Their Dying Breath by Steve Parker

Author:Steve Parker [PARKER, STEVE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books crime thrillers and mystery
Published: 2020-02-09T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Monkey Harris, oblivious to the fact that the man had died, came bustling into main office. He chucked his jacket over a chair on his way towards Paterson’s office.

‘Guv!’ he called. He strode right in. ‘Interesting stuff! You need to see this.’ He threw down a buff envelope with some papers in it and began spreading them on the senior officer’s desk.

Clocks walked in behind him, along with Jackie Hartnett.

‘Whatcha got, Monkey?’ said Clocks as he walked around Paterson’s side of the desk.

‘I managed to get details of the accident you asked me for.’ Harris pointed to a copy of an accident report book signed by a traffic officer. A more detailed statement was stapled to it.

‘The Imam’s son is called Nadeem. Nadeem Awlaki. We knew that. According to the report he was driving a convertible BMW with his sister, Aalimah, in the passenger seat along a country lane in Kent and going way too fast. An accident happened on a blind bend. A hairpin bend.’

Harris tapped his finger on a map of the accident spot. Paterson could see it was marked with a couple of red crosses.

‘Casualties?’ said Paterson.

‘One fatality.’ Harris flicked through the traffic officer’s statement. Victim’s name was a . . . Miss Melissa Pike, twenty-nine years old.

‘According to the officer’s report this whole lane is just about wide enough for two cars to pass each other and there are a few pinch points where one will have to give way to the other. If you look at these two pictures . . .’ Harris slid a couple of ten-by-eight colour photos out of the pile of papers. ‘This is a shot taken from the victim’s side of the road. The bend is tight and she wouldn’t have had any vision going into it.’ He tapped the second picture. ‘This is Nadeem’s point of view as he approached. Again . . . nothing. He had zero vision on either side of the road too. The accident investigation unit reckon the girl rounded the bend a second or so before Nadeem. Both of ’em panicked when they saw the other, slammed their anchors on and losing control. But the poor little cow ended upside down in a ditch full of water . . .’ Harris left that hanging.

Paterson stiffened. ‘Go on. What else?’

Harris pulled out some photographs that had been taken by CCTV cameras. Each one had the date and time stamped in the corner.

‘These were taken of the entrance to the lane, from cameras located on the roof of a petrol garage, here.’ He stabbed the map with his finger.

‘Seems there’d been more than a few drive outs, people not paying for their petrol, and they tended to shoot off down the lane to escape. If you look here, you can see that there’s a big roundabout just as you leave the garage so a driver can go one of four ways. The garage owners whacked up a camera to keep continuity with the ones on the forecourt and to help the police know which way they were headed.

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