Read Cruel Justice (DI Lorne Simpkins (Book one)) for Free Online Page A

part of her that couldn't bear to hear the truth.

    No, no she didn't bloody understand. She was losing the best boss she'd ever had the privilege of working with. His departure meant she'd have to spend years proving her worth again. Shit and double shit, as if her life wasn't hard enough at the moment.

    You selfish bitch! She reprimanded herself. Jeff has just told you he's ill, seriously ill, and all you can think about is your own misfortune.

    "I don't know what to say, sir. When are you leaving?"

    "Two weeks."

    " Two weeks, " she screeched, like a frustrated parrot. "Can I ask who the new chief will be?"

    He glanced down at his desk. "It hasn't been decided yet. I doubt they'll consider promoting anyone around here," he told her, no doubt with little satisfaction.

    There was nothing left for either of them to say. With a heavy heart, Lorne left his room. She threw herself dejectedly against the wall outside his office, which was where Pete found her minutes later.

    "Fiver for them? That's inflation for ya," he said buoyantly, mimicking her position against the wall.

    "You could pay me all the money in the world and it still wouldn't be worth me telling you what I'm thinking, Pete …"

    "Time's getting on, boss. We've got a killer to find."

    "What are you holding me up for, then? I haven't got time for idle chitchat, man." She propelled herself away from the wall and Pete broke into stride beside her as they marched down the long grey corridor towards the incident room.

Chapter Six

    The team, more boisterous than normal, failed to notice Lorne and Pete's arrival.

    Mitch was bragging about his latest conquest, "So I said to her, how would you like your eggs in the morning darlin'? And get this, she replied, 'fertilised will do'. Jesus, can you believe that, and I thought I had an answer for everything. I can tell you she certainly floored me with that one."

    "If you've quite finished, DS Mitchell," Lorne warned.

    Mitchell looked embarrassed. If it had been any other day Lorne would have been the first to rib him about his male prowess not being up to much. But not today. With all that she'd encountered already that morning, her sense of humour had gone AWOL.

    "You're probably all aware that Pete and I were called out to a suspected homicide last night."

    Pete handed her an envelope containing the crime scene photos. She passed the set of 10x8 inch photos around as she spoke.

    "Tracy, I want you and Mitch to carry out the door to doors. Specifically around the entrance to the forest, a couple of hundred yards either way. Someone must've seen or heard something. The teenage lovers, the only witnesses we have at the moment, were down there last week and are sure the body wasn't there then," Lorne told them. The photos returned to her one by one and she passed them to Pete who pinned them up on the notice board.

    "Was there any form of ID, ma'am?" asked Sergeant Tracy Cox, the newest member of the team.

    "Nothing. The search team are out there now. The pathologist's early assumption is that the crime was committed elsewhere, therefore I don't hold out much hope of finding anything substantial at the scene."

    "How did the victim die? Obviously, we can all see her head was cut off but, I mean was that the actual COD?" Mitch asked, his frivolity forgotten.

    "Again, waiting on the path's report. It appears the torso suffered several blows with a blunt instrument. It's anyone's guess what condition the head will be in, if or when we find it."

    "Do we know when the crime occurred?" DS John Fox queried.

    Lorne shook her head. "Until it's substantiated by the report, we can't give a definite answer, but the doc suspected it happened approximately a month ago. John, I'd like you and Molly to trawl through the missing persons database, widen the area to say a fifty mile radius of the forest."

    "That could take hours," Molly moaned, pulling a face as if she was about to get a bikini wax.

    At thirty-five, Molly