An Early Grave Read Online Free PDF

was trying to pass on information. She browsed the papers for a second time. There was a mixture of newspaper clippings, scribbled notes, magazine articles, reports, photographs and letters. She flicked through a hefty document of more than fifty pages from the British Soil Association, reporting results of an investigation into the use of chemicals and drugs in the rearing of food-producing animals. Particular emphasis on South East Asia, China, USA and the European Union, she noted. There were scores of hand written comments in the margins throughout the manuscript. Setting this to one side, she sorted through a number of letters all addressed to Callum Armour from the Merseyside Police. They dated back nearly two years, the latest one less than a week old. Most of the correspondence was in acknowledgement of Armour’s numerous complaints alleging personal threats, attacks by local youths, incidents of missiles being thrown at his home, three attempted and one successful break-in, and one incident where petrol had been poured through his letter box and set alight. It appeared that Callum Armour had not replied to any of the letters but had continued to lodge complaints. One letter, six months old, had offered advice on improving security at his home, suggesting window screens and the installation of CCTV. Tara didn’t think much of the letters or the advice. To her, it was an admission of failure, an admission that Callum Armour’s problems could not be solved by the Police, and he was simply being told to live with it. By this point she had drifted into a world of Callum Armour that had little to do with her murder investigation, and yet the contents of the box-file were making interesting reading. She lifted a photograph, stuck to a piece of newspaper, and studied the figures in the picture. Eight young people, possibly students, were gathered around a table bedecked in beer glasses and wine bottles. In the background was a bar which had the look of somewhere rustic and continental. Could have been anywhere but she got the impression this was a holiday shot. She held onto the photo while continuing to sift the papers. Without lifting it she read a newspaper cutting with the lead-line stating, ‘ Son of top lawyer missing on ski - slopes .’ There was no way she could tell the date or from which paper the article came, but she noticed another on the same incident. The Richmond and Twickenham Post reported that ‘… student Justin Kingsley from Chiswick went missing while on a ski - trip with fellow students in the lake resort of Strobl , Austria … ’
    She placed a magazine article with the headline ‘ Chinese baby milk contaminated with chemical used in plastics ,’ on top of the Soil Association Report. Another paper on a scientific study into health problems from using android mobile phones landed in the same pile. She moved on to a renewed appeal by Thames Valley Police, printed in the Oxford Mail , for information regarding the tragic discovery of the body of a new-born baby. This appeal marked the tenth anniversary of the discovery in a shallow grave in a wooded area close to the River Isis. The baby boy, who was given the name Isis by officers investigating the case, had been found by a librarian while walking her dog. Despite extensive investigations and publicity at the time, police had never found an explanation to the circumstances surrounding the tragedy. Next she read a newspaper headline from a particularly gruesome murder, a case she recalled from the television news a couple of months back. Tabloid headlines at their most sensational: the words ‘ Copycat Becket Slaying ,’ occupied most of the front page. Several sheets of The Daily Mirror were folded over, and Tara read through them briefly, noting all the connections, true or fabricated, with the murder of Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. The reporter hadn’t missed the opportunity to describe entrails spread across altar