MURDER IS SKIN DEEP by M.G. Cole (read dune .txt) 📕

Fanta smiled. “Uh-huh. You’re friends.” She didn’t believe him.

“Well, don’t let me keep you two from enjoying the evening.”

Fanta’s eyes widened. “I’m going straight home. To bed. Alone,” she instantly regretted saying that. She quickly added, “I’m on surveillance early.”

They quickly parted with a round of goodnights. Wendy gripped Garrick’s arm harder as she burst out laughing. It was then Garrick noticed he hadn’t let go of her.

“They are so terrified of you! What kind of monster are you in work?”

“The very best kind.”

He drove Wendy home in Lenham, and they chatted about the musical and other distractions, finally circling back on the promise to go rambling on Sunday. If she promised to go easy on him, then it was a date.

Outside her house, she kissed him gently on the lips and smiled. He looked into her dark brown eyes and suddenly wanted the night to extend a little longer.

“Goodnight, detective.” Her smile broadened as she got out of the car and hurried to her door. After hunting for her keys, she opened it, gave a little wave, and disappeared inside.

Their dates had been a slow progression from the first disaster, each steadily improving. They had kissed a little, but nothing wildly passionate. There had been no hint that she wanted to jump into bed with him just yet, and Garrick was relieved by that. She was three years younger than him, and he fretted that the scars of the last few months, combined with his general lack of activity on the dating scene, had made him rusty, to say the least. He was quite content with the slow pace.

The tortured screech of the windscreen wipers jarred him from his reverie. He turned on the radio. As some nineties love ballads crooned from Radio 2, he pulled away. For the first time, he was looking forward to the weekend. He marvelled that life could still be full of surprises.

14

The excessive blood looked almost unnaturally vivid against the spotless white linoleum floor. It was like an art exhibit unto itself, even with the battered skull of Mark Kline-Watson sprawled in the wide crimson pool.

Garrick looked down on him with sorrow. He may have been a suspect, but the young man certainly didn’t deserve the brutal blow against his temple with a piece of his own artwork. The Mobius stone snake sculpture had been tossed aside as the assailant fled.

He stepped aside as the white-suited SOCOs moved around him. He saw PC Liu was standing in the corner. She still looked ashen. He crossed to her, but her gaze never left the corpse.

“Maybe you should get a drink. Let SOCO do what they need to.”

Fanta shook her head. Her hands were stuffed in the pockets of her puffer jacket, but he could see they were shaking. She was wearing a biscuit-shade hoodie top underneath, blue jeans and trainers, a perfect non-uniform for surveillance.

“Alright then. Talk me through it.”

Fanta cleared her throat. “I turned up at seven-fifty-three and parked over there.” She indicated to a street outside. “I had a thermos, with some coffee. I poured one and sat until about five past nine. That’s when I thought something was off. He opens at nine,” she said by way of explanation. “And the boys,” as she referred to Wilkes and Lord who were alternating shifts with her, “all kept pointing out how anal, um, precise his timekeeping was. I crossed over and peered in. And saw his shoe poking out there.”

From their vantage point near the door, they could just see his legs sprawling from behind a display cabinet. From outside, it was difficult to see much more than his loafers.

“I pushed the door. It was unlocked. I came in… then called it in.” She couldn’t stop her voice from quivering.

Garrick tactfully stood between her and the body. She had seen corpses before, but there was something much more personal about making the discovery yourself, alone. Garrick remembered the first time it had happened to him as a young officer. It was an OAP who had fallen and died in his flat. It had taken the neighbours four days to report it, by which time the smell had become unbearable in the summer heat. That had lingered with him for a long time, and it wasn’t as graphic as Mark Kline-Watson’s fate. The side of his face had caved in from the blow, breaking bones and exposing gore that shouldn’t be seen outside an operating theatre.

The murder had occurred some point between midnight, when Harry Lord had finished his shift, and before Fanta’s arrival. Perfectly in the dead zone they had between surveillance shifts. Had the assailant known the gallery was being watched? Or had the victim suspected?

“What’s your gut telling you?” He was trying to get Fanta to think rather than dwell on the body. She was also naturally intuitive, that he hoped that some part of her subconscious was piecing together clues she had so far ignored.

She sucked in a halting breath and composed herself. “He knew his attacker. There is no signed of forced entry and it didn’t look like much of a scuffle. Not to me. He’s lying face down, so I reckon he had his back to the killer.”

Garrick noted three security cameras positioned around the gallery space, and an alarm keypad on the door behind Fanta. As far as he could tell, nothing had been taken. Sculptures sat equidistant from each other. There were no obvious spaces amongst the artwork on the walls and, most surprisingly, the two Hoys from Fraser’s house were still on the wall. Fanta followed his gaze.

“They’re the two new Hoys. I watched him show them off. Strange they weren’t nicked. They’re probably worth more than the building now.”

Theft of the paintings would be an obvious motive. The fact they were still here indicated that this was a more personal vendetta.

Fanta continued. “He has a nice watch, a Tudor. That’s still on him. As