The Girl in the Ice by Robert Bryndza

Author:Robert Bryndza [Bryndza, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Adult, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781910751763
Goodreads: 29470014
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2016-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

34

It was early evening, and Isaac Strong was in his office adjacent to the morgue. Shirley Bassey’s Performance album was playing, and he was preparing to write his report on the Ivy Norris autopsy. He relished this calm time. His favourite music, the lights low in his office. It was in stark contrast to the violence of slicing open a body, weighing its organs, analysing the contents of bowel and stomach, swabbing and scraping for DNA evidence, and piecing together the acts of violence inflicted on the corpse to form a narrative – the story of its demise.

A cup of peppermint tea steamed lightly by his computer monitor, the delicate leaf of mint still twirling in the freshly poured cup. There was a faint beeping sound, and a window popped up on his computer screen. It was a blue-grey CCTV image of DCI Erika Foster standing in the hallway outside the lab. She looked up at the camera. His hand hesitated, and then he buzzed her in.

‘Is this an official visit?’ asked Isaac when he met her at the door of the lab.

‘No,’ she said, hitching her bag up her shoulder. She wore jeans and a jumper. Her tired face was free of make-up. She looked around at all the freshly scrubbed steel.

‘Officially, you have no authority to be here. You’ve been removed from the case.’

‘Yep. No ID, no car. I’m just Jo Public.’

Isaac paused, regarding her for a moment. ‘How about a cup of tea then?’ he said.

He took her through to his office. The Girl From Tiger Bay was playing softly, and Erika chose a comfy armchair next to his desk. Isaac went to a kettle on a table in one corner. His neat office was crammed with bookshelves. An iPod glowed in a Bose sound system. The shelf next to the sound system differed from the others, which were filled with medical reference books. This shelf contained fiction – mainly crime thrillers.

‘Surely you don’t read police procedurals in your spare time?’ asked Erika.

Isaac turned from switching on the kettle and laughed wryly. ‘No. They’re complimentary copies, sent from the publisher. I was an advisor on a couple of the DCI Bartholomew books . . . How does peppermint tea grab you? I’m afraid I try to avoid caffeine.’

‘Sounds good. I should have avoided caffeine today – she says, four coffees later.’

There was a small tree of mint by a tiny high window. Isaac twisted the pot round and selected a couple of leaves.

‘My ex-partner is Stephen Linley, author of the DCI Bartholomew books,’ he said.

‘Oh.’

‘Oh, I’m gay, or oh, how odd to be with someone who writes crime thrillers?’

‘Oh, to neither.’

Isaac dropped the leaf into the cup and waited for the kettle to boil.

‘Actually, that is a bit odd, that you dated someone who writes crime thrillers,’ said Erika.

The kettle came to the boil and Isaac poured in water. ‘He based one of his forensic psychologists on me. Then killed the character off when our relationship ended.’

‘How?’

‘Gay bashed and dumped in the Thames.

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