Deserving Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

drove, stop-start, back along King Street in Newtown, seeing but not seeing the cars crawling along in front, the darting pedestrians, the sunshine pouring down.
    The lights turned red and she braked, then looked at Tessa, silent and unmoving in the passenger seat, her arms covered in goose bumps despite the sunlight that filled the cabin. Carly switched off the air conditioning.
    Ten, fifteen minutes and they’d be back at the station, then could go home. Mark had sorted it out with Control. There’d be a debrief first, the duty supervisor scheduled to meet them there and talk about what had happened and whether they were coping, then they’d walk out of the station and wonder if it was the same day, the same world, as when they’d walked in earlier that morning.
    Alicia was dead. Carly couldn’t seem to get the fact into her brain. And then that Detective Marconi had turned up. Her card sat in Carly’s shirt pocket. Carly wasn’t one for signs or portents, but what did it mean when you made a teenage girl cooperate with a detective and that girl later killed herself over it, and the friend who supported you through your guilt and pain was later murdered and that same detective was on the case? She pressed her hands flat against her thighs and tried to think about Linsey instead.
    ‘You know Robbie had nothing to do with it,’ Tessa said.
    Carly looked at her. ‘What?’
    ‘You told the cops that Robbie was there. It was irrelevant.’
    ‘I said he was at the club because he was.’
    ‘You shouldn’t have said it.’
    ‘They need to know everything so they can cross people off their list and nail the guy who did it.’
    ‘It makes him look bad,’ Tessa said.
    ‘How? He was in the club, and so were we. So what?’
    ‘The last thing he needs is the cops tramping through his work. You know he only just got that job.’
    Carly stared at her. ‘Our friend’s been murdered and you’re worried about what your brother’s boss might say?’
    ‘Don’t say it like that. It’s not like I can only care about one or the other.’
    Carly was about to reply when a woman darted up and hammered on Tessa’s window. Tessa flinched as if she was about to be hit.
    ‘Quick!’ the woman shouted through the glass, gesturing wildly into the side street then rushing away in that direction.
    Heart jumping, Carly twisted the wheel to follow her.
    ‘We’ve signed off,’ Tessa said.
    ‘Not yet.’ Beyond the running woman Carly could see someone lying on the road.
    ‘There must be other crews close by who could do it.’
    ‘You want me to just drive away?’ Carly said.
    ‘We’re supposed to be going home. We just saw our friend dead. Are you in a fit state to work? Because I’m not.’ Tessa folded her arms.
    ‘Fine,’ Carly said. ‘I’ll get out and treat. You stay here.’
    She stamped on the brake, grabbed the portable radio and jumped out. She hauled the Oxy-Viva, drug box and monitor from the back then lugged it all towards the patient.
    He was a slender young man in black jeans and a black T-shirt, lying on his side, his back to her. Black thongs had fallen off his feet, and the woman kneeling beside him was grasping his hand. The man’s skin was pink and warm and dry, his breathing regular. There were no obvious signs of trauma.
    ‘Do you know what happened?’ Carly asked the woman.
    ‘I just found him like this.’
    Carly pulled on gloves and felt her way over the man’s head, neck and back. No swelling, no sign of injury. ‘So you don’t know his name, or whether he has any health problems?’
    ‘I’ve never seen him before,’ the woman said. ‘Is he okay?’
    Carly palpated his limbs. No injuries there either. She lifted his eyelids and shone her pocket torch into his pupils. Equal and reacting to light, but definitely sluggish. She made a fist and rubbed her knuckles gently along his sternum. He didn’t stir. She felt his pockets, hoping for a wallet, or a note, or a packet of prescription