DARK CRIMES a gripping detective thriller full of suspense Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’ve got a copy of the staff photo of him and it’s a pretty clear one.’
    ‘Good thinking, Jimmy. Get it sent down to the station for circulation as soon as you can. Apparently he likes to wear blue. And he walks along the seafront. Could you phone that across to the station and ask all teams to keep a lookout? Could you sort all that? I’m going to take Lydia with me to Donna’s mother.’
    She was about to leave, but stopped abruptly.
    ‘Jimmy, were there any wet clothes in Berzins’ room?’
    ‘No, ma’am. Not as far as I could see.’
    ‘Check again carefully, then have a look in other likely places in the hotel. If he was standing around waiting for Donna last night, he’d have got soaked. Oh, and when you speak to the staff find out who saw her last, just before she left. I want to know whether she had an umbrella with her.’
    The other two detectives arrived. Sophie gave her orders and drove off with Pillay.
    * * *
    They were soon in Corfe and driving slowly along West Street to its far end. The house they were looking for stood back from the road along a short track. It was set apart from its neighbours, and not overlooked. Like many of the other houses in the village, it was a low, two storey cottage, made from the local Purbeck stone. They parked the car and made their way through the low, wooden gateway. There was a small flower garden in front of the building, although by this time of year there were no blooms left. The two detectives could make out the edges of a well-worked vegetable garden to the rear, as neat and tidy as the flower garden. They walked to the door and rang several times. There was no answer.
    ‘Shall I have a look around the back?’ asked Pillay.
    ‘Yes. I’ll check with the neighbours. There’s someone in the last cottage on West Street. I spotted a woman at a window as we passed.’
    The neighbour, an elderly woman leaning on a stick, expressed surprise that there was no answer at Brenda Goodenough’s cottage, since she hadn’t seen her going by her window that day. Brenda always drove past on her way to work as a cleaner in one of the local hotels. She had not done so this morning. Sophie began to feel a slight unease and asked the neighbour for the name of Mrs Goodenough’s employer. She phoned the hotel and was dismayed to learn that she hadn’t turned up for work that morning. Sophie walked back up the lane and found Pillay waiting at the door.
    ‘No sign of life, ma’am. There’s a back door, but it’s locked. There’s an insecure window just beside the door. I can give it a go if you want me to.’
    ‘Yes. I’m worried about her. Have a look, if you can manage it. Put gloves on, Lydia.’
    Pillay clambered on top of a nearby bin, and pulled at the window. It opened easily.
    ‘I’ve got it open, ma’am. It wasn’t really secured. Shall I go in?’
    ‘I want to see how she is, so yes. Go ahead. But try not to disturb anything.’
    Pillay was slim enough to slide easily through the window. She unlocked the rear door from the inside, and the two detectives passed through a small, neat kitchen into the hallway of the cottage. There was no answer to their calls, so they continued through the house. The other rooms on the ground floor consisted of a sitting room that had windows looking out onto both front and rear gardens, and a small dining room next to the kitchen. Both rooms had been kept clean, with polished furniture that gleamed in the late-afternoon light.
    The stairs were old and creaked as they climbed. They found Donna’s mother in bed, still in her nightclothes. Dead.

CHAPTER 3: The Working Girl
    Early Tuesday Evening, Week 1
     
    In the late-afternoon chill, Sophie leant against the cottage wall. The drizzly rain had stopped in the middle of the afternoon, the damp air-mass replaced by colder, drier air from the north. She was warm enough, in a fashionable but thick woollen coat, black trousers and boots. She warmed her hands on a cup of coffee