Page 31 of One Left Alive
‘Sorry, Mayor, I didn’t realise you were in. Just giving the newest recruits to the Friends of Rydal Falls a tour of the building before our meeting.’
He didn’t tell her that, if she’d bothered to look, the sliding sign on the door said ‘engaged’. Instead he pushed the feeling of heaviness in his stomach caused by the Potters’ deaths to the bottom and stood up. Crossing the room towards the group, he held out his hand and shook each of theirs in turn. Except for Jamie, he never failed at winning someone over; usually women and men fell at his feet eager to please. And judging by the pink cheeks and huge smiles, his track record wasn’t going to be broken today.
Greg began his usual spiel about his role as mayor and they listened intently, hanging on to his every word. He liked it when his audience was this interested in what he had to say. When he’d finished he asked, ‘Any questions?’
‘Yes, what are you going to do about that terrible murder on Easdale Road? It’s terrifying to think that an entire family have been killed in their beds.’
He looked at the woman who spoke. It seemed she knew more about it than he did.
‘I’m afraid that’s not my problem to sort out.’
Her eyes narrowed and he realised that he’d been a bit abrupt.
‘What I mean is, I have no jurisdiction over that terrible tragedy. It’s the police who are dealing with it. It has nothing to do with my role as mayor.’
‘We’re not safe in our own houses though, are we?’
Mary Jane looked aghast. ‘Bertha, come on, this is hardly the time or place, is it? That awful mess is not the mayor’s concern.’
Bertha’s eyes narrowed to thin slits as she stared at him. ‘Well it should be. This concerns everyone. I don’t want to wake up with a killer standing at the bottom of my bed ready to knock my block off and steal my family jewels.’
The other women turned to look at her and began whispering amongst themselves. Greg wanted to tell Bertha to get the fuck out of his office; instead he smiled at her.
‘I’ll be working with the police to ensure there are more patrols. I don’t think there’s some madman breaking into houses and killing people. I mean we live in rural Cumbria. The worst crimes around here are sheep rustling and thefts from farm outbuildings. There’s very little violent crime, especially against strangers.’
‘Well that makes it even worse then, because it could have been someone they knew, someone we all know.’
A burning sensation began to rise up his throat and he wanted to grab hold of Bertha and throw her out of his office before she said another word.
Mary Jane had gently taken hold of the woman’s arm and was tugging her out into the corridor.
‘Come on, ladies, the mayor is a very busy man. I think it’s time for coffee and cake.’
A murmur of excitement went around the small group and they all began to push to get out of the door.
As she left Bertha turned to him. ‘Well I hope they catch whoever did this before anyone else dies.’
Then they were gone, and he flopped back into the ancient chair, loosening his tie. What the hell had just happened? He’d be damned if he knew, but whatever it was it had left him with a bitter taste in his mouth and a strong desire to throttle Bertha if he ever set eyes on her again.
Twenty-One
Even in death, Olivia Potter was hauntingly beautiful. Her sun-kissed skin and perfectly shaded silver-blonde hair made her look much younger than her age of forty-six. Morgan stared at her body, knowing it would be hard to ever shake the image of her lying on the cold steel table with the huge Y-shaped incision running from her collarbones to her pubic bone. Butterflies filled her stomach and she focused on the dead woman’s face. She looked healthy, almost like she was in a deep sleep and not dead. Morgan would bet that she was the type of woman to go running and do yoga. She tried to wrap her head around the fact that just yesterday, this woman had been a living, breathing person with a beautiful family and home. She would have woken up and eaten breakfast. Morgan hoped she had enjoyed it; she’d probably had a better breakfast than Morgan usually made.
She didn’t want to watch as Declan worked fast on the autopsy, his assistant following his orders, but at the same time, she couldn’t look away. He began to fold the skin, fat and muscles away, exposing Olivia’s internal organs. As he began to explain that he was cutting into the sac surrounding the heart, Morgan looked away. In between taking notes she focused back on Olivia Potter’s face and began counting the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, anything to keep her mind busy and not thinking about what Declan was doing.
When Declan walked Ben and Morgan out of the pathology lab, after he’d finally completed the post-mortem, the churning of her stomach finally began to subside. Fingernail scrapings had been taken along with other forensic samples, to send off for analysis. Morgan was feeling a bit out of it; thankfully she hadn’t been sick or fainted, though, which had been her biggest fear. She wanted to prove to Ben that she could hack everything he threw at her, and then some. She was, however, exhausted, and wanted to go home for a long soak in the bath with a very large alcoholic beverage of some kind.
‘I messed up big time yesterday, Declan.’
This statement from Ben brought her back to the present; he sounded disappointed with himself.
‘I took it on face value it was a straightforward suicide.’
‘And usually they are, Ben. How often have you come across something of this calibre? In Grasmere no less.’
Ben let out a heavy sigh. ‘Never.’
‘Exactly. You weren’t to know about the bruising around the neck. It was hidden by the rope. You had no way of knowing that the trauma to the back of the tongue had been caused until we did the PM, or even that the rest of her family were dead.’
