Read Dying to Know (A Detective Inspector Berenice Killick Mystery) for Free Online Page B

almost empty of matter , ’ she read . ‘ And whence is it that the sun and planets gravitate towards one another without dense matter between them ?”
    ‘ Gravitate towards one another … ’ She spoke aloud , holding the page in her hand , hearing footsteps , hearing a gentle rattle at the door , as the light from the beam faded and a shaft of sunlight crossed the windows . She remembered it was Thursday , breathed with relief , putting down the page , hearing her own daughter’s voice , ‘ I wondered where you were , Mama , ’ and as the child came , laughing , into the room , she laughed too and said , ‘ It’s Thursday . Papa has gone to collect the logs , darling . ’ She gathered her child into her arms , and they left , because ‘ Papa doesn’t like people being in the laboratarry , does he , Mama … ’
    She felt her daughter’s soft arms around her neck . As they crossed the kitchen garden in the sunlight she noticed the lettuces were ready for eating .
     
    The click of her heels echoed along the corridor. Berenice glanced down at her new black boots. Investigating Officer’s boots, she thought. Much too warm, of course, Mary warned me that Maidstone always has the heating on, but stilettos aren’t going to work in a Major Incident Room, and my old shoes are too dowdy…
    She pushed the door open in front of her. ‘Morning everyone.’
    ‘Ma’am,’ came the murmured answer from the assembled team.
    ‘For those of you who haven’t met me,’ she began, surveying the room – paper coffee cups, open notepads, lap-tops, phone-things, several pairs of eyes fixed on her – ‘I’m DI Berenice Killick. Thanks for being here. Shall we start?’
    Dutiful nods of heads in front of her. She glanced at DC Mary Ashcroft, who flashed her a quick grin.
    ‘OK. You know the background. You’ve got the SOC team reports there?’ More dutiful nods. ‘Murdo Maguire. Physicist. Worked at the lab on the edge of town. The East Kent Lepton Research Institute. Initial reports suggest drowning subsequent to a fall from the old lighthouse. However…’ She paused, scanned the faces. ‘Forensics are showing injuries prior to the fall into the sea. Bruising to the skull, brain bleeding too. Brian?’
    A middle-aged man with thin silvery hair nodded behind his thin silvery spectacles. ‘We’re waiting for the final X rays,’ he said. ‘But everything we’ve seen so far suggests he was struck, perhaps with a fist. He either fell or was thrown. Cause of death was drowning, there’s significant water in the lungs.’
    There was a scratch of pens on notepads, a flurry of typing onto keyboards.
    Berenice had been standing, but now she perched on a chair. ‘Other things you need to know. There’d been threats to the lab. Couple of incidents of broken windows. Nothing stolen. And hate-mail. The odd note delivered, and a spate of e-mails too, accusing them of interfering with the order of the universe, that kind of thing. As you know, they’ve got a particle collider down there, smashing things… The chaps that work there take this for granted, apparently, that the lunatic fringe get upset about black holes and stuff, the universe imploding, the end of the world and it’s all their fault…’ She smoothed her jacket, waited for the note-takers to catch up. She noticed that Mary wasn’t taking any notes at all, sitting there all cool, sipping from her paper cup.
    ‘The threats might be connected to a family of low-lifes who are parked on the edge of the site. Caravan dwellers, though not travellers as such. DC Ashcroft, do you want to fill us in?’
    Mary put down her cup. ‘A family called Voake. When I say family, it’s one kid, a daughter of about fifteen, and a father. No apparent mother. The father, Clem Voake, may be connected to a warehouse raid last week at the docks at Dover, but we’re drawing blanks at the moment. And why he’s living rough when that kind of villainy seems to be worth a bob or