The Blood Pit Read Online Free PDF Page B

you think?’ He watched Wesley for a sign that he approved of his theory.
    Trish interrupted. ‘Sir, how’s that boy Steve was supposed to have … ?’
    ‘It looks like he’s on the mend,’ said Wesley with a reassuring smile. ‘But Steve’s suspended from duty.’
    She looked Wesley in the eye. ‘Steve always was an idiot.’
    There was no answer to that. Gerry Heffernan had begun to lumber through the hall, making for the kitchen.
    Wesley was about to follow him when Trish touched his arm. ‘Steve’s been having problems.’
    ‘Rachel mentioned something.’
    ‘His parents are divorced and he last saw his dad when he was twelve. Now he’s come back to Devon and made contact again.’
    Wesley raised his eyebrows. ‘Is that bad?’
    Trish shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I think it’s upset Steve a bit. Unsettled him, if you know what I mean.’ She gave him a weak
     smile. ‘Actually you might have met his dad. He’s manager of that sandwich shop on the High Street … the one near the Boat
     Float.’
    Wesley thought he knew the man Trish was talking about – there was a new boss there, a middle aged man with greying hair and
     an ingratiating smile who always liked to banter words with any reasonably attractive female who happened to cross the threshold.
     Now he thought about it, he could see a resemblance to Steve – a similar-shaped chin; the same mouth; a likeness around the
     eyes.
    ‘I think I know who you mean,’ he said. ‘Time to have a word with the merry widow, I suppose,’ he added before making for
     the kitchen.
    Gerry Heffernan had already made himself at home at the kitchen table. A tall young woman in her late twenties with short
     brown hair and large, pleading eyes, stood at the other end of the kitchen, waiting for an electric kettle to come to the
     boil. She looked up at Wesley as he entered the room, her eyes registering surprise for a split second. Then she asked him
     if he wanted a coffee and when he said yes, she took another mug from a nearby cupboard. If this was Annette Marrick’s daughter,
     she was certainly nothing like her mother.
    The older woman sat opposite Gerry Heffernan. She had immaculately cut shoulder-length blonde hair, a sun-bed tan and a body
     that had spent a lot of hours in the gym. Mrs Annette Marrick had put in a lot of effort to keep her younger husband. But
     she didn’t seem too upset by the fact that she’d lost him.
    ‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs Marrick,’ Wesley said as he took a seat beside his boss. ‘It must have been a great shock
     for you, finding him like that.’
    ‘Yes it was,’ she said but somehow the words didn’t sound very convincing. She began to examine her glossy blood-red nails,
     almost as though she was bored and when the younger woman placed the coffee cups in front of them, the two policemen thanked
     her but Annette Marrick made no acknowledgement. If Wesley had been in a charitable frame of mind, he might have put this
     down to grief. But instinct told him it was sheer bad manners.
    Wesley addressed the younger woman. ‘I presume you’re Mrs Marrick’s daughter.’
    ‘Yes, I’m Petronella Blackwell,’ she said, taking a seat at the table beside her mother.
    ‘I’m sorry about your stepfather,’ Wesley said automatically.
    She looked away. ‘I hardly knew him.’
    Her manner implied that she hadn’t wanted to know him. There was definitely animosity there. When Wesley caught Gerry Heffernan’s
     eye, he knew that he’d noticed it too.
    Heffernan turned to Annette. ‘Right, love. I understand you discovered your husband’s body when you returned home yesterday.
     By then he’d only have been dead an hour or so, according to our pathologist. Where had you been?’ Annette’s apparent lack
     of grief made him speak more brutally than he would normally have done to a recent widow. And besides, there was a hardness
     about the woman that he didn’t like.
    ‘I’d been out to lunch with