Blackwater (DI Nick Lowry) Read Online Free PDF Page B

until we look,’ Kenton said, having little idea himself. He only knew that Lowry wanted evidence to support the theory that the body had washed in with the tide, so as to rule out it having been deliberately dumped where it was found.
    ‘And looking is mainly what we’re doing – through binoculars from the shore. That mud out there is waist deep.’
    ‘How long do we have?’
    ‘High tide’s not for a good few hours, but it fills quick. If there’s anything lying on that mud, now’s the time to see it.’ The sergeant’s helmet strap looked painfully tight, and his face, red with exposure to the elements, had a tortured expression. His fulsome moustache looked stiff with cold.
    ‘Righto. I may as well lend a hand.’
    ‘No need, detective, this is just routine. A job for Uniform.’
    ‘Nonsense – I’m an extra pair of legs.’ He’d overheard members of Uniform describe him as soft. When he’d asked Lowry why this was, the inspector had replied it was because he ‘speaks nicely’.
    ‘Have you got binoculars?’
    Kenton shook his head.
    ‘Then there’s not much point; you’ll only tread the same path. This really is a job for Uniform.’
    The sergeant clearly didn’t want Kenton under his feet, but Lowry had been keen for him get out and learn more about the terrain. How could he ever graduate from being the new boy if he was unable to participate? Training courses had taken up much of his time at Queen Street, and he was keen to put his knowledge into practice. But there wasn’t much he could do; he was outranked.
    After forty-five minutes in the cold, which passed like an eternity, a Green Flash tennis shoe was found in the reeds. It matched the one shoe found on the corpse’s feet.
    8.25 a.m., Lexden, West Colchester
    Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred! Sparks jumped upright from his press-up position on the deep-pile bedroom carpet and banged his chest aggressively, producing a stentorian cough.
    ‘Darling, must you do that?’ came a sleepy reproof from underneath the quilt.
    ‘It’s Lane’s rotten cheroots from last night,’ he said over his shoulder, reaching into the mahogany chest of drawers for a clean vest. ‘Never hands out the Cubans,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Not to me, anyhow – too tight-fisted.’
    ‘Whatever it is you’re doing on the floor – it shakes the bed so.’ Antonia’s luxurious blonde mane was all that was visible to indicate her presence in the bed. ‘It is the weekend.’
    ‘Press-ups, Antonia. They’re called press-ups. One hundred every morning.’ He flexed his biceps in the full-length mirror. Not bad for fifty-four, he thought to himself. ‘Until those cowboys have removed their gubbins from the basement, you’ll have to grin and bear it.’ He lifted the covers to reveal his fiancée’s white, fleshy behind and gripped it firmly. ‘And once the gym is ready, you could do a lot worse than give it a try.’
    She squealed in mock annoyance. Sparks adored Antonia, which was fortunate, as the wedding, his third, was a mere six weeks away. Valentine’s Day: how he’d let himself agree to such a saccharine arrangement he had no idea – he still cringed when he was asked the date. But she was twenty years younger than him, and he liked to indulge her. Indeed, he could hardly believe his luck. She came from a well-off family, had a double-barrelled name and, potentially, a plump inheritance – an exceptional trophy for a regional chief of police who had just been through yet another expensive divorce. They had met at a champagne bar in Cowes the August before last; he had been crewing for the police team and she was on the lash with a bunch of toffs who couldn’t hold their drink. Bored with the immature Hoorays she’d dated in her twenties, she appreciated his maturity and physique and he her figure and connections. For a moment he considered a bit of horseplay but thought better of it and pulled the blanket back down. There was too much