Beneath Cold Earth: A Yorkshire Murder Mystery (DCI Tom Raven Crime Thrillers Book 2) by M S Morris

Author:M S Morris [Morris, M S]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Landmark Media
Published: 2022-12-18T16:00:00+00:00

*

Ten minutes later, Becca had assembled DC Tony Bairstow and DC Jess Barraclough in the incident room and explained what was going to happen.

‘Sounds like a good idea to me,’ said Jess. ‘We could use some more help on the Forge Valley case.’

‘Now that we have a possible ID for the skeleton, we’ve got more to work with,’ agreed Tony.

‘I just hope there’s no bickering,’ said Becca. She didn’t need to explain who might be doing the bickering.

When the two SIOs entered the room, it was clear that the uneasy truce Becca had brokered was just about holding. Raven took centre stage in front of the whiteboard while Dinsdale skulked at the side.

Despite all the wrangling that had been necessary to bring the two teams together, now that it was done, Becca found that she was quite excited. Both cases needed a fresh approach – despite all the evidence against Troy Woods, Becca didn’t believe that the case was as watertight as Dinsdale maintained – and she was looking forward to getting involved in the investigation of the skeleton in Forge Valley Woods. She had never worked on such an old case before, and was intrigued. Or maybe she was just glad to be back working with Raven.

‘Okay everyone,’ said Raven. ‘We have three ongoing murder investigations and it’s become apparent that there could be connections that need following up. So from now on, the teams led by myself and DI Derek Dinsdale will be combined and we will share our information. Any questions?’

‘Who do we report to?’ asked Jess.

Raven hesitated for a moment before answering. ‘This will be a joint operation, so DI Dinsdale and myself will be as one.’ It sounded to Becca as if those words had cost him dearly. He looked to Dinsdale for confirmation.

Dinsdale grunted something that might have been, ‘Yes.’

‘Right then,’ said Raven. ‘We’ll begin by laying out all the facts for both cases. Let’s start with the murder weapon used to kill Natalia Kamińska.’ He turned to Dinsdale, who stepped forwards.

Dinsdale fixed the photograph of the blood-stained hammer to the whiteboard and waited for everyone in the room to take a good look at it. When he spoke his voice was self-congratulatory. ‘Troy Woods admitted that he used this hammer in his work at Larkmead. The hammer has now been analysed by forensics. The blood is Natalia’s, and the post-mortem has confirmed that the head injury that killed her is consistent with a blow from a hammer of this type.’ He glared sideways at Raven. ‘There’s no doubt that this is the weapon used to kill her.’

‘No one’s questioning that,’ said Raven, ‘but was the hammer wielded by Troy Woods, or someone else?’

‘Fingerprints lifted from the handle match Troy’s,’ said Dinsdale with a smug nod.

‘Okay,’ said Raven. ‘Although we should bear in mind that someone else wearing gloves could have struck the fatal blow.’

His remark won him an undisguised sneer from Dinsdale. ‘Troy Woods has confessed to stealing cash and bank cards from the residents’ rooms.

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