Mind Over Murder (DI Olivia Austin Book 23): A fast-paced crime thriller by Nic Roberts

Author:Nic Roberts [Roberts, Nic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-24T16:00:00+00:00

8

Helen Pike’s dead.

That was the first thought that had come to mind when Olivia got the call the next morning. She’d listened as the briefing had come through of a psychiatrist murdered in her home, and the doctor was the first person she thought of.

But as soon as she arrived on the scene, she tried to find a way to vent her relief appropriately.

It wasn’t Helen. The victim’s name was Dr Barbara Walters, a psychiatrist of great esteem and the poor woman had been found in her armchair, which wouldn’t have been such a bad sight…

…if not for the multitude of needles sticking out of her body.

“Jesus Christ,” Olivia exclaimed, holding her hand over her mouth. No area had been left unpunctured, even the woman’s mouth and tongue.

She blinked as the crime scene photographers took pictures. It’s like she’s been turned into a human pincushion.

Liv looked over the body slowly, taking it all in and trying to imagine why the killer could have marked her for death. With another psychiatrist killed so soon after Lionel Griffiths, she was convinced this wasn’t a coincidence. Definitely the work of a serial killer.

“What do we know about the deceased?” she asked without taking her eyes off the body, needing the emotional fuel to hunt down the perp.

“Highly decorated,” Archie noted as he peered at the certificates. “A leading figure in her field.”

“And what specific field of psychiatry was that exactly?” she asked, trying to work out the pattern.

“She was a major advocate for medicated therapy,” the sergeant explained, rallying off the facts he’d learned over a hasty internet search on the drive over to the house. “She put a lot of faith in medication, to the point of garnering some controversy in some circles. I believe she got a lot of heat for saying, ‘Diazepam was the biggest divider between the sick and the healthy.’”

“Quite a lofty claim,” Olivia noted, though she was finding it hard to see that as the reason why someone had tried to give her death by a thousand pricks. “Do we have any eyewitnesses? Anyone we can place at the scene?”

“No one so far,” DS Elmhurst stated regrettably. “We have officers canvassing as we speak, but given this most likely happened in the dead of night, I wouldn’t be surprised if they come back empty-handed. And there’s something else too.” He crossed over to the main entrance, pointing at the door, the lock completely intact. “There’s no sign of forced entry, so the killer was able to gain access to the house with minimal fuss.”

“Which would imply that they possibly already had a key, or, she quite simply let them in,” Olivia concluded, looking from the unbusted lock to the deceased therapist. Could she have known her killer?

But through the chaos of the last few days, the inspector was starting to see a possible silver lining. Perhaps this could give them the excuse they needed to pursue Dr Griffiths’ files.

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