Chris Collett - [Tom Mariner 01] Read Online Free PDF Page A

driving.’ PC Knox was suddenly floundering.
    Anna glanced up at Mariner’s battered face. ‘Well, don’t remember assaulting a police officer…’ she began instantly regretting the flippancy.
    ‘It’s nothing you’ve done, Miss Barham,’ Knox persevered, with a touch of irritation, Anna thought.
    ‘You may want to sit down,’ Mariner intervened, his voice thick and adenoidal, so that Anna had to fight a bizarre urge to pinch her nose and respond in the same way. He gestured towards her chair and, more from surprise than anything else, she did as she was told.
    ‘Your brother, Edward, was found dead in his home, late last night,’ he said.
    Wow, this guy knew how to make an impact. He may as well have punched her in the stomach, and for several seconds the room seemed to sway.
    ‘No!’ Anna blurted uncontrollably. ‘No, he can’t be.’ A sudden vision flashed through her mind of the occasion fourteen years ago when she’d got home late from a party to find Eddie himself waiting for her. ‘Ann-ann, I’m afraid there’s been a terrible accident…’ Now they were telling her that Eddie was dead too? It was impossible.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Mariner.
    ‘When? How?’ She was so sure that this couldn’t be right.
    Knox had taken out a small, black notebook. ‘We were called to a house late last night; thirty-four Clarendon Avenue,’ he said. It was Eddie’s address all right.
    ‘As yet we’re not looking for anyone else in connection with his death,’ Mariner added.
    It was common enough police-speak and it took Anna only a few seconds to catch on to what he meant. ‘You think Eddie killed himself?’ she said.
    ‘It’s a strong possibility. There was a note.’
    ‘Where? Can I see it?’
    He turned to Knox, who was ineffectively digging around in his pockets. Eventually he produced a folded, crumpled photocopied sheet, which he passed to Anna.
    ‘Does it look like his writing?’ he asked.
    Staring at the print, Anna gave the slightest shrug of her shoulders. There was little that was distinctive about the scrawled block capitals.
    ‘Your brother seems to have died from a massive drug overdose,’ Mariner went on.
    Now Anna knew for certain that they’d got it wrong.
    ‘That’s nonsense,’ she told them. ‘Eddie didn’t do drugs.’
    ‘But…’
    ‘When did you last see him?’
    ‘I’m not sure exactly,’ Anna hedged.
    ‘Days ago? Weeks?’ Mariner probed.
    ‘Weeks, I suppose.’ Suddenly Anna knew what he was getting at and resented the assumption. Her eyes flashed angrily. ‘But I know he wouldn’t have killed himself. It’s absurd.’
    ‘It would help us if you could make a formal identification, Miss Barham. Do you feel up to it?’
    Anna looked from one to the other of them. ‘I will,’ she said, eventually, ‘but I really think you’ve got this horribly wrong.’ She glanced up at the outer office. ‘I’ll have to arrange for my PA to cancel my diary. Could you just wait for a moment?’
    ‘Of course.’
    Anna went out to where Becky sat at her desk, printing off documents.
    ‘Becky, incredible as this sounds, these policemen think my brother has killed himself. They want me to go with them and identify a body.’ Telling it how it was helped Anna to keep a grip on herself and ride out her friend’s shocked reaction. Then she returned to the office to pick up her bag, feeling the first creeping chill of apprehension as she allowed herself to consider the seriousness of what she’d been asked to do. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

    Apart from an ominous creaking and whirring of the lift mechanism, the trio descended to the ground floor in silence while Mariner gave Anna Barham time and space to assimilate what she’d been told. For once, Knox was exercising some discretion too. And thanks to Mariner, he did at least present more like a respectable officer of the law this morning. After they had finished at the station last night,