Read Bitter Fruits: DI Erica Martin Book 1 (Erica Martin Thriller) for Free Online Page A

light flicked on in Emily’s room, watching the figures move across the window. She jumped a little to keep warm on the spot of her observation point, behind a van on the opposite side of the road. She looked again at her mobile phone and tapped in a number for the umpteenth time. No answer from either of them. Where were they? One of them had to pick up.
    Giving up for a moment, Annabel tucked her hands under her armpits, tears glittering in her eyes as she thought about what she had seen that morning. That yellow tent on the riverbank. The police crawling everywhere. The weir frothing in front of them all, none of them knowing her, none of them caring. The sun still rising, even though Emily was gone. Gone. She shook her head. She couldn’t believe it.
    She’d been with her at the boathouse yesterday afternoon. They’d lain on the grass, in the late-spring sunshine, drinking plastic pints of Pimm’s, listening to the band. Emily was fine. She’d rolled on to her stomach, laughing about something. Nick had been in touch. Everything was
fine.
    ‘It’s all coming together, Belles,’ Emily had said with one of those hard smiles she sometimes gave.
    ‘What is?’
    ‘Oh, Belles. Always one step behind, my lovely. I mean, they’re all falling into place. These boys. Just where I want them.’
    Annabel had laughed, still uncomprehending, hiding the dislike she had for Emily at those moments. Which were more and more frequent these days. Always better to hide your dislike. Until you were pushed, that is.
    But things had gone too far now. She had to stop things. She’d said things she regretted and now she wanted to take them back.
    The door to Emily’s building opened, and Annabel shrank back behind the van as the red-headed police woman stepped out. She wasn’t in uniform, but Annabel could tell she was police. She had that aura about her: nosy. The policewoman seemed to look directly at her. Annabel didn’t take any chances and ducked into a doorway of a student house on theother side of the road. As she left, her fingers tapped again at the keys in a now familiar rhythm. Come on,
please
. Please pick up the phone.
    Detective Chief Inspector Butterworth was already at the front of the Major Crime Unit incident room when Martin walked in. The room was packed with bodies, ostensibly lounging on chairs or looking at computers, but she could feel that crackle of energy, the buzz and urgency of the officers, the feeling you only got when there was potential homicide on the books. Butterworth stood with assurance in front of a whiteboard, in the centre of which was Emily’s photo, her face displaying the innocuous smile people give in passports or student cards. Martin stood quietly for a second, considering Emily’s face when it had been alive. Her features were even, her shoulder-length blonde hair curling slightly at the ends. Her brown eyes so different in expression from when Martin had last seen them, staring vacantly at her in the tent down at the weir. They were calm in the photo – wide-spaced, giving her an air of innocence, making her look younger than her years. She was pretty, Martin observed, not beautiful.
    Butterworth coughed and gestured for Martin to come and stand next to him, to face the squad. She pulled her eyes from Emily’s photo and moved her way through the room. She was at once aware of thevolume of people there, taking comfort for the moment in Butterworth’s support for her, his backing of her move to Durham. Sam Butterworth and she went further back than either of them sometimes cared to remember.
    ‘This is Operation Limestone.’ Butterworth looked around the room. ‘As you know, DI Martin joined us a couple of weeks ago from Newcastle CID. She’ll be Senior Investigating Officer on this and will be running the show here.’
    Martin looked at her team as of now, her heart thumping as the room settled. She knew some of their faces, but most were strangers. She noticed how some of