Scream: A DCI Mark Lapslie Investigation Read Online Free PDF Page A

provide them with somewhere to go, they’ll make their own entertainment.’
    ‘Can I help?’ he said, emboldened and changing directiontowards her. She’d seen that smile, and that body language, so many times before.
    ‘DS Bradbury,’ she said wearily, flashing her badge. ‘Apparently I’m taking over.’
    He came to a dead stop and bounced back a step, a mask of professionalism slipping rapidly across the thinly disguised wolfish interest. ‘I think the Sarge would appreciate that. We don’t normally get anything like this around here.’
    He nodded to her, and moved away, presumably to tell everyone that an outsider had arrived and was pulling rank. There was probably a word for ‘outsiders’ in the Canvey Island slang. ‘Grockles’ was the favoured term on the Isle of Wight, where she had grown up
    She pushed open the entrance doors and went in.
    The interior of the building was floored with rubber gymnasium matting and filled, floor to ceiling, with what appeared to be a massive structure constructed out of scaffolding poles covered with foam rubber which itself was coated in brightly coloured wipe-clean plastic, all attached to the scaffolding with plastic builders’ ties. The scaffolding divided the structure into cells of various sizes and shapes which were walled with nylon netting and interconnected by holes, tubes, tunnels, gates, slides and ladders. Some of the cells were nearly filled by inflated spheres which the kids presumably had to manoeuvre their way past if they wanted to get from the entrance on one side to the exit on the other. A slide that must have been ten feet wide ran from a platform at the very top of the structure to a pit at the bottom which was filled with foam rubber balls, intended to cushion the impact of landing. On the other side a series of ropes allowed the kids to swing themselves safely from one end of the structure to the other. The overall effect was something like a kids’ boardgame –
KerPlunk
or
Mouse Trap
, perhaps – blown up to giant size.
    ‘Dear God,’ Emma murmured to herself. ‘You don’t even realise these places exist if you don’t have kids.’
    She looked around, trying to work out who was in charge. Or at least, who had been in charge until her arrival. Uniformed policemen and Crime Scene Investigators in white papery coveralls were dotted around the place. The CSIs were dusting for fingerprints, taking photographs or generally taking a close interest in things too small for the human eye to see. The uniformed police were standing around looking lost. Over to one side was a coffee bar area, with round tables and metal chairs, presumably for the parents to sit at. The chairs didn’t look particularly comfortable. Presumably that was so that the parents didn’t settle down for the day, and to guarantee a degree of turnover in the clientele. ‘Churn’ – wasn’t that the term? She headed over there, if for no other reason than the best place to find a senior officer was where bacon baps and coffee were available.
    A harassed-looking uniformed sergeant was trying to deal with three subordinates at once. He saw Emma and broke off what he was doing.
    ‘DS Bradbury?’
    ‘The very same. And you are …?’
    ‘Sergeant Murrell. Keith Murrell.’ He stuck his hand out. Emma took it, surprised at his friendliness. His grip was firm.
    ‘Sorry,’ she found herself saying, ‘but I was told to report here and take over. That’s about the extent of my knowledge.’
    ‘Not a problem,’ he replied. ‘I’m out of my depth here. Yeah, Canvey Island gets deaths like any other area, but most of them are fights in pub car parks that get out of hand or domestic disturbances that have been brewing for years. Cold blooded murder is something else.’
    Emma glanced around. ‘I feel embarrassed asking, but where’s the body?’
    ‘Follow me.’
    He led the way over to the ball pit at the base of the slide, which was accessible via an archway in the