The Footballer and the Wife by Lee Brook

Author:Lee Brook [Brook, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

The next morning, the Incident Room at Elland Road station was now a hive of activity. Although granted, much of that activity was centred around the ravaging of Greggs’ breakfast sarnies and the consumption of various hot beverages.

It had been Tashan’s treat, considering it was his birthday, though being a vegetarian, Tashan had some sort of weird-looking omelette between his breadcake. George wasn’t sure how much of a treat that was and considered advising Tashan how lovely McDonald’s eggs were when Isabella caught his eye.

She was struggling with her sausage sarnie, dabbing at the corner of her lip to remove a smudge of brown sauce. He saw her look at the sarnie with disgust before dropping it back into the waxy bag and taking a sip of coffee.

He’d never known her not demolish a butty before. “You OK?” he asked her.

“Fine.” She smiled.

“Not hungry?”

“No, not really,” she confirmed.

Strange. George was about to ask Isabella why when the door to the Incident Room opened, and an out-of-breath constable burst in. He looked around the room until he met eyes with DI Beaumont. “Sir, somebody has reported a dead body.”

* * *

George listened as the constable explained. “The deceased’s wife arrived home to find the body in the bedroom. My colleague told me it isn’t very pleasant.”

“Right, well, we have two active cases,” George said and winced. Technically they had only one active case. “Who sent you to find me?”

“DSU Smith, sir,” the constable said. “It’s because the deceased’s wife said he was perfectly healthy this morning but obviously dead when she returned. My colleague told me the man didn’t look like he was murdered. Does that make sense?”

It made perfect sense, of course. It sounded exactly the same as Edmund Flathers’ death. And George did not believe in coincidences. “OK, Constable, we’ll go and take a look.” He nodded at Wood to put on her coat, then remembered how she felt last time and how she looked eating her sarnie, so he shook his head. “I’ll take DC Scott with me, DS Wood. You can stay here and start background checks.” George turned back to the constable. “Do we have a name?”

“A name?”

“Aye, of the deceased?”

“Andre Harding.”

“Andre Harding?” Tashan asked, and the constable nodded. “As in, a Jamaican named Andre Harding?”

“Well, I dunno,” the constable said. “He’s got black skin, so I suppose he could be Jamaican.” He shrugged.

George looked at his young detective. “You know him, Tashan?”

Tashan shook his head. “No, but when I checked upon Luis Rodríguez and the therapy sessions he advised us of, I was given details for a man named Andre Harding. So I got in touch and took a statement. It turns out he was also Paxton Cole’s therapist. In fact, the three of them sometimes went out for drinks. So Andre was embedded into the team, from what it sounded like.”

“I mean, it could be a different Andre Harding,” George said, and Tashan nodded. “Address, constable,” George demanded.

As soon as the police constable told the detectives where Harding had been found, Tashan began nodding.

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