Page 50 of Gone in the Night
‘You don’t follow her on social media?’
Leah paused, her eyes were watching Morgan’s face intently.
‘I don’t know offhand; I’d have to search her name to see if I do. I mean I have a lot of friends and followers who I wouldn’t know if I fell over them in the street. Everyone does, maybe not as many as Sharon though, but I have a fair few. Why are you asking me about her? Did she kill Sharon?’
‘Not that I know of. She was found dead earlier today in similar circumstances to Sharon.’
Leah had the decency to let out a gasp, cupping a hand to her mouth, but Morgan wasn’t convinced it was genuine and found herself looking at the knife block on the kitchen worktop behind the woman in front of her, to check if there were any knives missing, because right now she would have no problem arresting Leah on suspicion of murder. The only problem was she had no hard evidence, just a gut feeling deep inside of her that the woman sitting opposite her could quite easily have stabbed her friend to death and thought nothing of it.
THIRTY-THREE
Morgan left Leah, who had gone back to sniffling into a tissue as if to prove to Morgan she did have a heart inside of that block of ice surrounding her chest. In the car she quickly wrote down notes as the radio was quietly playing in the background.
Selfish, cold, admitted she wasn’t close with Sharon, was angry about her spoiling her chance of a good life with Stefan’s money. Couldn’t say if she knew Lydia Williams, could have killed her to draw the attention away from Sharon. Greed and money are a good motivation for murder, so is revenge!
She let out a long, drawn-out sigh and sat back in the seat, closing her eyes for a moment. The song had stopped and was replaced by a voice on the radio that made her sit up straight, and she opened her eyes.
‘You were unlucky enough to be on a campsite where a woman was murdered in cold blood, how did you feel when you realised what had happened?’
‘Shocked, it’s not the kind of thing that usually happens when you go away for a long weekend camping with your new girlfriend.’
‘You’re no stranger to murders though, are you? As a crime reporter, you covered the string of murders that happened some years ago in this area that were carried out by a serving police officer at the time.’
Fin Palmer’s voice was smooth and made her so angry she wanted to punch the radio to stop him talking.
‘Yes, I did. That was pretty harrowing too, Dave, it never leaves you. Late at night when you try to sleep those images are there, replaying over and over again in your mind.’
‘Arrggh.’ Morgan slammed the palm of her hand against the button to turn his voice off. The bastard was repeating what she’d told him in confidence. He was playing games with her. She took out her radio and dialled Cain’s collar number. He answered immediately.
‘Where are you? The boss is pretty mad you snuck out without Amber.’
‘Where I am isn’t important, where are you? I thought you were going to speak to Palmer.’
‘I am, we’re having difficulties locating him.’
‘I can tell you exactly where he is. He’s on the bloody radio talking about the crime scene earlier. You need to get to the Radio Cumberland offices and shut him up. Where are you?’
‘Christ.’
‘Yes, exactly.’
‘We’re not far away, just turning onto that street. Do I need to arrest him?’
‘You may as well seeing as how he can’t keep his mouth closed.’
Cain ended the call, and she felt bad for being so mean to him. She turned the radio back on despite the blackness that was rising inside of her chest, wanting to hear Cain shut him down.
‘Can you describe what you witnessed?’
‘I don’t think I can, Dave, it’s an active investigation and the police won’t want me discussing the finer details on air. However, I can tell you that, from the press release that was issued yesterday, I’d say this body was found in very similar circumstances.’
‘Two bodies, in two days, both found in similar circumstances. Same killer, same MO?’
If Morgan didn’t know any better, she could have closed her eyes and thought she was back in the blue room at the briefing an hour ago. The blackness inside of her was fizzing into a tidal wave of bright red. Palmer needed to shut up and now. He had no right discussing this live on air.
‘Hey, who are you?’
Muffled voices. There was a scuffle in the room as a chair tipped over, and Fin’s voice called out,‘I want a lawyer,’before Fleetwood Mac began playing, ‘You Can Go Your Own Way’.
