Page 15 of Dying Breath
Mattie picked up the portable light and passed it to her. She shone it over the dead woman’s hand and the familiar circular logo for Aston’s nightclub glowed under the fluorescent light.
‘Well, at least you know where she was prior to ending up here. I should imagine they would have plenty of CCTV in there and on the exterior.’
‘Damn – you’re too good, Catherine. You’ll be doing me out of my job.’
Catherine smiled. ‘No, Lucy, I wouldn’t. Actually, I could never do your job. I’m quite happy working with corpses. I couldn’t be civil to criminals and murderers, let alone try to hunt them down and catch them. You are very good at your job. Each to their own.’
Lucy shook her head; she had never been particularly good at accepting compliments. A small, nervous laugh escaped her lips. ‘No, well, I could never cut up bodies and do what you do, so yes. I suppose we all have our own particular skill set.’
‘Very true. Aren’t we lucky that we’re all so bloody good at working this stuff out and catching the bad guys and girls?’
‘Yes, I suppose in a gruesome way we are.’ For a fleeting moment Lucy wondered how nice it would be to be good at something like baking cakes or sewing. But domesticity had never been her thing; just ask her teenage daughter Ellie. Their fairy cakes had always ended up either burnt to a crisp or soggy in the middle.
Lucy let the pathologist get on with it, watching as she took various samples and placed brown paper bags over the woman’s hands.
‘Do you know when you’ll be able to do the post-mortem?’
Catherine looked at her watch. ‘I’ve got an inquest this afternoon; how about I clear the decks for tomorrow morning? Then there’s no need to rush today.’
‘Tomorrow morning would be good, thanks.’
Catherine continued with her preliminary examination, then finally stood up and snapped off her gloves. She made sure the samples she’d taken were stowed safely in the case, then shut it. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Lucy nodded. ‘Yes. Thank you, as always, for being so prompt. I really do appreciate it.’
‘I know that you do, and that’s what makes the difference.’
Catherine walked off in the direction of the CSI van to remove her protective clothing, which would be placed in a brown paper sack and checked once more for any trace evidence back at the station.
Chapter Fourteen
Lewis almost made it. He dropped onto the flat roof without making much of a sound. He supposed if he were a lot heavier he would have made a loud thud. His diet of smack kept him looking like some waif and stray. He smiled to himself. What was he thinking; hewasa waif and stray. His family wouldn’t have anything to do with him and he couldn’t really blame them. He’d stolen from and lied to them more than he was comfortable thinking about. He heard voices below him and stayed where he was, too scared to move or even breathe out too hard. The voices eventually faded and he crawled to the edge of the roof. The grimy, red wheelie bin that he must have used last night to climb up onto it was still there. He could still make out the voices in the backstreet, but he couldn’t see anyone because he was trying to keep as low down as possible. All he needed to do was to get down onto the bin, then make a run for it. Get as far away from here as possible and keep out of Stacey’s way until she was no longer mad at him.
He turned around and lowered himself onto the bin. What he hadn’t taken into account was the fact that it was the bin from the Chinese takeaway under Stacey’s flat, and the plastic lid, which was coated in grime and grease, was as slippery as an ice rink. His scuffed Nikes found their footing on the bin at last, allowing him to let go of the corner of the roof. But then disaster struck. His left foot slid right off and he began to fall. Trying to catch his balance, he shouted, ‘Fuck!’ In a matter of seconds he hit the tarmac, landing with a huge thump. The breath was knocked out of him.
Mattie and Lucy, who were deep in discussion, turned to see where the noise had come from. A skinny, tall figure with the hood of his sweatshirt over his head limped out of the backyard of one of the shops, near to where Stacey’s naked body lay. Lewis stared in horror at the corpse of the woman he’d loved until the heroin addiction had taken over.
Mattie shouted, ‘Stop there! Police.’
Lewis, who knew that he was in a whole new level of deep shit, did the only thing he could; he turned to run in the opposite direction. Mattie began to sprint after him, yelling for him to stop because he was contaminating a crime scene. Lewis did his best to outpace the man chasing him, but he’d twisted his ankle when he fell and it was slowing him down. He tried to give it his best and pushed himself to run faster, when he felt the copper behind him grab the neck of his hoodie, yanking him back. His ankle gave way and he began to tumble to the ground, taking the copper with him. The pair of them crashed onto the hard, filthy floor of the backstreet and landed in a heap just in front of the exit onto High Street, which had been sealed off with blue-and-white police tape.
Beth, who had been the first officer on scene, was now standing there watching. She pulled out her cuffs and in a matter of seconds she was straddling Lewis and had his arms secured behind his back. She looked at Mattie. ‘Are you okay, Sarge?’
Red-faced, he nodded. ‘Yes, thanks.’
She winked at him.
Lucy ran up behind them. ‘Nice work – shame you had to trample the bloody crime scene, though.’ She held out her hand and pulled Mattie up. Beth, who was dragging the skinny man to his feet, focused on his face as his hood fell off.
‘Fancy meeting you here at this time in the morning. Lewis Waite, you do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
‘I haven’t done anything. I didn’t know it was a crime scene, did I?’
‘Tell it to the custody sergeant when you get back to the station.’ Beth put him into the back of the police van.
‘I didn’t do it! You can’t arrest me for something I haven’t done.’
She ignored his shouts and slammed the cage doors shut.
