The Murder Map by Danny Miller

Author:Danny Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473555709
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2019-08-21T16:00:00+00:00

Saturday (1)

Frost was up before the wailing siren of his new digital alarm clock had time to pierce his subconscious. He’d replaced the old wind-up one – it was too easy to throw it across the room, which happened on a regular basis. This new one was plugged into the mains and could make tea for him, though he’d never put that function to use. The main thing was, it was too big to throw across the room.

The gods were smiling on him this morning – the Metro started up first time, and he hadn’t bumped into Shirley, his neighbour from across the landing. He’d seen her collecting her two pints of full-cream, bending down in a revealing dressing gown, offering him a cuppa before he left. He’d always declined, it was easy to do so in the mornings, always in a hurry, things to do, people to see, crimes to solve. Shirley would give a deep heaving sigh when he hinted at his heroics on the streets of Denton.

The traffic was good, he beat every red light, and his parking space at Eagle Lane wasn’t taken. And everyone was present and correct for the morning briefing in the incident room. Frost stood at the board, where there was a new name written up in block capitals to accompany Ruby Hanson’s: KEVIN WHEATON.

Frost briefed the team on the murder and told them they’d be working in tandem with DI David Garside from West Norwood CID. They were soon all up to speed on the case. And with the pictures of the horrific injuries that Kevin Wheaton and his mother, Florence, had sustained pinned up on the board too, everyone knew the killer had to be caught before he, literally, struck again.

Frost was just about to answer questions about the possibility of the Wheaton murders being connected to Ruby’s disappearance, when Sue Clarke told him that Gail Hanson was on the phone, very distressed.

‘It came yesterday, the second post.’

‘Who else has touched it, read the letter?’

‘Just Richard.’

‘Where is he?’

Gail Hanson turned away from Frost, couldn’t meet his eye. She went over to the window, perhaps hoping to see her daughter coming up the path. He repeated the question.

‘He’s gone into work,’ she said, still averting her eyes. ‘That’s where he keeps all his paperwork, so he can organize getting a loan from the bank, paying the money … doing what they want.’

She collapsed rather than sat on the sofa and stared at what was on the smoked-glass coffee table before them.

It was an unwrapped brown paper parcel that contained the head of Little Miss Lucy, the Cabbage Patch Kid doll that Ruby had with her when she was snatched off the street. It had been a present for her birthday, some five months earlier. And in the short life of faddish toys and children’s whims it had remained a favourite and a constant companion.

It was a special-edition doll, quite rare and sought after. With its head had come a note typed on a sheet of white A4 copy paper.

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