NO KISS FOR THE DEVIL (Gavin & Palmer 5) Read Free

as he turned to watch her. ‘The thing is, why would she have it on
her? Did you have a meeting arranged - maybe to work on something together?’ He
let a few beats go by, then said flatly, ‘Did you know her or not?’
    ‘If I knew her
well enough that we were going to work together, I think I’d have remembered by
now, don’t you?’ Riley was irritated by his probing, as if he was reluctant to
extend his investigation much beyond the close confines of this car. Right now,
all that her memory would give her of Helen Bellamy was a vague image of an
elegant, willowy woman, friendly and self-assured. A freelance reporter like
herself. No more, no less.
    ‘Do you know
anyone else who might know her, then?’ He was clearly trying a different tack.
‘Circle of friends, work colleagues, boyfriends… girlfriends?’
    ‘No. I’m
sorry.’
    ‘You’re in the
same profession.’
    ‘Pell, I know
lots of journalists, but none of them particularly well. Like you and other
coppers - you’re not all best buddies, are you?’
    He pulled a
face in wry acknowledgement. ‘Good point.’
    ‘Why,’ asked
Riley impulsively, ‘do you think her hands were tied?’
    ‘We don’t know
yet,’ he admitted, echoing the forensics man. ‘She’d been restrained and
possibly hit, that’s all we can tell right now. The tape on her wrists might
have been to subdue her while they were on the move. You didn’t get that from
me, by the way.’
    ‘Of course.’
She focussed on the dashboard, trying to process the image of Helen being alive
but restrained, unable to free herself or offer any resistance. The idea was
macabre. Awful. ‘You don’t normally drag people out to crime scenes in the
middle of the night – especially journalists. Why couldn’t this have waited
until the morning?’ She waited, but he didn’t answer. ‘Particularly as you had
an idea who she was before I got here.’
    Pell opened his
mouth, then shut it again. The expression in his eyes was indecipherable. If he
had any ulterior motives, he was keeping them to himself. ‘She was discovered
just after midnight by a man walking his dogs. He said the car definitely
wasn’t there earlier in the evening at ten o’clock, when he last came by, so it
must have been dumped after that time. That’s confirmed by a residue of warmth
on the engine block. We’re still trying to narrow down the timing.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘I needed quick
confirmation of her ID - from you if I could get it - so we could back-trace
her movements.’
    ‘You knew I was
a journalist?’
    ‘One of the
SOCO team recognised your name. He’d read your stuff. He’s a fan. I figured it
was worth a try calling you. We’ve got a hell of a caseload at the moment and
we need all the help we can get.’ He scrubbed at his face with his fingers,
suddenly looking bone-weary, as if any energy he’d been harbouring until now
was seeping away with the approach of daylight. Riley guessed he had broken
with procedure by calling her in at this stage and was now regretting it. His
next words confirmed it. ‘I’ll be in deep shit if my boss knows I did this.’
    Riley felt a
flicker of sympathy, and glanced across to where the man in the forensics suit
was stepping carefully around the edge of the ditch, pointing a large
flashlight at the ground. ‘Is that why he was so unfriendly?’
    ‘Yes. I had to
lean on him to let you in.’
    ‘Will he tell
anyone?’
    ‘No. He owed me
a favour. Now I owe him a bigger one.’
     
    Pell eventually let
her go, with instructions not to publish anything and to call him if she
thought of anything relating to the dead woman. In spite of a reluctant smile,
which softened his face considerably, the implications behind the first
instruction were clear: the presence of her name on a piece of paper at the
death scene meant that Riley was far too close to this case to be allowed any
leeway as a reporter.
    She climbed out
of the white suit and returned to her car. As she