Beside a Narrow Stream Read Online Free PDF Page A

classically handsome, with high cheekbones and firm jaw. He was dressed in casual designer jeans and what looked like a raw-silk shirt. Very classy. He must have really looked like something, before death had glazed his blue eyes and left his mouth slack and almost foolish-looking.
    ‘Misadventure?’ she asked, but didn’t really think so. Already it had the feel of something much more nasty.
    ‘Doubt it,’ Partridge said at once, confirming it, and once more turned the head carefully, this time to the left. ‘See here, on the temple?’
    Hillary saw. ‘He’s been bashed over the head,’ she said flatly. ‘Enough to knock him out?’
    Partridge nodded. ‘Or at the very least, seriously stun him. But not kill him, I think. I still think we’re looking at death by drowning.’
    Hillary swallowed hard, and rose to her feet, her knees aching a bit with cramp. It was possible the victim might have fallen and hit his head. But if so, how did he end up drowning in the stream? And did he manage to crawl away from the water and slump on to dry land before expiring? It hardly seemed likely. She stamped her feet to get rid of the persistent cramp and looked around. ‘So, someone met him here, hit him on the head, dragged him to the stream and held him down till he drowned?’
    She glanced towards the stream and sighed heavily. Where the mud might have been kept moist by the water, and thus provide them with a set of the killer’s footprints, there was only a plethora of half-moon cuts, courtesy of cow-hoofs.
    ‘Frank, call out SOCO,’ she said absently, and saw one of the two officers nearby whisper something to his colleague. Probably DC Tylforth, saying ‘I told you so’.
    ‘Things aren’t all doom and gloom, we’ve managed to preserve some good stuff,’ Partridge said, nodding towards a middle-aged woman, who’d been taking photographs. ‘My assistant, Claudia Wright.’
    Surprised, Hillary moved across to shake hands. ‘Ma’am,’ Claudia Wright said, glancing away shyly. She was dressed in a pair of black trousers and a plain white shirt. She was thin, with hardly any breasts, and had short, brown hair, which was probably why, from a distance, Hillary had mistaken her for a man. She seemed almost painfully shy for this job, and Hillary wondered what had led to her working for someone as flamboyant as Steven Partridge.
    ‘We bagged and tagged this,’ Partridge said, nodding towards a plastic evidence bag beside the body. Hillary frowned, walking across to it and peering down. Inside she could clearly see a large, flat, pale stone that had a tinge of rust-coloured stain on one side, and what looked like a few strands of human hair attached to it.
    ‘Shouldn’t you have left that for SOCO?’ Hillary asked sharply and Partridge held up a hand in a ‘peace’ gesture.
    ‘Claudia’s fully qualified and licensed,’ the medico said soothingly. ‘She was with me in the lab when I got the call out. I asked her to come. She’s used to field work.’
    Hillary nodded, appeased. ‘Murder weapon?’ she nodded down at the evidence bag and Steven smiled.
    ‘I shouldn’t wonder. But until we get a DNA link to our vic, we can’t say for sure. What I can tell you is that the stone was also used to anchor something down on the vic’s chest. Claudia?’ he looked up, and the older woman nodded and, from her briefcase this time, produced another evidence bag. This time flat. Inside, was a single piece of paper. Red, and cut out in the shape of a heart.
    Hillary blinked and stared down at it, a cold, icy feeling gripping the back of her neck.
    This was nasty.
    Very nasty.
    Usually, people were murdered in a fit of rage; a father attacking the man who’d raped his daughter or run down his wife in a car. Drunks fighting after a night in the pub. Man-and-wife spats with a kitchen knife over who burnt the roast.
    Less often, murders were committed with a bit more malice aforethought, and careful contemplation.
    But