Shooting Messengers by Kevin Berry

Author:Kevin Berry [Berry, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quake City Publications
Published: 2020-03-06T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

Day 5, afternoon

FIVE HOURS of some of the most tedious investigation work I’ve ever done passed in what seemed like a century. I walked up and down the aisles, I pinched myself, I drank a lot of coffee to stay awake. Reading old news was boring, yet Deepa enjoyed it and would often speak up about some irrelevant and long-forgotten titbit of news that she found interesting.

I was about to say she could continue to work this angle on her own while I went to interrogate more people from my shortlist, when her phone buzzed. Mixed feelings flooded through me. It was relief from this monotony, but it might signify another murder or murder attempt.

Deepa read the message, then passed the phone to me. She trembled and slumped to the floor against the wall.

I grimaced. It was another death, all right. A different area, though: Parkside, north of the southern suburbs where the earlier murders had taken place.

Had the killer changed their pattern? Or was there no pattern at all?

“Are you okay?” I asked, crouching down.

“Yes. It’s just … like a ticking time bomb. This is the fourth murder in five days. Will it ever stop?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head grimly. “Now the perp’s gone this far, they won’t stop, probably can’t stop, even if they want to.”

“What are we going to do, Danny? We’re getting no nearer identifying this monster.”

I know. Her frustration echoed my own. “I need to get to the crime scene. Are you coming?”

“Yes, of course. You’re my ride.”

I’d forgotten that. We’d barely been apart in waking hours. I offered her my hand and helped her to her feet. A minute later, we left the archives—and I didn’t intend to return to them.

§

Parkside was another expensive area of town. I wouldn’t be able to rent a garage there, let alone an apartment. But the earthquakes hadn’t made any distinction between rich and poor. Buildings everywhere had been damaged, roads were ruined or potholed, and residents’ nerves were frazzled.

It took us ten minutes to drive to the crime scene from the library with the news archives. My car’s engine still sounded off; if cars could catch a cold, I’d say it had the ’flu. As before, patrol cars blocked the area off. We parked thirty metres away, my small car dwarfed by prestigious SUVs around it. The earthy rumble of another minor aftershock greeted us as we exited the car.

It took a few minutes to convince the constable at the barrier tape to let us through because he didn’t believe me that we were working with Inspector O’Toole and his team. Fortunately, the inspector arrived and ushered us past.

The coroner, Mikey Brown, was at the scene already with two constables and SOCOs. A large silver SUV, of the kind that school mums love because it passes over the potholes so gently, sat in the driveway of an elaborate two-storey house. Pillars at the entrance, although cracked, suggested affluence and prestige. But none of that mattered to the person in the car—and it was the car that the coroner was examining.

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