Above Suspicion Read Online Free PDF Page A

many years.
    With the busy road so close, not many pedestrians used the area and the victim had been found by a boy whose scooter had broken down. Wheeling it off the busy road onto the narrow pavement, he had glimpsed a foot through the undergrowth. After scrambling up the ridge, the boy found the body. The corpse’s hands had been tied behind her back with a bra; she had been strangled with a pair of black tights. The body had remained undetected behind bushes for three to four weeks. It had taken longer - four months - to identify her. This discovery was in 1992.
    The mortuary photographs were attached, with pictures of the murder site. Teresa’s face in death had a terrible, haunting ugliness. Her skin was pockmarked and she had a deep scar on one cheek. Her bleached blonde hair had black roots showing. The initials ‘TB’ on her arm appeared to have been scratched or cut and she had a faded pink heart tattooed on her right thigh. She had severe bruises to her genital area.
    ‘TB’ had been traced to Terence Booth, her first husband. Teresa had subsequently been married three times. Though she had three children, none of them appeared to be by any of her husbands. Two were sent to foster care at a very early age, while the youngest, a boy, had been living with her mother.
    Teresa looked a lot older than her forty-four years. Hers was a sad, murky history. She was an alcoholic who had spent time in prison for persistent prostitution offences and for ‘kiting’, which meant she was caught using stolen credit cards and passing dud cheques. She was identified by her fingerprints and from her photographs.
    ‘Travis!’ Anna looked up. Mike Lewis was gesturing at the door for her to get a move on. She had been so engrossed, she hadn’t noticed the gradual emptying of the incident room. ‘Briefing room,’ Lewis explained before disappearing.
    Anna was hurrying after him when Jean called out: ‘Don’t leave the files out, please; return them to the cabinet.’
    Anna zigzagged back to the desk, where she collected the half-read file and replaced it. When she asked where the briefing room was, Jean said sharply, ‘Second door on the left, one flight down.’ As Anna exited rapidly, she could hear Jean moaning to another woman. ‘I’m sick to death of him having a go at me. It’s not my job, anyway, to go schlepping out for his lunch. They’re all bloody foreign in there, don’t understand a word you say to them; “no tomatoes” and he gets layers of them!’
    Anna flew down the narrow stone steps and along a murky corridor. The hubbub of noise drew her easily to the briefing room. Rows of chairs had been placed in haphazard lines and a desk and two chairs faced them. The large dingy room smelled of stale tobacco, even though there were stained yellow notices demanding ‘No Smoking’.
    Anna skirted her way along to a vacant chair at the back, where she sat clutching her notebook. Up front, Lewis and Barolli were joined by eight detectives and six uniformed officers. The two female detectives were a large blonde woman who looked to be of retirement age and a tall thin-faced woman in her mid-thirties with badly capped teeth.
    The superintendent who had overall charge of the enquiry, DCS Eric Thompson, entered, closely followed by Langton. Thompson had an athletic look about him: his face fresh, his shoulders upright; he stood as if poised on the balls of his feet. His thinning hair was combed back from a high forehead. Langton by comparison looked tired and crumpled and in need of a shave. Barolli was loosening his tie in a seat nearby.
    ‘Quieten down!’ Langton barked. He perched on the edge of a desk and leaned forward to address the room.
    ‘The victim was formally identified today by her father. She is, or was, Melissa Stephens, aged seventeen. We suspect she is a “possible”. Her boyfriend’s statement on the night she went missing is all we have to go on so far, but it is my belief that Melissa