Secret of the Dead Read Free Page A

residue from his thick, bushy moustache.
    “Do you know I wish you’d shave that thing off, it would take years off you.”
    He set down his empty glass. “This morning you were having a go at me, saying I could do with losing a few pounds. Are you fed up with me already?”
    “Now we’re an item, I’m going to lick you into shape so you can keep up with me.” She twinkled her hazel eyes at him. “Either that, or I’ll trade you in for a younger model.” She reached across and mussed a hand through his dark mop of unruly hair.
    He shrugged away from her and picked up his empty glass. “I think you’d best remember your place, young lady” he retorted with a smirk. “I’m going to get another beer. It doesn’t look as though Jeffery Howson is going to show up.” Pushing his 6’ 1” seventeen stone frame up from the chair he added, “I have to say he didn’t sound too good on the phone last night.”
    He suddenly recalled the chilling last words Jeffery Howson had said before hanging up.
    “I hope nothing’s happened to him,” he mumbled as he made for the bar.
     
    - ooOoo -
     
     

 
     
CHAPTER TWO
     
    DAY ONE OF THE INVESTIGATION: 24th November.
     
    Hunter Kerr eyed the paperwork littering his workspace. He didn’t like it when his desk was messy.
    He had arrived in the office early with the intentions of making a dent in the stack of overdue reports, but he’d been here an hour already and somehow hadn’t quite clicked into gear even with two cups of strong, sweet, tea inside him. The third cup he’d brewed two minutes ago rested in front of him. He dropped in two lumps of sugar and stirred the steaming contents with the end of his biro. Then he sucked the residue from its top and returned to the task in hand.
    Leaning back in his seat, pushing a hand through his dark brown hair, he read over the last sentence he had penned and then glanced up to the ceiling in search of inspiration. He was really struggling with piecing together his report on the sudden death of the young woman whose body had been found in the derelict cellar of a disused pub three days earlier. The main problem was the sheer lack of detail on the front page of the ‘Report of Death’ form before him.
    There was certainly no lack of specifics in the ‘Circumstances of Death’ section on the reverse of the document. He’d been able to complete that part quite easily. A small team of builders carrying out renovation work had discovered her lying face down on the concrete floor, immediately realising from the bloated face and pungent smell that she wasn’t sleeping rough. The foreman had dialled 999 straight away and, except for where one of them had kicked through the bottom panel of the cellar door, they hadn’t disturbed anything.
    Although he was still awaiting results from toxicology samples taken during the post-mortem, all the indications were that she had died of a heroin overdose. At least a dozen empty syringes surrounded her body. Added to that, the numerous discarded foil wrappings and a couple of spoons which showed signs of being heated over a naked flame, clearly set the scene that the cellar was being used by addicts as a shooting den and she had accidentally ended her life there.
    For a brief second, he recalled the first images he had of her, lying amid the detritus of a damp old pub cellar, in the early stages of decomposition and with bits of her missing - vermin had begun to nibble at her purple-coloured bloated flesh. He closed his eyes and shook his head, then returned to focus on the file.
    The only reason Hunter had been landed with completing the report was because the Pathologist had picked up on an injury to her right cheek; there was some bruising and the cheekbone was cracked. The cause of that injury was inconclusive, though Hunter had pointed out that she had been found lying face down on hard concrete ground. If the toxicology report came back that it was a heroin overdose, which had