Killing the Shadows (2000) by Val McDermid

Author:Val McDermid
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2000-08-19T04:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-TWO

Steve thrust his arm out to prevent the lift doors closing. They opened fully and he stepped in, coming face to face with DC Joanne Gibb. “Morning, Joanne,” he said.

“Morning, boss. Am I allowed to ask how the grovelling went?”

Steve pulled a face. “Let’s just say we’re heading in the right direction. Dr. Cameron is putting me in touch with one of her graduate students who will do the analysis. If I can find some money to pay for it.”

“But we could be making real progress here,” Joanne protested. “Surely Commander Telford’s going to see the sense in following up this lead?”

Steve smiled. “I think I can persuade him to share our view.” The lift shuddered to a halt at their floor. “Wish me luck. I’ll see you and Neil in my office in fifteen minutes.”

He turned down the corridor, walking past blank-faced doors until he came to his immediate superior’s office. Steve knocked and waited for the invitation to enter. Commander David Telford was sitting behind what Steve would have bet was the tidiest desk in the building. Not a single scrap of loose paper blemished its polished surface. Pens clustered in a metal holder, a pad of paper sat by the phone, and that was it. The walls were blank save for Telford’s framed commendations and his business studies degree from Aston University. “Sit down, Steve,” he said, his face stern. He was determined to obliterate from the collective memory of the Metropolitan Police the notion that anyone other than Steve Preston was to blame for the Francis Blake fiasco. Steve understood that, and knew it was the reason why Telford or Teflon, as he was known to the lower ranks continued to treat him as if he brought a bad smell into the office with him.

“Thank you, sir.” Sometimes playing the game was a killer, but Steve cared too much about catching criminals ever to consider seriously the alternative.

“Still no progress, then?” Telford’s question implied the answer he wanted to hear. He cared more about image than justice, Steve knew. Finding Susan Blanchard’s killer was not at the top of Tenon’s agenda. Better that his team never found the real killer so the world could go on thinking the Met had been cheated of Francis Blake by the trial judge rather than their own maverick operation.

“On the contrary, sir. I think we’ve opened up a new line of inquiry.” Painstakingly, Steve went through the fresh evidence about the cyclist and what Joanne’s trawl of records had produced. “Now I need budget authorization to commission a geographic profile based on this cluster of cases so we can develop viable suspects,” he concluded.

Telford frowned. “It’s all a bit tenuous, isn’t it? Nothing in the way of hard evidence, is there?”

“The problem with this case all along has been the absence of hard evidence, sir. The lack of forensics at the crime scene, the relative lack of witnesses, the lack of apparent relationship between killer and victim. It’s obvious that

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