The Blood That Stains Your Hands Read Free Page A

guy buying a new pair of socks.
    'The wings give the scene a peculiar quality,' I say.
    'Know what you mean.'
    He gives a quick wave of the hand to signal that it's time to bring in the body.
    The stream beneath the bridge is swollen and unusually fast-flowing, so there will be no letting her down. They've decided to manoeuvre her to the side of the bridge, rather than haul her clumsily over the railing.
    A police constable unties the knot around the top of the railing, while another grips the rope, taking the weight of the body. As it swings free, the first polis reaches down and the two of them start to move her along to their right. There are another two coppers on the bank at the end of the bridge, waiting to receive the body.
    As it gets there, they reach out to grab it and haul it in, all the time aware that the pathologist, and the principal investigating officer – Taylor – are watching them, wanting as little impact on the corpse and her clothing as possible.
    Unfortunately, the two guys at the side used to be lesser well-known members of the Marx Brothers. As they reach out to receive the body, one of them slips a little. He regains his footing, but in doing so knocks the other guy, who then falls down the bank, grabbing at grass and roots on his way, before ending up in the mass of branches and litter that is collected in the burn beneath the bridge. In trying to quickly recover from the slip, he puts his foot through the makeshift dam and plunges, waist deep, into the water.
    A couple of our lot laugh. The distant audience are howling. Taylor and I glance at each other. We're a much tougher audience.
    'Fucking idiots,' is all he says.
    The body is safely brought to the side of the bridge and laid down on a prepared mat on the path. PC Gummo crawls to the side of the stream, and starts to scramble up the bank.
    'Get them out the way,' says Taylor. 'Stay with Balingol while he takes his initial look. See if there's anything on her person. A note, or some ID. I'm going to go and speak to the crowd, then I'll probably head back.'
    *
    B ack at the ranch with Taylor, flicking through notes.
    'Balingol thinks she's been there since late last night, early this morning. On the face of it, it looks like suicide. Funny it wasn't spotted earlier, but it was dark until eight, I suppose. Must have been folk walked across the bridge and didn't notice.'
    'It was misty,' says Taylor. 'Hangs in the basin some days. Look on Tumblr or Facebook or whatever, and you'll likely find people were posting pictures of it two hours before anyone reported it to us.'
    Hey, he's not kidding. That shit happens.
    'You've got a name?' he says.
    'Maureen Henderson. Eighty-one years old. Three kids, widowed.'
    'Recently?'
    'Seems to have been a while.' Quick notebook check. 'One of the kids is in Hamilton, one in Canada, one in the US. And obviously, when I say kids... they're our age.'
    He checks his computer, looks back at me. We have the telepathic, who's-going-to-deliver-the-bad-news conversation.
    'No problem,' I say. 'I'll go now.'
    'Take Constable Grant,' he says.
    'Yep.'
    Always better to have a female presence when delivering shit news. That's not official policy, mind. Just common sense. Most male police officers join up so they can legally hit people; as a result, when they're delivering bad news, it's not completely unknown for it to come out as something along the lines of, ' Your mum's dead. I'm going for a sandwich .'
    And it's always nice to spend some time alone in a car with Constable Grant. As time goes by, she's slowly recovering from the night she mistakenly ended up in bed with me. Not that I viewed it as a mistake, but you can see her point.

5
    ––––––––
    T he daughter, Margaret Johnstone, has held it together pretty well. Under the circumstances. That your mother hung herself – or was murdered, which is just as shit – is a pretty brutal thing to hear out of the blue. Constable Grant has gone into the