Lines of Inquiry by Rhys Dylan

Author:Rhys Dylan [Dylan, Rhys]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

Warlow’s night was fitful in the extreme. Sometimes cases bothered him enough to keep sleep at bay. But this night had more to do with images of his first and only granddaughter, just a few hours old, taken from her mother’s womb, alone in a machine without the touch and comfort of a parent’s skin, or a nipple to feed on.

He kept spooning in the bromides. That she was probably in the best place, that they’d acted quickly, that it was the best day and age for this sort of thing to happen because medicine was bloody amazing. But all he could think of was that she’d be tiny and alone.

Molly was right. The sooner they invented a teleportation device, the better. Perhaps he should have a chat with Hopper, see if anything might be arranged via the Turdis.

He hadn’t bothered picking Cadi up from the Dawes the second time around. Too disruptive for the dog. He found himself alone at three in the morning, making a cup of tea and pondering the Barret case as a distraction from thoughts of down under. Which said a lot about his state of mind and the problems he was contending with. This case had many strands that he hadn’t quite knitted into a whole woolly cardigan yet.

He tried composing his thoughts around all the information he’d gathered during the day. Was it truly less than twenty-four hours since he’d visited Daniel Clark and spoken to Tiernon? He needed a Gallery and Job Centre of his own. But he was aware of where all this was coming from. Something he’d seen or heard during this long day was, like a stone in a shoe, annoying him. Yet, every time he thought he might get the damn thing to the front of his head, it wafted away like a ribbon in the wind.

In the end, he sat in the chair in his sunroom with only a sidelight on, looking out across the dark estuary and its glittering lights with his notebook by his side, jotting down random thoughts as they occurred to him.

Stacey Campbell phone. Why?

Talk to Clark’s force partner face-to-face now that she has had a day to recover.

Drugs. Is there a chain? Hopper would know.

He fell asleep contemplating all these enigmatic questions. His dreams were fragmented and strange. But when he came awake, it was to the sound of his phone messaging him. A WhatsApp at four-fifteen in the morning. A strange time, but not of course in Perth, where it was twelve-fifteen in the afternoon.

The image stayed blurred when he opened the app. At first, Warlow couldn’t tell what he was looking at, but then the pixelations solidified and Warlow’s throat constricted. A close up, taken not more than a few inches away from a see-through Perspex box with round holes where whoever needed to, could put their hands through. A pristine white sheet laced by wires running out of shot, and there, laying on the sheet, her eyes open as

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