[PS & GV #6] Death on Demand Read Online Free PDF

reach down his throat and into his lungs, prompting a rib-wracking cough.
    The viewing circle was slightly elevated above the marsh ahead, enough, in this flat world, to allow them to see over the blanket of mist, which hugged the earth. Ahead, like the distant rounded peaks of some fabulous mountain range, a line of humped-back dunes floated on a skein of fog. Also poking through stood a line of rotting wooden mooring posts, marking the passage of the main channel.
    A sea breeze stirred and the pale disc of the sun broke through, lending a pink tint to this white world.
    They could see Ruby Bright’s head and upper body about thirty yards ahead: a visual shock because Shaw, unforgivably, had presumed she’d drowned. He’d braced himself to find her corpse curled in a tidal pool, a nightdress tugging with the current. Or lying in a black muddy creek, the body half-submerged. But there she was, still in her wheelchair – the high metal back visible and catching the light – her back to the house, looking out to sea. The lower curve of the wheels and her body were lost in the mist. Beside her stood a partly disembodied police constable, visible above the belt, also looking seawards, the sudden glow of a mobile phone in his hand as if he was checking for a signal. The scene was oddly theatrical, as if the curtain had just gone up on an outdoor stage. The sun, brightening, began to burn off the mist as they watched, revealing with each passing second more of the chair, which was set slightly at an angle, so that Ruby’s head too was tilted to the right, like Christ’s on the cross. Wisps of shredded mist rose up, twisting in the sunlight.

    The constable must have heard a noise because he turned, saw them watching, and began to pick his way back through the grass. They waited, and he didn’t hurry, which was impressive in itself. No more than twenty-five, his movements were nonetheless deliberate, measured, as if he moved underwater.
    ‘Sir. PC Curtis. I can give you what I’ve got, but frankly, I’d recommend you take a look first.’
    Shaw led the way, the view widening, the sea filling more and more of the way ahead as the channel widened and the sun shone, until the thought surfaced that if he had to pick a place to die this might be a contender. It was an aspect of the coast, of this edge of England, that he’d never confronted before, that it might delineate the border between life and death. Some half remembered tale of mythology came to mind, of a boat being rowed away, carrying the dead to hell, or heaven.
    Ten feet short he stopped to consider the victim from behind: the head tilted at perhaps ten degrees from the vertical, arms tied behind the back of the wheelchair with what looked like a dressing gown cord, knotted round the wrists. A baby-blue housecoat showed at her neck and there was a glimpse of a naked foot to the left. One hand showed a wedding ring, a gold charm bracelet and a bright pink charity band; and, vividly, in the loose skin below the elbow the little purple bruises of a series of injections. She might have been asleep, dreaming of her party cake, but for the ugly angle of the dangling foot. Her hair – fashioned into a tight helmet of crimped grey – seemed to glisten, reflecting the sky and the dancing sunlight, as if she might be wearing a shower cap.
    Taking three steps past her, Shaw stopped and turned on his heel. Valentine held back, with PC Curtis. In the far distance Shaw could see Fortis, looking east towards Wells, as if she couldn’t bear to watch the moment.
    Ruby Bright had most certainly been murdered. Her head was completely covered with a plastic bag, bunched below her right ear. The bag’s open edge was arterial red – zippered, like a freezer bag. Shaw was vividly reminded of a painting, not a subtle north Norfolk watercolour but Edvard Munch’s The Scream ;except that this tortured face was embellished with a pair of large, rather stylish glasses, the lenses still