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

“For what?”

“For killing Mark, for a start!”

“But she didn’t, did she? That was you.”

Fraser’s mouth was still open, ready to refute it. He slowly closed it and leaned back in his seat. The absence of denial was enough for Garrick. There had been a question mark over just who had killed Mark Kline-Watson. Now he knew.

“You just told me he wanted more money.”

Fraser sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “He called me to say Rebecca had been down that morning demanding to know what had happened to Oscar. She knew he was our laundry man, so…” he shrugged. “Mark knew he had a hold over me. Oscar was missing, I’d turned in a big chunk of money. I think he’d put two-and-two together.”

“So he had to go.”

Fraser didn’t meet Garrick’s gaze. He gave a slight nod.

“Meanwhile, Rebecca was still going ahead with the plan to get Terri out. That’s when she went to pick up the cash from Matthews as arranged and saw there was just thirty grand there. She really thought Oscar had run off with the lot.”

The only vaguely innocent person in all this mess was Terri Cordy. She may have known Oscar was unscrupulous, but she had faith that his dishonesty didn’t extend to looking after his only son. Poor Huw Crawford had been drawn into hideous acts to win back the woman he loved. Whereas Rebecca Ellis was Oscar’s accomplice in the heist, without knowing the man she loved was dead.

Quite a picture, Garrick thought dryly.

There was a muted atmosphere in the Incident room when Garrick returned. Chib, Fanta, and Wilkes had been writing up their case notes, but without the boisterous PC Harry Lord making them emergency brews every few minutes, it didn’t feel like a time to celebrate. Fanta was irked that the collection for Harry had raised a pitiful eight pounds.

That wasn’t helped when Harry made an unexpected entrance in a wheelchair, pushed by his wife, Claire. One leg was raised straight out in plaster, his arm in a sling. The swelling on his forehead had gone down, leaving a small cut stitched together.

“Don’t worry! Lord is here to crack the case wide open!”

“You’re too late, as usual,” said Chib with a smirk. “Where have you been?”

Garrick snatched the collection cup before Fanta could put it in Harry’s lap.

“There you go, mate. We had a whip-round.”

Harry’s face dropped when he counted it. “Eight quid?”

“Imagine what you would’ve got if you’d broken both legs.”

Everybody roared with laughter, cracking the gloom that had been hanging over them. They debriefed him on the case, and Garrick even offered to make everybody a round of drinks to celebrate.

Later, Superintendent Margery Drury took Garrick aside in her office to congratulate him. He filled in the details, and she listened without interruption. Garrick suggested they give Molly Meyer’s the inside scoop. Thanks to her viral video, she had landed a job as an on-camera reporter for the BBC. She was a woman going places, and the Force could do with a friend in the media. Drury agreed.

Garrick was still stuffing himself with painkillers and was wondering if they were doing something to his senses, because despite the success, Drury looked pensive. Eventually, he found out why.

“We had an odd result from forensics. PC Liu picked it up and wasn’t sure where it fitted in the evidence.”

Garrick nodded, unsure where this was leading. “Okay.”

“It was something you put in. An envelope.”

Garrick winced. He’d forgotten about that.

“Is there something you want to tell me?”

He didn’t. He had no intention of letting her know he thought he had heard his sister’s voice, or that he was worried a possible brain tumour was making him hallucinate. Yet now he felt cornered.

“It arrived in the mail. The American postmark seemed odd. The fact it was empty was just weird.”

Drury didn’t blink as she studied him. “And that made you have it checked by a professional police forensics team?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I shouldn’t have abused our resources. I didn’t really think about it because of the case, and–”

Drury held up her hand to stop him.

“The misuse of police resources for personal reasons is one thing, David. Let’s put that to one side for now. What did you expect they would find?”

Garrick scratched his head. The co-codamol was picking the wrong time to wear off.

“I honestly wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe, where it had been posted from? I don’t know anybody over there, except at Flora PD, and why would they send me it. Then I wondered if somebody here was trying to dick me around.”

“Why would anybody want to do that?”

“You know how coppers are. Cruel tricks are our thing.”

“It’s sad that you think that.”

Garrick said nothing in case he’d incriminate himself.

“The postmark was from New York. City, not State.”

“Not Flora, then.” Flora was a small town in Illinois, eight-hundred miles from New York.

“The thing is our labs are very thorough, and you didn’t specify what you wanted them to focus on…”

Garrick felt a chill. “What was in the envelope?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay.”

“But it was sealed…” Drury hesitated as she worked out how to phrase it. “It was one of those old gum seals that you lick closed. There was DNA residue on that. It matches your sister’s.”

The sound of rain on the window grew louder. Garrick hadn’t been aware of it. It felt as if it had poured down every day for weeks. If it wasn’t for the wet weather, he mused, perhaps he would have been chopped into chum by the biplane’s propellor. His mind was knitting random moments, marvelling how they could be brought together in a seemingly endless chain of cause and effect that could take a life or save one.

“Well?” Drury had been speaking, but he had zoned out. He didn’t really care what she was saying.

“Sorry, what?”

“I said I had to notify the investigators in Flora PD. They want you to call them as soon as you can.” Garrick slowly nodded. “There was