The Girl in the Ice: A gripping serial killer thriller (Detective Erika Foster crime thriller novel Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

death?’
    ‘I’ve given you enough to go on. I’ll need to do the autopsy,’ bristled Isaac.
    ‘Which you’ll do today,’ said Erika, fixing him with a stare.
    ‘Yes. Today,’ said Isaac.

    T he grounds were quiet outside the forensics tent. The snow had stopped falling, and a group of uniformed officers were silently combing their way around the lake, white bunching up around their dark legs as they waded through the drifts of snow.
    Erika took out her phone and called Marsh. ‘Sir. It’s Andrea Douglas-Brown,’ she said.
    There was a pause. ‘Shit.’
    ‘I’m just on my way to talk to the boy who found her, and then I’ll go and inform the parents,’ said Erika.
    ‘Your thoughts? Foster?’
    ‘Without a doubt we’re looking at murder, perhaps rape with strangulation or drowning. Everything I have is on its way to the guys back at the nick.’
    ‘Do we have any suspects in view?’
    ‘No, sir. I’m hitting the ground running as it is. We need to organise a formal ID with the family. Forensics are going straight from the scene to do an autopsy so I’ll keep you posted on the arrangements for that.’
    ‘If I can tell the media we have a suspect . . .’ started Marsh.
    ‘Yes, sir. I know. Talking to the family is our first line of enquiry. There is a high chance she knew the killer. When she went missing there were no witnesses, no one saw her being snatched. She could have met the killer here.’
    ‘Take it easy, Foster. Don’t go in guns blazing, assuming that Andrea was meeting up for some sordid shag.’
    ‘I never said she was meeting for a sordid . . .’
    ‘Remember this is a well-respected family who . . .’
    ‘I have done this before, sir.’
    ‘Yes. But realise who you’re dealing with.’
    ‘Yes. A grieving family. And I have to ask them the usual questions, sir.’
    ‘Yes, but this is an order. Go easy.’
    When Erika came off the phone she was prickling at Marsh’s attitude. The one thing she despised about Britain was its class system. Even in a murder investigation, it seemed that Marsh wanted the family to have some kind of VIP treatment.
    Moss and Peterson emerged from the tent with a uniformed police officer, and they made their way past the lake and through the sunken garden. Erika wondered if the blank-eyed statues had watched as Andrea was dragged past, screaming for her life.
    A radio on the accompanying officer’s lapel hissed static. ‘We’ve just recovered a small pink handbag from a hedge on London Road,’ said a tinny voice.
    ‘Which direction is London Road?’ asked Erika.
    ‘The high street,’ said the officer, pointing past a row of trees.
    After months of inactivity, Erika was struggling to get her brain back into gear. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Andrea’s body, skin torn and bruised, blank eyes wide open. There were so many variables to a murder investigation. The average-sized house could keep a forensics team busy for days, but this was a crime scene potentially stretching across seventeen acres, with evidence strewn across public areas, trapped under a thick layer of snow.
    ‘Bring it to the Visitors’ Centre, by the ambulance,’ said Erika to the officer, who hurried off. Moments later she, Moss and Peterson emerged from the hedgerows. At the bottom of a gentle snow-covered slope was the futuristic glass box of the Visitors’ Centre. A courtyard out front had been churned up by an ambulance, which was parked with its back doors open. A young man in his early twenties sat in the back under a pile of blankets. He was grey-faced and shaking. A small woman stood by the ambulance doors, watching over a member of the crime scene unit who was carefully processing the boy’s clothes, his gloved hand labelling the soiled tracksuit, jumper and trainers in their clear evidence bags. The woman had the same bushy eyebrows as the boy, but with a sharp little face.
    ‘I want a receipt,’ she was saying, ‘and I want it in writing what’s