Shallow Ending by A D Fox

Author:A D Fox [Fox, A D]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Calibre
Published: 2021-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

Kate pulled the quilt over her shoulder and tried to empty her mind. She knew sleep was going to be a challenge but she was dog tired and maybe that would be enough to tip her over the edge.

They had taken the students away from Gorley Farm that afternoon - one in an ambulance and one in a patrol car. Will Cook’s statement had been taken by DC Mulligan in Salisbury District Hospital while his puncture wound was cleaned, disinfected and stitched. The sharp tip of the wooden splinter had been a millimetre off his left lung. The medics had left it in place for the journey and a surgeon had removed it in theatre.

She and Michaels had handled Isaac Tatchell’s statement, which gave a little more detail of their cowardly misadventures. The barn door was indeed from their borrowed equipment, which they’d taken with them to the farm. Gorley himself had no idea why his nephew and a mate had wanted to spend a few days with him. They’d told him they needed to plan a film in a rural location and he’d said it was fine to stay as long as they put out a bit of cattle feed and cleared up in the kitchen after themselves. He hadn’t been following the news.

Will’s statement jigsawed perfectly with Isaac’s. There were no inconsistencies.

Neither of them were off the hook as murder suspects, but there was not enough to hold them in custody. They were both clearly shocked and shaken up by the turn of events and Kate would bet her career that they were innocent of anything more than fleeing the scene of a tragic death and subsequently behaving like a pair of unthinking twats.

But someone had poisoned Jessica. Knowingly? Had to be. Because the follow-up in the yoga studio couldn’t possibly have been an accident. It was almost as if Jessica had been the guinea pig - the test murder.

So… who?

Oh just leave it, Kate. Go to sleep!

She forced herself to work through her times tables. The simple marshalling of numbers was just enough to distract her thoughts from the current case but still allow her mind to calm. She was tailing off the seven times chart and heading into slumber when her phone pinged on her bedside table. A text.

She fumbled for it, squinting at the brightly lit message.

Sorry a murderer got in the way of us the other night. Can we do it again sometime? x

Oh god. Conrad Temple! She hadn’t given him a thought since leaving his place for the crime scene. Now, when she did think about it, all it gave her was a fizz of anxiety and guilt. Was that all? Where was the fizz of sexual desire? She’d been enjoying the physical intimacy… she definitely had. But… to not even think of it for the last two days. That was telling, wasn’t it? Did she really want a relationship with Conrad? Was she even capable of it? With anyone?

She put the phone into Do Not Disturb mode, knowing only a call from work or her brother could make it through.

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