Blackwater (DI Nick Lowry) Read Online Free PDF

the same tired eyes that greeted her after every shift. And, once again, the same as every morning and evening, she wondered why she still did it. As a young staff nurse in her twenties, she had vowed never to end up the way she was now. As a trainee, she had observed the older nurses and witnessed how shiftwork took its toll; most were constantly too tired to do anything about their slipping figures and unhealthy lifestyles – too tired even to care. She pitied them and resolved never to let the same thing happen to her. But then she met Nick Lowry and forgot her concerns for a while. And so the years passed by, they had a son and settled into comfortable dullness. Until, that is, a young intern made a pass at her two years ago. She thought nothing of it to start with and ignored his advances, but then she looked in the mirror and realized she’d become that middle-aged staff nurse she’d always scorned. So she thought: What the hell.
    *
    Lowry rolled over in bed. He heard the plug being pulled out of the bath and the water gurgling down. Not for the first time did he think it odd that Jacqui had taken to having a bath before she got into bed. Gone were the days when she’d jump straight in and nuzzle up to him after a shift, freshening up when she woke, at around midday. Maybe it was a dig at him because he’d promised to fit a shower and hadn’t? The hot-water pipes in the roof made a hell of noise, enough to wake him. Maybe that was what she wanted. The red LCD display flashed at him from on top of the bedside cabinet with the unwelcome news that it was gone seven. The headless corpse had floated across his subconscious for most of the four hours he’d been in bed. As was often the way, while a visceral scene from one case imposed itself upon him he’d be trying to second-guess another – in this instance, how it was that two soldiers could have been inside the castle grounds at nine o’clock when the gates were locked at six.
    Nowadays, Jacqui would sometimes sleep in the spare room if he was still in bed when she came home, especially at the weekend. He heard her pad out of the bathroom and pass on down the hall. He’d need to get up soon and put a call in to the desk sergeant; he wanted to link up with the WPC who’d been first on the scene at Castle Park. No doubt they could arrange with the groundsman to give them access before the park opened to the public.
    But not just yet. He’d had a night troubled with strange dreams of floating corpses, and now craved a few minutes of peaceful shut-eye until it was time to get up.
    8.05 a.m., The Strood
    It was gradually growing light. The mist showed signs of lifting across the marshes as a greyish-crimson light streaked across from the east, but it was bitterly cold. The uniform sergeant had been given clear instructions by Lowry and was barking orders through the icy damp at the huddle of officers looming by the Danger When Tide Covers Footway sign. Kenton, leaning against a Panda car and reduced to the position of observer, felt redundant. Sergeant Barnes’s voice carried across the mudflats, disturbing birds who were chattering energetically somewhere in the gloom. The assembled officers split into two groups, and half a dozen men in greatcoats set off precariously along the mainland sea wall, dodging the mudpans hidden by sedge grass, while another six moved to tackle the sea wall on the island itself.
    Sergeant Barnes walked stiffly towards the Panda car, which was parked up on the curb. Kenton moved to greet him by the railing.
    ‘Like a needle in a haystack,’ Barnes said, rubbing his hands together briskly.
    Kenton looked out across the channel and observed a tea-colour trickle flowing through the mud banks. The tide must be on the way in now, he reasoned, given the hour.
    ‘Not sure what your gaffer expects us to find out there,’ the sergeant continued. ‘A head ain’t going to be sitting waiting for us on those mudflats.’
    ‘We won’t know