Page 43 of Gone in the Night
‘Get him the fuck out of here. It’s that guy who wrote all the crap about you, isn’t it?’
‘Don’t make a scene, Ben, play it cool. Pretend you don’t know it’s him then he can’t get off on it.’
Cain was smiling. ‘With pleasure, boss. Morgan, do you want to assist or are you happy to watch?’
‘I’ll watch, thanks.’
Cain began to head over to where Marc was in conversation with Fin and the woman. He turned back to Morgan and winked at her. She turned away, preferring to focus on the victim. There was a guy hovering near to a battered old Skoda, his complexion pale as he tried not to stare at the tent, and she walked towards him.
‘Hi, I’m Detective Morgan Brookes. Did you discover the body?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, it gave me such a shock. I fell off the ladder. I didn’t expect to see that.’
‘What did you see? Do you want to sit in your car and talk me through it?’
‘Yes, please. Then can I go? I don’t think I’m much good to you hanging around here, and I don’t want to be in the way or watch whatever is going to happen next. Sorry, I’m a bit of a wimp.’
She smiled at him. ‘You’re not a wimp; it’s a horrible thing to see. I fell off one of those ladders yesterday morning when I did the same thing.’
‘You did, oh my God. There’s been more than this one?’
‘Unfortunately, yes.’
He was shaking his head. ‘Why?’
‘I wish I knew. What’s your name?’
‘Samuel Cross, everyone calls me Sammy.’
‘Can I get your date of birth and address, please, Sammy?’
He told her, and she scribbled it down in her battered old pocket notebook.
‘You work here?’
‘I’m the groundsman, maintenance and sometimes bouncer guy.’
Morgan looked at him. ‘Bouncer? On a remote campsite with no clubhouse or bar on site.’
‘Yeah, I hate it. That’s what I was doing this morning. The lady in the tent had overstayed by two nights and not paid. My boss told me to either get the money off her or throw her off the site.’
‘Does that happen often on campsites?’
‘No idea, it’s happened a couple of times, but people usually just pay up. I think because this one is so off the beaten track and has nobody working on site all the time, they think they can get away with it.’
She nodded. ‘You parked up and then what?’
‘I called out to her a couple of times, you know, to let her know I was there. It smelled bad. I think I knew the moment I got close and got a whiff of that smell something was very wrong, but you don’t expect it, do you?’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘Well, I stood on the ladder and told her I was opening her tent, unzipped it and realised something wasn’t right. I couldn’t see her, there was a sheet over her, but there was something sticking out of her chest. The smell was awful; I fell off the ladder and I began to scream, which was when those two came running back to see what was happening. That guy was taking photos, by the way. He said he’s a reporter and I told him to stop, so you better check his phone.’
Morgan’s fingers instinctively clenched into tight fists as she felt the rage begin to build inside of her. ‘Just a moment.’
She got out of the car to see Cain and Marc going at it a little distance away from the couple and couldn’t help it – she was striding towards Fin Palmer with an anger so black inside of herchest she couldn’t see anything but his face and the desire to throw a punch that would smash his smarmy nose in.
‘Morgan Brookes, how are you? It’s been too long.’
