MURDER ON THE CLYDE an absolutely gripping crime mystery with a massive twist (Detective Lola Harris Mysteries Book 3) by DANIEL SELLERS

Author:DANIEL SELLERS [SELLERS, DANIEL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books crime thriller, mystery and suspense
Published: 2024-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Forty-One

5.27 p.m.

‘Are you going to tell me what’s been going on around here?’ Lola asked, making her tone bright and mumsy.

Janey Carstairs cringed — actually cringed, clenching her fists, lifting her knees and hunching her shoulders as if to curl into a protective ball.

Lola asked, ‘Is it plain old homophobia, laziness or straight-up incompetence? It’s okay. You can tell me what you think. No judgement, and it won’t go outside these four walls.’

It took her a minute, but the girl began to relax a little, but her face was still pink with embarrassment. ‘I’ve worked in DS Gray’s team for six months,’ she said. ‘I was aware of the reporting protocol. People do call, you know? Families. Journalists. Bloggers. There’s a set of lines — I mean, lines printed out for us to read out if people call. It’s always seemed so . . . well, weird.’

Lola nodded. ‘Did you question it?’

‘No.’ She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. ‘Well, once.’

‘Go on.’

‘The second victim’s sister phoned and I spoke to her.’

Lola consulted the list. ‘Drew Morris’s sister?’

Janey nodded but avoided eye contact. She was ashamed, Lola could tell.

‘Her name was Sharon Morris,’ the constable said. ‘Drew had died in 2017. Sharon said both her parents had passed away recently — they’d asked her not to make a fuss about Drew’s death while they were alive. “What happened, happened” — that kind of thing. She suspects they were embarrassed Drew had been gay. But now Sharon wanted to find out what really happened. She’d never believed it was an accident, and she wanted to know what we’d done about it.

‘I read out the lines, but—’ a cynical laugh — ‘she’d heard them before. She said, or words to this effect: “My brother was murdered. I know it and you know it and so do other people. And the person who killed him is still out there.” She said she was in touch with one of the other families and that they’d be going to the press.’

‘When was this?’

Janey’s eyes searched the room. ‘Beginning of December,’ she said at last. Her tone darkened. ‘And then I spoke to DS Gray . . .’

‘Oh?’

‘He told me not to talk about it to anyone. Then I got called to a meeting.’

‘A meeting?’

She nodded. ‘That new Corporate Comms woman was there. Melda Brodick. Superintendent Wilde joined us after a bit, but Melda was in charge. She wanted to know what the woman had said, whether she’d identified the other family or who in the press she was talking to. She was really annoyed. So were DS Gray and the super.’

‘Annoyed — with you?’

‘Not so much that. I think they were annoyed with her — with Sharon Morris. They talked among themselves about someone “paying her a visit”, like gangsters or something. Well, maybe not gangsters. Sorry, poor choice of words.’

‘Don’t apologise,’ Lola said. It did sound like gangsters. It sounded exactly like gangsters. ‘What happened then?’

‘I got on with my job. No one mentioned Sharon Morris to me again, and I didn’t ask.

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