Read Hurt (DS Lucy Black) for Free Online

Tara stayed in her seat, clearing her throat before addressing them. ‘Blood smearing on her clothes suggested she’d been wrapped in plastic sheeting for the transport of her remains. And they pulled dog hairs from her boots. Black dog hairs.’
    ‘DS Black, maybe you can update us on the work you’d done, to put it in context for the team.’
    Lucy nodded. ‘I’m afraid there’s not a huge amount to tell, sir. She went missing last Thursday. She didn’t come back to the unit from school but that wasn’t entirely unusual.’
    ‘She was in residential care?’
    ‘Yes. Social Services contacted us and we started looking for her in the usual haunts: shopping centres, the Walls, places like that.’
    ‘Had she run away before?’
    ‘A number of times,’ Lucy said, nodding. ‘Initially we assumed it was more of the same. She usually came back the next day – often she’d spent the night with friends, boyfriends maybe.’
    ‘Did she have a boyfriend?’
    ‘Nobody serious. Not that we know of so far.’
    ‘But she
was
sexually active?’
    ‘She was fifteen, sir,’ Lucy said.
    Burns nodded, jotting down notes as Lucy spoke.
    ‘So you put out the press appeal?’
    ‘After she went missing, the social workers in the residential unit found her phone in her room which panicked them. They alerted us and we did the press release,’ Lucy said. ‘Then someone found out about the connection with her father yesterday and the papers ran with it.’
    ‘Any idea who told them? Could it have been one of us?’ He glanced around the room as he spoke. ‘One of you’ was actually what he meant, and Lucy knew it. PPU had been handling the case – herself and Tom Fleming essentially.
    ‘I wouldn’t think so, sir,’ she replied. ‘Derry’s a small city. Everyone knows everyone else here. You’ll find that once you’re here a while.’
    ‘Do you think she was targeted because of who she was?’ Mickey asked.
    ‘The father asked the same thing,’ Lucy said. ‘It seems unlikely. She wasn’t using his name. He did suggest the family of the bank man he shot in the robbery might have cause for revenge, but I’m not convinced.’
    ‘We’ll follow up on it,’ Burns commented. ‘Was anything useful found on the phone?’
    ‘Actually, I spoke with someone in ICS just before coming up here. She was befriended on Facebook by someone called Paul Bradley. He made first contact in September. About eight weeks ago they met and she seems to have managed to get an iPhone that she’s since kept hidden from the residential unit. ICS are trying to track Bradley through his internet address.’
    ‘Brilliant,’ Burns said. ‘I’ll need the details of the officer in ICS. Is Bradley known to PPU?’
    ‘Well, I ran him through the system based on the personal information on his Facebook page, but no luck,’ Lucy said. ‘It could be a cover name.’
    ‘He could be a known offender then,’ Burns said. ‘We’d best speak to the usual suspects first.’
    Burns flicked through his notes, words forming silently on his lips as he read through what he’d written. ‘Was she using drugs?’
    Lucy shook her head. ‘Maybe a little – it wasn’t something we ever investigated. It didn’t seem relevant.’
    Burns nodded. ‘Everything can be relevant,’ he said. ‘Toxicology will show if she was using prior to her death. How long had she been self-harming?’
    ‘It was first noticed when she was nine. She went into care about then after her mother was locked up to dry out for the first time. Karen had been looking after her for four years by that stage. The social workers asked Karen about when she’d started cutting herself, but she wouldn’t tell them. Still, she continued with it until ... well until she died, I suppose.’
    Burns nodded. ‘Was she ever considered a suicide risk?’
    ‘Not to my mind,’ Lucy said. ‘Or Social Services.’
    ‘Despite the cutting?’ Mickey asked incredulously.
    ‘Self-harming,