Page 32 of Dead Fall

Flyte rolled her lower lip between her teeth. ‘All right, guilty as charged. But you have to understand that I can’t simply .?.?. freelance these days. I have to be professional, and keep DI Bacon on board.’ Not quite able to hide a note of irritation at her loss of authority.

Cassie paused: still annoyed but also suddenly aware of the tightrope that Flyte must need to walk. ‘“DI Bacon”, though? Seriously?’ she deadpanned.

‘And everyone calls him Streaky,’ said Flyte. They both broke into broad grins.

‘Of course they do.’

The exchange thawed some of the frost between them.

‘Listen, have you interviewed this Charly woman yet?’ Cassie asked. ‘About who gave her the pics of Bronte – and details from the PM report?’

‘Not yet. Why?’

‘I need to tell you something.’

‘Go on,’ said Flyte.

Cassie pulled a face. ‘It was Bronte’s mother.’

Chapter Twenty

DI Bacon calling Bronte’s mum a ‘religious nutter’ had reminded Cassie of Chrysanthi’s last visit, and Bronte’s silver locket.

Now she told Flyte that Chrysanthi had wanted to put the necklace round Bronte’s neck herself.

‘And you left her alone with the body.’

‘Not exactly,’ said Cassie. After opening Bronte’s drawer and unzipping the body bag to her chest she had deliberately busied herself with some paperwork at the other end of the body store. ‘I didn’t leave the room but I gave her some space, not wanting to intrude on the moment, you know?’

Flyte nodded but her expression remained sceptical. ‘You think she took the photo then?’

‘It would have taken seconds to whip out her phone and do it.’ Cassie shrugged. ‘The photo went public two days after that.’

‘But why on earth would she share something so .?.?. intimate with some social media clown?’

Cassie resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. ‘Because she didn’t buy the idea that Bronte killed herself and thought the police had done a sloppy job investigating it.’

‘She was hoping that the coverage would bounce the police into a murder investigation’ – Flyte sounded thoughtful.

Cassie nodded. ‘That, plus the official complaint to you lot. And fair enough, it totally worked.’

‘Well, that’s one less crime to investigate,’ said Flyte. ‘There’s no law against sharing an image of your own daughter, even if she is lying dead in a mortuary.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s just beyond me, how anyone could want to see their dead child splashed across every news and social media outlet in the world.’

Cassie paused, understanding how Flyte’s own loss would make that hard to comprehend. Softening her tone, she said, ‘Suicide is the toughest thing for a parent or partner to accept, but I think she might have another reason for wanting it to be murder, weird as that sounds.’

‘Go on.’

Cassie had done a bit of research on St Ioannis, the church Chrysanthi attended. ‘You know she’s devout Greek Orthodox, right? So apparently, her priest is in his eighties and very old school. Suicide is still a cardinal sin in Orthodox theology so if Bronte had killed herself he could have refused to hold a funeral service for her.’

Flyte’s lips rounded into a pretty ‘O’. She looked at Cassie with something of their previous intimacy, before saying, ‘You know, if you hadn’t had the idea of checking for bruising on the fingernails the police would probably have remained convinced that it was suicide.’ She fixed Cassie with a look. ‘No point asking you what on earth made you think of it, I suppose?’

Cassie pulled a half-grin. ‘No point at all.’

*

She had half expected her discovery to bring her some kind of closure over Bronte’s death but the initial buzz faded fast. As she wheeled her old schoolmate’s body down the corridor to the dedicated forensic suite out back, she found guilt still hanging over her like a bad pills-and-vodka hangover. Bronte’s bruised fingers might be clear evidence of foul play but it was still a long way from finding out who’d killed her.

‘Look, I’m doing everything I can,’ she told the shrouded figure as she rolled the tray holding her over to the open drawer into the forensic body store. ‘And Flyte is a good detective. She’ll make sure the cops do the business.’

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