The New Forest Village Book Club: A British gritty gripping crime thriller set in Middleton, Leeds (A Detective George Beaumont Thriller Book 8) (The West Yorkshire Crime Thrillers) by Lee Brook

Author:Lee Brook [Brook, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Middleton Park Press
Published: 2023-05-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-two

Freya Bentley still hadn’t come home, nor had she been found.

DS Wood parked outside Constance Bentley’s house and quickly checked her phone for emails. Nobody had answered her initial knocks, and it was pissing it down. The initial results on the stain found on Freya’s carpet were in, which was surprisingly fast work by the lab. Urine. Human. Not the dog, then. Was it Freya’s?

As Isabella was about to enter Freya Bentley’s house, she received the dreaded call. A body had been discovered on the wasteland where New Forest Way met Sharp House Road. It wasn’t far away from Bentley’s house.

She sped out there and, after being allowed through the outer cordon, parked by the kerb. Pausing to gather herself, she gazed around the area. Sharp Lane was right ahead of her, a bustling and hectic road, which they’d also closed off. Wood was already thinking about appealing for dashcam footage and potentially looking at cameras on buses.

After producing her warrant card, the PC guarding the inner cordon signed her in and provided a Tyvek suit, mask, gloves and shoe covers.

The inner cordon was alive with activity as SOCOs set up. Peering through the leafless trees, Isabella could see the SOCOs in their white suits working like a colony of ants. She saw DC Malik talking with CS Manager Lindsey Yardley as she donned her SOC gear.

She headed towards them, her boots sinking in the mud, and then asked, “What have we got?”

Lindsey pointed a little further up the path, where a tent was being hastily erected in an attempt to preserve potential evidence from the rain. Bit late for that, she thought. A line of stepping plates highlighted the way up.

“I want to get closer to see who it is,” Wood said, praying it wasn’t Freya.

Lindsey led the pair of detectives up the hill, and as they neared the tent, DS Wood’s heart began to race. This was the part of her job she enjoyed the least, but she knew she had to see the body for herself and make her initial assessment.

They entered the tent. The body was face down, fully naked, and looked as if it were asleep. She was a brunette, just like Freya Bentley. More and more, Wood was convinced the body was Freya’s.

“She wasn’t killed here,” Lindsey Yardley explained.

Wood looked up at her and nodded. “Because of the lack of blood?” She’d already noticed. “Could it have washed away in the rain, though?”

“Maybe,” said Lindsey. “I’m sure it rained during the night, and it’s currently throwing it down. Despite that, I’d still expect to see some discolouration of the soil.”

“Do you know how she died?”

“Not yet,” Lindsey advised.

“Time of death?”

Lindsey said, “She’s in rigour. I’d say she’s been dead between two and eight hours.”

It was 9 am now. “So between what, 11 pm and 7 am?”

“It’s the best I can give you until Christian arrives.”

“Is it Freya Bentley, sarge?” Malik asked.

Wood shrugged.

Despite being unable to see the face, nausea rose up from her stomach and into her throat.

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