An Early Grave Read Online Free PDF Page A

her. But right now she had the image floating before her eyes of the poor girl lying dead in the house on the Treadwater Estate. Perspective. Sometimes you needed perspective. Her office phone rang, and when she picked up another female voice told her she had a visitor at the front desk.
    ‘What’s the name?’
    ‘Mr Armour,’ the desk officer replied. There was a pause. ‘Sorry, a Dr Armour.’ The voice fell to a whisper. ‘If you ask me, he doesn’t look much like a doctor.’
    She quickly leafed through her notebook; it took a second for the name to register. The strange guy from Treadwater.
    ‘Did he say what he wants?’ The line went quiet, while the desk officer asked Armour his business.
    ‘Says he’ll only speak to you.’
    ‘I’ll come down.’
    He looked exactly as he had done the day before. Same clothes, wet straggly hair, for it was still raining outside, the same vacant expression and arms by his sides. A large carrier bag from LIDL hung from his right hand. Before she judged him too harshly, she realised that she must also look the same to him: same clothes, same hair, although she had showered since they last met. Didn’t think that could be said for her visitor.
    ‘Dr Armour, what can I do for you?’ She tried to sound pleasant, smiled and made a deliberate effort to give him his proper title. He didn’t look bothered either way.
    ‘You said to get in touch if I thought of anything.’
    Several people walked by staring at the man who looked every bit the tramp. Smelt that way, too. Tara braced herself for the awkward conversation ahead.
    ‘Do you want to come through to my office?’
    He reached out the LIDL bag, but made no effort to go with her.
    ‘This might be of help.’ He stared down at her through watery eyes, his breath reeking of beer. She had no choice but to step closer to accept the bag. She took a handle in each hand and peered inside to see a battered grey box-file. Armour was already backing towards the exit.
    ‘Are you sure you won’t come through?’
    He shook his head, turned and walked out.
    ‘OK, thanks. Nice talking to you, too.’
    Holding it well in front of her, she carried the bag upstairs to the office and laid it down flat on her desk. She thought of donning a pair of latex gloves just to remove the box-file from the bag. There was a strong aroma of Dr Armour, stale, heavy smells of cooked food, damp clothing and dog. She shuddered. Couldn’t manage it, not without gloves. She removed a pair of latex disposables from a box in the top drawer of her desk and slipped them on. To her far left she could see Murray looking on with interest, but when she glanced across he quickly returned to his computer screen. Removing the box-file, she returned it to the desk and dropped the bag to the floor, hoping it was well out of smelling range. It was a standard office box-file, bulging with papers, the words ‘Mass Spectrometry Data’ written in purple marker on the side. The catch on the lid was broken, but was held fast by a thick rubber band. Once open, she removed the papers inside one by one, anticipating the information she was expecting to discover on the murdered girl.
    Ten minutes later, feeling very perplexed, she had a growing pile of dog-eared and grotty papers littering her desk. Nothing amongst them had any relevance as far as she could tell to the death of the young girl on the Treadwater Estate the day before. At the bottom of the box, she was treated to a crust of toasted bread and a sprinkling of mouse droppings. Shaking the last few papers free of crumbs and mouse poo, she carried the box-file to a waste bin and tipped out the mess. She felt cheated. That filthy man had just wasted her time and probably exposed her to all kinds of diseases. She returned to her desk with the intention of gathering up the pile of rubbish and sending it on its way, when she wondered if she might have missed something. Maybe, in a bizarre fashion, this peculiar man really