Objects of Desire: A Pav McNeil Thriller - Book 1 by C.J. Emerson

Author:C.J. Emerson [Emerson, C.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Emmawood Publishing
Published: 2022-05-23T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter

Thirteen

First thing next morning Jess tries to get news on Bryony and Rhiannon but the only person she can raise is Ed, and he cuts off the conversation almost before it starts. He’s never done that before.

'You want to tell me about it?' Else breaks into her swearing.

'That was Ed Murchison – bastard’s clammed up on me, won’t say how the investigation’s going.'

'You want to be on their team, go join the police. Let them do their job, you do yours.'

'They think I’m involved. They’re cutting me loose, I can feel it.'

'Bullshit. You think too much, that’s your trouble. I keep telling you – get a man in your life. Take your mind off yourself, spend your time hating the bastard. Works for me.'

But not for me, thinks Jess. She takes the digital camera from her bag and checks the battery and the memory, cleans the lens. She needs to be ready, she needs to get her balance back.

It’s a surprise when Pelham calls at lunchtime to ask Jess to a meeting at Lydford police station. She imagines an interview in a bare room with tape recorders but Pelham reassures her – why would we do that? It’s just a briefing, he says, I thought you might like to be there. No pressure, be there at three.

The traffic holds her up, and she arrives after the meeting has started, in a briefing room a floor down from Pelham’s office. She knows about half the people there; officers from FSU and CID, and a few uniforms. Someone passes her chair and she squashes herself between a filing cabinet and a bulky sergeant she doesn’t know. The blinds are closed against the sun, the air feels used up and someone in the room forgot to use deodorant this morning.

Pelham is backlit by a projection of Marty McKechnie. It’s an overblown snapshot, grainy and blurred; the man looks younger than Jess remembers, with a glass in his hand, longer hair and a suit that once belonged to someone else, as if he’d dressed up for the wedding of someone he didn’t really care for.

'Sorry about the lack of air conditioning,' says Pelham. 'I’ll make this as quick as possible. You’ll have gathered that McKechnie’s car was abandoned in Worcester – blood all over the shop. There’s no analysis yet, so it could be anybody’s.' He clicks a remote and the picture of McKechnie is replaced by the interior of a car, with blood stains covering the passenger seat and splashed across the windscreen as if someone had thrown a can of paint through the open door.

There’s no reaction in the room, and Jess realises that they’ve seen all this before. The man beside her whispers 'You okay?' and she nods, trying to ignore the taste of bile, looking away from the screen until Pav’s voice breaks the silence.

'Maybe Carwen injured McKechnie in the fight?'

'But hers was the only blood in the flat. No – someone who was alive at the time has been sliced up in that car.

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