Piece By Piece (DI Olivia Austin Book 17): A fast-paced crime thriller by Nic Roberts

Author:Nic Roberts [Roberts, Nic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-11-17T16:00:00+00:00

The body was found lying in a car that had been dumped unceremoniously at the back of a carpark, its position not unlike the one Terry Stephens had been in.

Olivia peered closely at the body. It was Dr Curtis Windsor, still wearing his hospital scrubs. And from a distance, it looked like he’d been crying. But as she looked closer, she could see it was just the blood that had been flowing from his now empty eye sockets.

With gloved hands, she opened the door to see two large holes in his chest.

“Lungs,” Nikki suggested over her shoulder. “The bitch took his lungs. I’m almost certain he was alive when she cut them out.”

“Dear God,” Liv exclaimed, wanting to get the body down to the pathologist’s office so Dr Elliot James could make the necessary assessments.

The sergeant had begun the inspection with the utmost clarity. Now, she looked confused by what she was seeing.

“How did she find the time to do this?” she asked. “We had eyes all over the place looking out for her.”

Olivia shrugged.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“I mean, a case could be made for Terry Stephens,” Nikki continued. “She wasn’t under scrutiny at the time. How on earth was she able to go on the run, nab Windsor, get the necessary medical supplies, slice him up, and then place him here? More to the point, why would she kill Windsor? I mean Stephens, you can understand, but Windsor was the one who gave us her alibi. Why would she decide out of the blue to take him out?”

Good questions, Liv thought. We Just need to find the answers to go with them.

SoCo arrived promptly and looked over the car, taking all the evidence they could gather while the detectives stepped away from the grisly scene.

They’d barely been away for five minutes when Liv’s phone started ringing.

It was Clara.

Please give me something to work with.

“Hi,” she said brightly despite it being later in the evening. “I’ve been going through traffic cameras, and Martha Copeland’s car, the Jaguar, was seen turning into one of the streets by an old pub about five minutes ago.”

“Brilliant!” Olivia gave a thumbs up to Nikki. “Thank you! Can you send me over the address, and we’ll head over.”

Both detectives left the scene, leaving forensics to do their jobs. There was no way they could let this woman slip through the net again. Her potential next victims’ lives depended on it, and as they sped through the Newquay evening traffic, Liv hoped that when they caught her, there would be a good explanation for the deaths.

But whatever secrets Dr Martha Copeland had, she’d taken them to her grave. When they arrived at the street where her car was parked, she was lying in the front seat, just like her victims, motionless.

“Fuck! Looking at her, how long would you say she’s been dead?” Olivia asked, studying the body over.

“I’d definitely say within the hour, give or take,” Nikki suggested. She wasn’t a pathologist, but it was as good a guess as any.

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