Read Linger Awhile for Free Online Page B

been said before, a lot of it in films. By now I could mime the words while a soundtrack says them. Right, so I got called to this Euston crime scene at 02:25 because the medical examiner, Harrison Burke, was all excited about the case. When I got there it was all flashing lights and yellow tape and I stood looking down at the body and thinking how sad it was that her young life had been taken from her. ‘Any witnesses?’ I said, knowing there wouldn’t be. There weren’t. Then Burke said one of those Hammer Horror film lines: ‘There is absolutely no blood in this body, and look at those bite marks on the neck.’
    ‘Burke,’ I said in my best DI voice, ‘are you saying what I think you’re saying?’
    ‘What do you think I’m saying?’ he said.
    ‘That all the blood in this body has been sucked out through the holes in the neck?’
    ‘That’s pretty much it, John. You got it in one.’
    ‘I don’t want this part of it to be leaked to the press,’ I said.
    ‘There’s nothing left to leak,’ he said, having his little joke. ‘They’ve already done the photos, and if you’re all through here I’ll get back to the lab and make my report tomorrow.’
    ‘Any ID?’ I said to the sergeant who’d been first on the scene.
    ‘Only this,’ he said, and gave me an electricity bill, ‘and keys in her pocket. No wallet, no handbag.’ The bill was to Rose Harland at an address in Beak Street. A couple of detectives had already been round there and they reported that she lived alone and had moved in about two months ago. The neighbours didn’t know anything about her except that she was very quiet, always had a smile, and seemed to have no fixed hours for her comings and goings.
    The sadness of Rose Harland’s death was depressing me. ‘I hope this is a one-off and not the beginning of something really ugly,’ I said, half to myself.
    Burke stopped packing up his gear and gave me a long look. ‘Come on, John,’ he said, ‘you’ve seen enough movies to know better than that. We’re talking garlic-on-windows time here.’
    ‘Maybe you are,’ I said, ‘but I’m not getting ready to sharpen any stakes yet. There are all kinds of cultists and wannabes running around and they get up to all kinds of things.’
    ‘Indeed they do, and I’m betting that we’ll have another case like this before too long.’
    ‘You always expect the worst, Harry.’
    ‘And that’s what I generally get. I’m off. See you around.’
    I looked at Rose Harland’s face again just before they covered it and took her away. Her lips were slightly parted, as if for a kiss. Where did I remember that name from? ‘Rose Harland on her Sundays out … te-tum te-tum te-tum. Walked with the better man.’ Housman. She’ll never walk with anyone again, poor thing. What sort of a person could do this to her?
    I went on TV with an appeal for anyone who had seen her last night to come forward and tell us what they could. There were the usual useless calls but there was one from a woman who’d seen a young woman take off her anorak and drop it in a dustbin in Great Marlborough Street. ‘I thought it odd,’ she said, ‘because it was a cold night and she was left with only a shirt.’ You never know when a connection will pluck at your sleeve so I sent Sergeant Locke to Great Marlborough Street with two men. The dustbins hadn’t yet been emptied and they looked into all of them but found no anorak. There was a set of keys, however, on a keyring with a little torch bearing the name of Hermes Soundways in Dufour’s Place. I thought I might look in there later.
    While I was waiting for Locke’s report I went to Rose Harland’s flat in Beak Street above the red neon sign of the Soho Pizzeria. The sparsity of her possessionswas unusual: very few clothes in the cupboard, one pair of shoes with medium heels, one pair of Adidas trainers; no letters, no diary; a Letts monthly tablet calendar on the wall with the days crossed off up to