STRANGE BODIES (a gripping crime thriller) Read Online Free PDF Page B

and said, ‘It’ll be too late to get started on the PM’s by the time we get the bodies back to the morgue. I’ll do them first thing in the morning but until I’ve got them on the slab I won’t know how long it’ll be. Preliminary findings about ten, I’d say. Who’s attending?’ he asked.
    Jacobsen nodded an affirmative. He joined the rest of the team standing by the gates.
    ‘Thanks for all your help, Marino. Good work, you and Forster. Now, I want an electronic barrier set up on this track. Word gets around and we don’t want ghouls up here rubber-necking and souveniring. Oh, this’ll be on our budget, by the way, not yours,’ said Jacobsen.
    Marino grinned at him. ‘Boss’ll be pleased about that. Sure, I’ll get on to my station right away and organise it. What about a night bird too?’ he asked, referring to a night-vision skycam.
    ‘Yeah, but I’ll arrange that. I’ll give you a bell tomorrow, let you know how things are progressing. I’ll send Vaughan to Mr Lawrence’s house in the morning. I want her to go through the old fellow’s statement once he’s calmed down, had a night’s sleep. She has a sympathetic touch with witnesses and if there’s anything more to get she’ll get it, let him ramble on, reminisce. He knows the area, might have noticed something we wouldn’t pick up on. You okay with that, Holly?’
    ‘Yes, sir. No worries.’
    ‘I’ve requested a search warrant for the Richardsons’ house. I’ll get a lift back later with one of these people.’
    They shook hands. Before Marino got back on the road he opened the comm screen, contacted Forster at Jim Lawrence’s and brought him up to date.
    ‘I’ll call in and take you home then you can grab what you need for an overnight and come back in your own transport. Still got that bloody airbike?’
    On the screen Forster nodded.
    ‘The old bloke knows you now. It might help both of you to talk about it together. Now, lad, you don’t say dick about this to your girlfriend, mum and dad, or your bloody cat, dog or budgerigar for that matter.’
    Forster grinned. ‘Don’t have any of those around. Sarge, did you mind that other mob taking over the case?’
    ‘No, I don’t mind at all. Very, very nasty.’
    Forster said, ‘Williams contacted me and reckoned DI Jacobsen’s got the hots for the death doc’s car. Bet he’ll be getting a lift back in it.’
    ‘Hots! Death doc! Where the hell do you pick up these expressions.’ He paused. ‘But yeah, it was a pretty cool car.’
    After a few more words with Forster, he got through to the station and set things in motion for an eblock. In the back of his mind he thought, Those poor bloody Richardsons … wonder what they did to deserve that . He hit the motorway grid and headed to Jim Lawrence’s house, trying not to dwell on the horrific scenes he had witnessed.
    DI Kerry Jacobsen steeled himself for another sight of the bodies as he led the others down the track to the old fig tree where the late Richardsons swayed gently in the breeze.

Interlude
    London – January 2067
    The ancient heart of London was suffering a long, slow and painful decline. The Thames had flooded again, now an almost daily occurrence, and each high tide seemed fuller than the previous one. An evil grey smog coiled itself permanently around the old stone buildings, and the surviving tower blocks were coated with an ever-present film of grimy soot, most of them showing signs of damage, broken glass and missing panels. A filthy flotsam of random junk littered the streets, and bodies or parts of them, well chewed by rats and other scavenging animals, still washed up occasionally.
    After the terrorist attacks destroyed the Thames Barrier and the abandoned, half-finished barrier across the Thames Estuary from Sheerness to Southend, London was left vulnerable to the increasingly higher tides and rising sea levels, as were the low lying parts of Europe, especially the Netherlands, now almost completely