Bloodline Read Online Free PDF

the shop, and we should really let him have a bit of time with his family.’
    It was at such moments that Thorne wished he had to ability to raise one eyebrow, like Roger Moore. He had to settle for sarcasm. ‘I’m listening, Sergeant .’
    Holland smiled. ‘We got a result with the curtain-twitchers.’
    â€˜Let’s have it.’
    â€˜Old bloke across the road claims he saw someone coming out of there an hour or so before Emily’s husband got home.’
    â€˜And he’s sure it wasn’t Emily’s husband.’
    â€˜Positive. He knows George Walker by sight. The bloke he saw had a much narrower build, he says. Different colour hair, too.’
    â€˜You got him knocking us up an E-fit?’
    Holland nodded. ‘Gets the husband off the hook, you ask me.’
    â€˜I wasn’t,’ Thorne said. ‘But it’s a fair point. We’ll have him in tomorrow.’
    A door opened halfway along the corridor and a familiar-looking, shaved head appeared around it. ‘In your own time,’ Hendricks said.
    Thorne nodded and loosened the tie he’d put on for the identification.
    Holland wasn’t looking quite so chirpy as they walked towards the open door.
    Other places had different arrangements, but at Finchley Coroner’s Mortuary a narrow corridor ran between the Viewing Suite and the Post-Mortem Room, so the bodies could be moved quickly and privately from one to the other. From soft furnishings and a comforting colour scheme to a white-tiled room with stainless-steel units where comfort of any description was in short supply.
    However much its occupants could have done with some.
    Hendricks and Holland caught up a little, having been too busy for chit-chat the night before. Hendricks asked after Holland’s daughter, Chloe, about whom he seemed to know more than Thorne did. Thorne found this rather depressing. He hadn’t exactly been holding his breath when it came to Holland and his girlfriend choosing a god-father, but there had been a time when he’d sent presents and cards on birthdays and at Christmas.
    Thorne listened to the pair of them rattling on - Holland telling Hendricks how big his daughter was getting, still only pushing four, and Hendricks saying what a fantastic age that was, while he moved the scissors and skull-key to within easy reach - and it niggled him. He was still trying to remember the date of the girl’s birthday when Hendricks began removing Emily Walker’s clothing.
    Middle of September?
    While Hendricks worked, he related his findings into the microphone hanging above his head. Holland made notes. This précis would be all the investigation had to go on until the full report arrived, but often it would be more than enough for the likes of Tom Thorne, until and if the likes of Phil Hendricks were given their chance to go through the details in court.
    The science and the Latin . . .
    â€˜Major laceration to back of head, but no fracture to the skull or sign of significant brain injury.’
    When Thorne was not being called upon to concentrate, when it was just about observing medical procedures he’d seen far too many times before, he did his best to zone out. To block out the noise. He’d long since got used to the smell - meaty and sickly sweet - but the sounds always unnerved him.
    â€˜Damage to thyroid and cricoid cartilages . . . Major petechial haemorrhaging . . . Bloody froth caked around victim’s mouth.’
    So, Thorne sang in his head. Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, whatever came to him. Just a chorus or two to take the edge off the bone-saw’s whine and the solid snap of the rib-cutters. The gurgle in the windpipe and the sucking as the heart and lungs were removed from the chest as one single, dripping unit.
    Ray Price today: ‘My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You’.
    â€˜No indication of pregnancy . . . No signs of recent termination . . . Death due