The Scarecrow Killer by Margaret Murphy

Author:Margaret Murphy [MURPHY, MARGARET]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Rowan returned to the road crossing, where CSIs, clad head to foot in white Tyvek suits, were creeping slowly over the taped-off area, picking up tiny fragments of plastic and other detritus like giant, highly fastidious grubs. As she’d expected, Ian Chan was absent. Although it was over a week since he’d helped to process the deposition site on the motorway, she knew he wouldn’t want to risk even the slightest chance of cross-contamination.

Police constables watched the edges of the cordon and directed cars back the way they’d come. The streets on this part of the estate came off the bean-shaped access road, which meant that drivers wanting the streets near to the chapel might have to go all the way around in the opposite direction, just to get fifty metres from where they’d been seven minutes earlier. Some people weren’t happy about it, which accounted for the grim looks on the uniformed officers’ faces. Kids on bikes were circling, shouting comments, and when a news crew arrived and unpacked microphones and recording equipment from the boot of their car, the kids began to gather there, asking questions, looking for an opportunity to lift something valuable.

It was a school day; these kids should be in school, but truancy rates were a third higher than the national average in this borough, and clearly the ‘Every Day Counts’ strategy wasn’t working on Fernleigh.

Dawson was on the other side of the tape, mingling and chatting easily with the friendlier onlookers. Rowan didn’t doubt for a moment that she would be gleaning as much information as she could from the residents while the excitement of so much police activity had brought down their guard.

Reaching the outer cordon, she got a call from Chan — they’d had the go-ahead to fast track any DNA from the scene and, as soon as the CSU had finished, they would be doing a series of comparisons between the white flecks they’d collected from the motorway, and whatever they retrieved at this new potential scene on Fernleigh estate.

She disconnected, feeling a warm glow of vindication in her chest and her eye snagged on Jim North standing apart from the melee on the far side of the tape.

She wandered over. ‘Didn’t expect to see you here.’ He gave her a quizzical look and she added, ‘I thought you’d be at work — that big development must be a huge responsibility.’

‘Lunch break,’ he said, apparently immune to her clumsy attempt at flattery.

‘Odd way to spend your lunch break,’ she said, taking a more direct approach. ‘It must be a fifty-minute round trip from Liverpool to Fernleigh.’

He ignored the comment, looking past her into the onlookers.

Scanning it, she thought. Like a cop might scan a hostile crowd to identify the troublemakers. He would have had his share of that kind of surveillance as a British soldier in Afghanistan.

He narrowed his gaze on the youths circling the news reporters like jackals. ‘Is this Damian?’ he asked.

She looked up at him. ‘I don’t follow.

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