MURDER OF THE BRIDE a gripping crime mystery full of twists by FAITH MARTIN

Author:FAITH MARTIN [MARTIN, FAITH]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books crime, thriller and mystery
Published: 2017-10-28T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Hillary slowly read through the full post-mortem report, and then the forensics they had so far. Apart from the DNA samples scraped from under Julia Reynolds’ fingernails, they had practically nothing to go on. Doc Partridge had said her blood alcohol level meant she was more or less drunk, but there had been nothing, ostensibly, about Julia Reynolds’ behaviour at the party that should have led to her being manually strangled.

A stranger then? An outsider? Again, the problem remained. How had she been lured to the cowshed in that gorgeous dress? The dress hadn’t been torn or ripped, her shoes showed no signs of scuff marks. Julia’s arms were not bruised, so it was unlikely she’d been forcibly dragged or manhandled into that shed. She’d gone willingly. And probably, from what they’d pieced together so far of her character, to meet a man.

The question was — which man?

‘Guv, for you. Wendy Wallis,’ Tommy said, breaking into her morose thoughts and waving the receiver at her.

‘Mrs Wallis? DI Greene. Is there something I can do for you?’

‘Well, yes. Well, no, not for me personally. I have a friend here with me, Sharon Gunnell. This is very awkward over the telephone, so I was wondering if it was possible, I mean convenient, for you to come over and talk to us? Sharon and myself, perhaps now or quite soon?’

‘Of course,’ Hillary said smoothly. ‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes or so.’ She hung up, glanced at Tommy, then mentally shook her head. She doubted turning up with a big constable in tow would be ideal for worming information out of two already nervous women. ‘Mrs Wallis has a friend who needs to speak to me,’ Hillary said, and glanced across at Janine. ‘Doing anything vital?’

Janine grimaced. ‘No, boss,’ she admitted, grabbing her coat. As she did so, she glanced at her closed desk drawer, where the brochure for the weekend break in the New Forest lay concealed. Had she done the right thing in booking it and paying the deposit? At least there was no way Mel could back out of it now. And the little inn in the village of Burley sounded ideal. Remote, pretty, just the place for two trysting coppers to make whoopee.

She was still smiling to herself as she followed Hillary out, making Frank Ross, just coming in after a very late and very long lunch, do a comical double-take. He slouched his way over to his desk, already feeling out of sorts. Whenever somebody else was happy, he wasn’t. It was one of the few principles by which he led his life.

‘I bet Mel must be feeling chipper. The happy hooker is beaming like a cat that’s just had a canary sandwich.’ Tommy pretended not to hear. ‘Do you think the chief and our Janine are gonna tie the knot then? Wouldn’t put it past the stupid bastard.’

Tommy sighed heavily.

‘And I reckon, despite what the guv says, that new super is as bent as a corkscrew.’

Tommy turned off the computer and grabbed his coat.

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