Ultimate Dilemma (Justice Again Book 2) by M Comley (best books under 200 pages txt) 📕

“If you get the chance to either go back inside the house or to speak to a SOCO, ask them to take a shot of the photos, just so I know what we’re dealing with.”

“Okay. Is there anything else you need?”

“I don’t think so. I’m sure something will come to mind during the day; if it does, I’ll call you.”

“I’ll get back to it. Ring you if anything useful crops up.”

“Good luck.” Katy ended the call and blew out a breath. “If I wasn’t confused before, I am now. What do you make of the situation, Charlie?”

She shrugged. “It’s beyond me at the moment. Maybe it signifies that the attack was more of a personal nature than one of chance which could occur through a robbery. Or maybe I’m talking out of my arse and don’t know what to think.”

Katy laughed at the expression pulling at her features. “I’m glad it’s not just me feeling discombobulated. There, I promised AJ I would drop that word into a conversation today and I’ve fulfilled my promise, or threat, should I say.”

Charlie laughed. “I was about to ask if you’d swallowed a dictionary for breakfast instead of your cereal. Does this mean I have this sort of thing to contend with on a daily basis?”

Chuckling, Katy indicated and moved into a gap in the traffic. “I’ll try not to torture you too much. It’s a game we play at the weekends, it keeps our minds active.”

Her partner glanced out of the window and mumbled something incoherent.

“I missed that, what did you say?”

“Whatever floats your boat.”

“Enough said. Let’s return to base, see what the rest of the team have managed to dig up on the family.”

“I think that’s a very wise move.”

Karen had a snippet of news for them upon their arrival. “Boss, I’ve got the bank accounts for the victim and his daughter. Sadly, nothing to report there. Nadia was better off than her father by a mere few hundred pounds.”

“Hardly ground-breaking news to help the investigation, no disrespect intended on your skills, Karen. We need more to go on than we’ve got so far. Looks like our only hope is that Patrick and Stephen have some form of success with the house-to-house task—that’s likely to take a few hours yet.”

“Sorry,” Karen muttered.

Katy wagged her finger at the sergeant. “Don’t you dare. If the clues aren’t there then there’s nothing we can do about it. I’ll bring the board up to date, maybe my partner will feel sorry for me and buy me a coffee to battle my blues.”

Charlie tutted and made her way over to the machine. “Anyone else want one while I’m here?”

Graham and Karen both raised their hands.

Katy smiled and scribbled on the whiteboard, noting down that the family photo was missing from the house, something, the more she thought about, the more she considered to be a significant fact. After she’d completed the task, she drifted into her office just as the phone rang. She raced around the desk to answer it. “DI Katy Foster, how can I help?”

“Hi, it’s Sean. I’ve heard on the grapevine a new case has landed on your desk.”

“Heard on the grapevine, have you? The jungle drums were correct.”

“Do you want to run it past me?”

“Not really. So far there’s not much to tell.”

“Go on, I’m only sitting here twiddling my thumbs anyway.” He sucked in a breath.

“Are you all right? You don’t sound it.”

“Fine. The stitches punishing me, that’s all.”

“You’re nuts being back at work so soon. If I were in your shoes, I would have milked it for at least a couple of months.”

Sean laughed. “And I’d call you a liar to your face. Don’t give me that bullshit, you’d be back behind your desk within a week, knowing you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I have a five-year-old who I’m barely seeing at the moment.”

“Yeah, I have a child of similar age, so I totally hear you on that score.”

“How did Sara take your injury?” Katy asked, referring to his daughter.

“She clucked around, fussed over me like a mother hen. I didn’t get a lot of sympathy from Carmen.”

“Should that surprise you, considering you’re now divorced?”

“I guess. It would’ve been nice to know that she still cared a touch. No such luck. I suppose that’s told me one thing: there’s no way back, even if I had thoughts in that direction.”

“Life goes on, Sean. It won’t do you any good dwelling on what might have been. There are plenty more—”

“Please don’t finish that shitty proverb. At my age, the last thing I need is to go to any nightclubs on a fishing expedition.”

“Actually, I’d feel the same and I’m, what, a good ten years younger than you?”

“Cheeky sod.”

“Have you thought about swiping right?”

“Thought about it, yes, done anything about it, no. I’ve figured it’s not my scene. I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me, I’m feeling sorry for myself, that’s all. Back to the case. Anything I can help you with?”

“Not really. You know what we’re up against during the first few days of an investigation. This one is no different. To give you a brief rundown, Nadia Crawford, who is a nurse, came home from work to find her father sparked out on the floor with his throat cut.”

“Heck, poor woman. Why aren’t you treating it as a cut-and-dried case?”

“Because certain facts have come out.”

“Are you going to share those with me or are you expecting me to guess what they are, Inspector?”

She disclosed the main points causing her concern.

“So, what you’re really telling me is that because she was covered in his blood you think she has something to do with his death?”

“See, that’s my dilemma. I do and I don’t. On the one hand, I can understand why, as a nurse, she would want to try and help her father, but on the other, shouldn’t she have known not to touch the body, or at least take a step back?”

“To me, instinct would and could have