Deadly Focus Read Online Free PDF Page A

him.
    ‘Bloody hell,’ he shouted over the wind as he fought to keep the suit in a position that meant he could get his leg in. The SOCO van pulled up beside him and, more by good luck than management, Jasmine was on call. Jasmine could have only been a size eight, but her ability made up for her lack of muscle.
    The two detectives who’d attended the scene were DC John Benjamin and DC Vicky Hardacre. Dylan was pleased to see them; John was an athletic young black lad who was a gentleman and a bloody good detective in Dylan’s eyes. Vicky was a young girl, single, tall, blonde, quite attractive, always upbeat. She was outgoing, loud and brazen, but in Dylan’s experience she had a heart of gold. While he allowed Jasmine to get on with the photographs and digital filming, Dylan and the others sheltered as best they could from the icy wind at the side of the police van.
    ‘How the hell are you, boss?’ Vicky shouted to be heard over the noise of the blustery weather.
    ‘Good, Vicky, and you?’
    Dylan’s phone rang. His hand was so cold he fumbled when trying to get it out of his pocket and missed the call.
    ‘Bloody mobiles,’ he grunted. It rang again. He opened the van door and stepped inside. Hearing anything in the howling wind was impossible.
    ‘Judith Cockcroft’s the on-call pathologist and she can’t get to the scene for another three hours, so she’ll see us at the mortuary at eleven,’ he said climbing out a few moments later. Dylan was anxious to see if the body had red hair and needed to know if it was a girl, but he couldn’t see anything from where he stood. They were all sadly confident that it was going to be Daisy as they got the nod from Jasmine and started towards the body.
    ‘Hell. Watch out where you tread, the ground’s uneven,’ Dylan warned as he stumbled. His ears burned with the cold so he pulled the hood of his paper suit up in an attempt to keep warm, then took a pair of gloves out of his pocket and shuffled from one foot to the other, rubbing his arms as he stood looking down at the body. It was white, marble-like against the matt background of brown, coarse moorland grass. He knew they were lucky to find her so soon. Dylan looked up as he felt a few heavy spots of rain on his face. The wind continued to whip him and he turned his back to it.
    The torso looked doll-like in the vast expanse. A mark on the child’s buttock stained her skin. The clumps of heather had guarded her from the elements, so incredibly she hadn’t deteriorated rapidly. Dylan no longer noticed the weather as a waft of lavender passed under his nose. His senses were heightened. Everyone was still, their focus on the little girl, oblivious for a while to anything or anyone around them as they took the sight in. Dylan asked Jasmine to move the body slightly. Now they could see the two marks, one visible on each buttock. They were dark and appeared to be cigarette burns. Jasmine photographed them independently, close up. The little girl’s legs were parted. She looked like a mannequin, rigid and inflexible. Seeing an adult’s dead body was always a shock to the system, but seeing a child’s dead body was worse, Dylan reckoned. It drew you to it with a quiet sadness. A life not lived. They were the worst you could be called to, the injuries sometimes so horrific, so unbelievable, and so appalling on someone so innocent. Moving his eyes slowly up the body, Dylan could see only her left hand; her right one was beneath her.
    ‘Bloody hell, the end of her little finger is missing,’ said Dawn. It looked like a clean cut, a black bloodstained stub. The killer was obviously calm and calculated, but why take part of a finger? What was the significance?
    The blue plastic carrier bag covered the whole of her head and neck to her shoulders but a few red hairs spilled in tendrils beneath it.
    ‘Daisy?’ Dawn said in a whisper.
    ‘It’s got to be, hasn’t it?’ said Dylan. ‘We won’t remove the bag here.