Lazy Bones Read Online Free PDF Page B

pointed at the magazines. 'You won't find any men in them.' She sounded as proud as if Hol and was dusting off a degree certificate or a Nobel Prize nomination. As it was, he squatted by the bed, flicking through the pile of yel owing Razzles, Escorts and Fiestas, feeling his face flush, turning away from the proud mother in the doorway. The magazines al dated from the mid- to late eighties, wel before Dougie began his days at Her Majesty's pleasure, banged up with six hundred and fifty other men.
    3O
    Hol and pushed the dirty mags to one side, reached back under the bed, and pul ed out a brown plastic bag, folded over on itself several times. He let the bag drop open and a bundle of envelopes, bound with a thick elastic band, fel on to the carpet.
    As soon as he saw the address, neatly typed on the topmost envelope, Hol and felt a tingle of excitement. Just a smal one. What he was looking at would probably mean nothing, but it was almost certainly more
    significant than fifteen-year-old socks and ancient stroke mags. 'Andy...!'
    Mary Remfry wrapped her cardigan a little tighter around herself and took a step into the room. 'What have you got there?'
    Hol and could hear Stone's feet on the stairs. He slipped off the elastic band, reached inside the first envelope and pul ed out the letter.
    'So we can definitely rule out auto-erotic asphyxiation, then?' DCI Russel Brigstocke, a little embarrassed, looked around the table at Thorne, at Phil Hendricks, at DI Yvonne Kitson.
    'Wel , I'm not sure we can rule anything out,' Thorne said. 'Bu I
    think the "auto" bit implies that you do it yourself.' ' 'You know what I mean, smartarse...'
    'Nothing erotic went on in that room,' Hendricks said.
    Brigstocke nodded. 'No chance it was an extreme sex game that went wrong?' Thorne smirked. Brigstocke caught the look. 'What?' Thorne said nothing. 'Look, I'm just asking the questions...' 'Asking the questions that Jesmond told you to ask,' Thorne said. He made no secret of his opinion that their Detective Chief Superintendent had sprung ful y formed from some course that turned out political y astute, organisational y capable drones. Acceptable faces with a neat line in facile questions, a good grasp of economic realities and, as it happened, an aversion to anybody cal ed Thorne.
    'They're questions that need answering,' Brigstocke said. 'Could it have been some sort of sex game?'
    Thorne found it hard to believe that the likes of Trevor Jesmond had
    31
    ever done the things that he, Brigstocke or any other copper did, day in and day out. It was unimaginable that he had ever broken up a fist fight at chucking-out time, or fiddled his expenses, or stood between a knife and the body it was intended for.
    Or told a mother that her only son had been sodomised and stran
    gled to death in a grotty hotel room.
    'It wasn't a game,' Thorne said.
    Brigstocke looked at Hendricks and Kitson. He sighed. 'I'l take your expressions of thinly disguised scorn as agreement with DI Thorne then, shal I?' He pushed his glasses up his nose with the crook of his first finger, then ran the hand through the thick black hair of which he was so proud. The quiff was less pronounced than usual, there was some grey creeping in. He could cut a vaguely absurd figure but Whorne knew that when he lost it, Brigstocke was as hard a man as he had ever worked with.
    Thorne, Brigstocke, Kitson, Hendricks th civilian. These four, together with Hol and and Stone, were the core of Team 3 at the Serious Crime Group (W&t). This was the group that made the decisions, formulated policy, and guided the investigations with - and even on occasion without - the approval of those higher up.
    Team 3 had been up and running a good while, handling the ordinary cases but specialising - though that was not a word Thorne would have used - in cases that were anything but ordinary...
    'So,' Brigstocke said, 'we've got everybody out chasing down al the
    likely relatives of Remfry's victims. Stil