

“Prolonged? Meaning?”

“I took it to mean that the person doing the suffocating possibly hesitated. Maybe he had a moral issue with what he was doing. Or it could mean that the boy interrupted him, and the intruder pushed down harder to finish the girl off?” Simon suggested.

“There’s a thought. Hang on, Louie said that he shouted at the man and he instantly bolted, as far as I can recall.”

“Maybe he did. I don’t know what the sequence of events was. All I know is what’s in front of me.”

“Thanks, Simon. Can you do me a favour and send me that report? I don’t seem to have it in my damn file.”

“Sure. I’ll email it to you within the next ten minutes. See you later.”

“You’re a darling.” She blew a kiss down the line and hung up.

“Eew…can you leave the lovey-dovey stuff at home next time?” Jack complained from the doorway to her office.

“That’ll teach you to eavesdrop. Simon thinks he’s found something of interest in the PM report. He’s sending it through in the next ten minutes.”

“Interesting how?”

“About the time it took for the child to die…poor thing suffered a prolonged death.”

Jack frowned. “Is that so remarkable? Isn’t suffocation quite a lengthy death compared to other methods?”

“Maybe. Oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s a hopeless attempt on my part to get this damn case started. Let’s face it, we’ve got very little else to go on.”

“Hmm… You’re right. It could turn out to be something important. Best not to discount it yet.”

She turned to look out of the window, peered up at the sky.

“Something wrong?” he asked, following her gaze.

“I’m searching for that notorious flying pig. Jesus, I can’t believe you agreed with me for a change.”

He shrugged, turned to walk away and threw over his shoulder, “It was a one-off. Don’t get used to it.”

Sally laughed, screwed up a piece of paper and aimed it at his retreating back. She caught him on the base of his neck.

“Now that’s a miracle,” he called out, “you hitting the target like that.”

She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she was actually aiming at his backside.

The afternoon dragged by. At five o’clock, she ordered the team to go home and enjoy their weekend, which was what she intended to do.

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