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

Garrick knew what she was hinting at. Saliva is only produced when alive. He nodded in understanding.

Drury looked increasingly worried. “This is unusual. Obviously. There is no escaping that you have been targeted to receive something calculated to worry you. Emelie still hasn’t been found. Which means not only did they have access to her body, but this was also planned months ago.”

The implications of her words jerked Garrick upright. “Why would somebody…?” He trailed off. That was an age-old question that human behaviour constantly invoked.

“David. If this was planned so long ago, then somebody in American must have a grudge against you. I need you to think about who.”

“I don’t know anybody over there. If that’s the case, then maybe some villain I banged-up years ago.”

“Somebody who could have targeted your sister.”

Garrick’s blood ran cold. That threw his entire perception about her murder on its head.

“Are you trying to suggest that she was killed to get at me?”

Drury anxiously tapped a finger on the desk. “No, David. I am telling you that is what Flora PD is suggesting. They’re worried that the letter was a warning.”

“A warning about what?”

“That you’re next.”

30

Just that a case had been solved, a suspect arrested, and a confession given didn’t mean the work was over. Tying everything up, preparing evidence for the court case, getting extra witness statements, it was all a long and tedious process.

Rebecca Ellis had been arrested for accessory to armed robbery at Gatwick Airport as she attempted to board an Easyjet flight to Lisbon. She had checked in the two holdalls filled with Terri’s possessions and the thirty thousand pounds Fraser had left behind.

Terri Cordy was cautioned and told not to leave the country. Drury had instructed Garrick to go home but fearing isolation he stayed late and brought reporter Molly Meyers in to brief her on events. She grew excited, suddenly talking about the possibilities of a special report. The Hoy incident had captured imaginations around the world. This exclusive would be seen everywhere.

Garrick felt a tremor of satisfaction that he had helped her career. As she chatted to the team, he noticed the glower Fanta treated the pretty freckled red head too as Sean Wilkes flirted and played up his own involvement. He decided that wasn’t his problem and excused himself to go home. The last thing he wanted today was to be interviewed on camera. But he couldn’t even escape that.

Two days passed. The weekend loomed, and Garrick had made several calls to Wendy in which he apologised for forgetting to call her during the lunch hour, as he’d said he would at the start of the week. Not even talking to her after the Pizza Hut moment was unforgivable.

As ever, Wendy understood and went on to tell him how good-looking he was on the Newsnight extended report of the ‘Hoy Murders’ as they were now known. He had refused twice, but Molly had been very persuasive. He put on a suit jacket, a white shirt with the top two buttons unfastened, but had forgotten to shave. Wendy insisted he looked rugged, and she was now the envy of her colleagues in the school. Garrick still ached everywhere, so the thought of going for a weekend cross-country ramble with her sounded like torture. Instead, he suggested they take an easy walk along a beach on the Isle of Sheppey, one of his favourite fossil hunting sites, although he kept quiet about that. The weather was supposed to be milder, and Garrick found himself excited by the prospect. He vowed he would leave his phone at home too.

Friday came, and the promise for clearer weather for tomorrow’s date didn’t look as if it would be fulfilled. A whole day behind his desk, writing up notes and double-checking evidence, had been a welcome, if mundane, distraction. For the last few days, he had been migraine free and was wondering if the stress of the job was the trigger, rather than the intruder in his skull. He was also low on his prescribed painkillers. He’d been hitting them hard to keep the other aches and pains at bay.

Rather too hard.

With his head bowed against the rain, he strode out of Sainsbury’s with his weekend supply of food in his worn jute bag for life. He darkly mused over who’s life the phrase was referring to – the bag or the owner. His was so threadbare that it was ripe for euthanasia.

“David!”

Garrick did a double take as DCI Kane climbed from a car parked a few yards away. A black Hyundai i40. What the hell was going on?

“What are you doing here?”

Kane smiled thinly. “Looking for you.”

There was no doubt in Garrick’s mind that Kane had followed him. He thought back to the black Hyundai tailing him and Chib from Rebecca Ellis’s Airbnb, and the one parked at the Chilston Park Hotel. Both times he had assumed it was Huw Crawford’s vehicle. But maybe not. At least, not one of them…

“Small world,” said Garrick.

“You’re easily recognisable now that you’re on the telly so often. Congratulations, by the way.”

Garrick didn’t respond. He glanced up at the night sky. “If you want to talk, let’s do it some place dry.”

“Okay.”

“And on Monday. After you book an appointment.”

Kane’s pleasant smile vanished. “I’m not sure what’s with the hostility. To be honest, I didn’t want to waltz into the office to talk to you. I’m doing this as a courtesy.” His tone had become icy. “I thought you should know about Eric Wilson.”

Garrick cocked his head. Wilson, his old DS. They had been together on a case when he heard about his sister’s murder. Since then, Wilson had been seconded up north. Garrick had emailed him, but he hadn’t replied, and recent events had put him out of mind.

“Is he okay?”

“He’s dead.”

The words were like a punch to the gut. Eric Wilson was young, spirited, always fun, and with a fiancée