Hurt (DS Lucy Black) Read Online Free PDF Page B

been examining that too.’
    Lucy shook her head. ‘You can’t trace it, can you?’
    ‘I can try reverse tracking it through her account for a number, then try the mobile networks to get access to the records but it’ll take weeks, probably.’
    Lucy nodded. ‘Can we trace Paul Bradley?’
    ‘That might be a little quicker. He says in some of his messages that his mobile is broken, so there’s no number recorded for him here. Presumably after Karen got her phone, he gave her a number that she was able to use. I could get a warrant and ask Facebook to give me the ISP address for his activities.’
    ‘And for the younger generation that means?’
    ‘Where he used the internet. His home Wi-Fi or that. We can trace back to the phone line that he was attached to each time he logged on. It’ll take a day or two to get, but it is one way.’
    ‘That would be great, David.’
    ‘You’re very welcome, DS Black,’ Cooper said.
    ‘Call me Lucy.’
    ‘Lucy,’ he agreed.

Chapter Eight
    Burns was standing with the CID team investigating Karen’s death in the incident room when Lucy arrived just before noon. Two smaller desks had been pushed together in the centre of the room, around which were placed ten chairs. The two main walls were covered with corkboards onto which already a variety of crime scene pictures had been pinned, including ones depicting Karen’s remains in situ. A timeline ran along the top of the noticeboard, marked from Thursday, when she had first gone missing, until Sunday night, when she had been found. A few markers had already been placed along its spectrum.
    DS Tara Gallagher was standing at the coffee urn with a newly promoted DS whom Lucy had met before called Mickey Sinclair, a thin faced, handsome man. When they saw Lucy, Tara raised a polystyrene coffee cup interrogatively, to which Lucy nodded.
    ‘Inspector Fleming’s not joining us?’ Burns asked, approaching her. Now, out of the forensics suit he’d been wearing the previous night, Lucy could see that Burns’s hair – loose, sandy curls – was already thinning. His face was a little shapeless, as if a little extra weight had robbed him of his definition, his features soft, his cheeks fleshy. But his eyes were still sharp and bright and Lucy realized with a little embarrassment that while she was studying him, he’d been doing the same with her. Instinctively, she put her hand up to cover her mouth.
    ‘I’ve not seen him yet, sir,’ Lucy said. Then added, ‘I know he had some stuff to follow up this morning.’
    ‘I see,’ Burns said. ‘In that case, we’ll get started, shall we?’ He turned to address the room. ‘Grab your coffees, people, and take a seat.’
    Tara brought Lucy over her cup. ‘Milk and one,’ she said. Lucy nodded, a little flattered that Tara knew how she took her drink.
    Burns took his place at the top of the table and introduced Lucy to the team, then quickly introduced each of them in turn.
    ‘Mickey, perhaps you’d start us off with the results of the PM?’
    Tara nudged Lucy as Mickey stood up. ‘Cause of death was the cut to the throat. Time of death was sometime on Sunday between eight in the morning and lunchtime, despite her body not being left on the train tracks until that evening.’
    ‘Which means the killer held on to the body until dark before moving her,’ a DC commented unnecessarily.
    ‘The stomach contents included peanuts,’ Mickey continued. ‘But little else. She didn’t seem to have eaten much. There were signs of sexual contact in the hours before death. Significant signs, the pathologist said. He’d taken samples for testing, along with toxicology samples for drugs and drink.’
    ‘Was she raped then?’
    ‘He wouldn’t rule out consensual,’ he said.
    ‘Not that that means anything,’ Burns commented. ‘Anything else?’
    ‘That’s all he had to start with. The full report will be sent on when it’s done.’
    ‘What about SOCO, Tara?’
    Unlike Mickey,