Dusty Death Read Free Page B

to the man in charge of the operation. Sergeant Jack Chadwick gave her a nod of greeting. ‘Percy tied up?’ he enquired laconically.
    She nodded. ‘He’s making phone calls to speed things up. Getting everyone to make this a priority. Last time I saw him he was preparing himself to brief Tommy Bloody Tucker about it.’
    Chadwick nodded. When he had been injured in a shooting years ago, it had been Percy Peach who secured him this job as Scenes of Crime Officer, when others higher up the ranks would have retired him as a young man on sick pension. It was something both of them knew very well, but neither of them ever mentioned. Jack Chadwick was probably the only member of the Brunton force who would rather have had Percy Peach visit him here than this pretty, shapely girl with the striking chestnut hair, who was still in her twenties. ‘There’s not a lot for him here, anyway. Probably scarcely worth his time.’
    Lucy bit back her reaction. She wasn’t going to say that it seemed all right for a woman to waste her time, whilst the men got on with more important things. It was a question of rank, she told herself firmly: Chadwick thought that a DS was all that was required here, that it wouldn’t have been worth the considerably more expensive time of a Detective Chief Inspector. She watched the men and the single woman on their knees amidst the debris and told herself how lucky she was. Sergeant Chadwick had returned to the notes on his clipboard. She said, ‘So what have you found, Jack?’
    â€˜Not much. You wouldn’t expect much, on a site like this. For one thing, this woman died a long time ago, so most things which might have been useful have long gone. We’re not likely to find fingerprints or hairs from a guilty party’s head here, are we?’
    She wondered if he’d have bothered stating the obvious to Percy Peach. But she was used to the fact that, if you didn’t look like the traditional copper, people, even policemen who should know better, didn’t take you seriously. And most of the people working at a Scenes of Crime investigation weren’t coppers, nowadays. She said tersely, ‘That sounds like you’ve already assumed this is a suspicious death. Have you any reason for thinking that?’
    Chadwick grinned ruefully at her. He had been looking forward to a ritual moan with his old friend Percy Peach about the hierarchy, and the weird ways of Chief Superintendent Tommy Bloody Tucker in particular. Instead, he had this fresh-faced, eager girl to talk to; it scarcely seemed fair to visit his old sweat’s cynicism upon her.
    But she wouldn’t be Percy Peach’s sidekick unless she was a bright lass: he’d give her whatever help he could. And beneath his surface scepticism, Jack Chadwick was an enthusiast for his work, the best Scenes of Crime Officer around: experienced, intelligent and meticulous. When he decided to close down his work at a scene, you could be satisfied that there was nothing more to be learned there.
    Now he led Lucy Blake across the site to where a splintered piece of wood lay inside a transparent polythene cover. Lucy saw a panel in it, realized that it was probably part of what had originally been a door. It was covered with grime on one side, but this was the side that interested Chadwick. He pointed to a point near the end of the wood, where the black of the grime shaded to a dark brown. He said simply, ‘I’d be surprised if that isn’t blood.’
    Lucy thought that she would not even have noticed the slightly lighter patch on the blackened surface. But if Jack Chadwick thought it was blood, it was odds on it was. He voiced the immediate query which came into her mind. ‘Nothing to say it’s the blood of your corpse, of course: forensic will tell us if it’s the same group.’
    â€˜Anything else?’
    Chadwick shrugged. ‘We’ve found various fibres,