Read Left for Dead: A Maeve Kerrigan Novella (Maeve Kerrigan Novels) for Free Online Page B

my foot in his palm and he heaved me up so I could hold on to the side of the building and see what lay on top. ‘I knew it.’
    ‘What is it?’ He was still supporting a lot of my weight and I could hear the strain in his voice. I leaned forward and made a grab for the handbag I’d seen from Number Thirty-Seven’s window.
    ‘Got it.’
    He lowered me to the ground and I started going through the contents of the bag as Gary leaned in to see, his face close to mine. There wasn’t much left in the bag so it didn’t take long. One hairbrush. A photograph taken in New York of two girls, laughing, standing infront of the Statue of Liberty. One of them could have been the victim. Her injuries had been so severe I really couldn’t tell. No keys or money. There was a wallet, though, with a card in it in the name of Sally-Ann James, forty pounds in cash, and a driver’s licence with an address for the same woman. In the picture she had long dark hair and a heart-shaped face.
    ‘Whose bag is that?’ Gary asked.
    ‘The victim’s, unless I’m very much mistaken,’ I said. ‘And I’ve just found out her name.’

4
    At the end of the shift, cross-eyed from lack of sleep, I admitted defeat and went home. I got back to the flat as my flatmate Aisling emerged from her room. She was yawning, wrapped up in a dressing gown, sleepy-eyed and tousled and somehow innocent in a way that I would never be again.
    ‘Good night?’
    ‘Mmm.’ I had changed at the police station into jeans and a T-shirt, my usual routine since we weren’t supposed to be identifiable as police officers on our way to or from a shift. I hadn’t washed yet. I could feel the dirt from the yards in my hair, under my nails, and in all the creases of my body, even if it looked as if there was nothing there. The only thing I wanted was a shower, and a long one, but Aisling had to get ready for work. I got a glass out of a cupboard and ran some water into it.
    ‘Busy?’
    ‘It was, yeah.’
    ‘You must be shattered.’ She yawned as she carried the kettle to the sink. ‘Want a tea?’
    ‘Better not.’ I was jumping from too much caffeine anyway.
    ‘It’s so weird that you have to go to bed now.’
    ‘That’s shift work.’
    Aisling shook her head. I had the feeling that she didn’t altogether approve of my job, and would have preferred a flatmate who would be available for beers in the evening and cooking a roast on Sundays. I couldn’t actually think of a single person who thought my job was a good idea, with the exception of the careers teacher at university who had been veryimpressed with the Met’s pension scheme. Aisling and I had been friends in school and when she’d suggested renting a flat together in Sydenham I’d jumped at the chance to move out of home. So far it wasn’t working out quite as either of us had expected. There were the usual flatmate issues with dirty dishes and the bathroom-cleaning rota. Aisling was chronically untidy and disorganised but she minded actual dirt, which was fair enough. She had turned out to be a fan of the passive-aggressive note – just to ‘remind’ me that it was my turn to tidy up when we didn’t see each other for days on end because I was out working when she was at home. I didn’t blame her for being annoyed about it, but cooking and cleaning and housework didn’t come naturally to me, and I couldn’t bring myself to care about that. I dipped in and out of Aisling’s life and if I couldn’t remember was what currently going on with her on-off boyfriend, at least she never seemed to mind telling me. Nevertheless, we got on fine, most of the time, and while we were both earning a pittance it made sense to share the flat, even if it was pretty dingy.
    ‘We’re nearly out of cereal.’ She shook the box.
    ‘You can have it.’
    ‘You have to eat something.’
    ‘Later. I had dinner about an hour ago,’ I lied. I felt as if I would never be able to eat again.
    ‘What did you get up