A Need To Kill (DI Matt Barnes) Read Online Free PDF

goodnight to him at the Roosevelt.
    “ Beth?”
    “ Yes, Alec.”
    “ How long have we known each other?”
    “ Over nine years.  What does that have to do with the price of bagels?”
    “ Absolutely nothing.  It’s just I couldn’t help but notice that you were distracted today. Tell me it’s none of my business, but I have the feeling that you are trying to deal with some sort of inner crisis, Beth.”
    “ It’s none of your business, Alec.  I’m not a patient, and I don’t need a session on your couch.”
    “ You’re a friend, Beth.  And I don’t use a couch these days.  Too many patients went to sleep on me.”
    “ That’s because you answered all their questions with, ‘What do you think?’.  They got sick of talking to themselves and nodded off.”
    “ Probably true.  But to get back to you.  Rather than watch cable and order a club sandwich and coffee, meet me downstairs in the bar for a drink.  I promise not to make it an inquisition.”
    Beth had no conscious intention to agree to meet Alec.  She was annoyed that he was spot-on in his assumption that she would watch TV.  She had planned on showering, ordering room service and laying back on the king-size bed with an old movie for company.
    “ What time?” She asked.
    “ How does now sound.  I’m already starting in on my first vodka martini.”
    “ You’re here in the hotel?”
    “ Yeah.  Nothing ventured...”
    “ Give me twenty minutes to freshen up,” she said and cradled the phone.
     
    It was three a.m. when Matt threw the duvet back and got out of bed.  The case and Beth were getting to him, filling his mind to a point where it was a buzzing hive of activity that could not close down and escape in sleep.  He pulled on his robe and padded downstairs barefoot to switch on the coffee maker.  They had eliminated one suspect the previous day, and had a result on the small head-shaped bruise found on Marsha Freeman’s face.  The baggage handler, Norman Sharp, had the perfect alibi.  He was as dead as the young hooker he’d dropped his pants for.  The strain and shame of being lifted for kerb-crawling, and the initial interview/interrogation conducted by less than sympathetic vice squad cops had taken its toll.  He had suffered a major cardiac infarction while dumping luggage onto the conveyor belt at Terminal 2, to collapse onto it and be smoothly transported through the flaps, to begin a circuit of the carousel, still holding a suitcase by its handle in a death grip.
    The blowups that the crime lab produced were on the money.  What might have usually taken them days to send up from the basement warren took only hours to hit Matt’s desk.  Every department concerned was being leaned on by the top floor to clear the case.  Matt poured the coffee, went through to the lounge and opened up his battered briefcase to withdraw the manila envelope that held a sheaf of 8x10 colour photographs. He fanned them out on the coffee table and looked at them for the tenth time, trying to see more than was portrayed.
    The first he picked up was of the facial bruise.  It almost filled the shot, with just a border of less contused skin.  Even fine downy hairs and the texture and blemishes that were not apparent to the naked eye without magnification, could be seen.
    ‘Looks like a wolf to me, what’s your guess?’ was the one-liner scrawled on the Post-it affixed to the back of the print.
    The chief technician, Maurice Clewes – inappropriately tagged with the sobriquet of ‘Clueless’ – was always quick to offer his personal view on any obscure piece of evidence.  He was in the majority of cases right in his evaluation.  A fact not lost on Matt, who respected and always took notice of what Maurice had to say.
    Yes, the shape of the face; the darker area where the more pronounced muzzle would have punched into the skin, and the unmistakable outline of canine ears.  Matt also chose to believe that the image left by the