Читать книгу Dead Man’s Prayer: A gripping detective thriller with a killer twist - Jackie Baldwin - Страница 14

Farrell sat behind his desk and pulled an overflowing basket towards him. So much for the concept of a paperless office. The reports on his desk were multiplying like bacteria. He pulled a sheaf of brightly coloured charts that had been sent up by the civilian intelligence analyst towards him. Quickly scanning them, he soon realized that they told him nothing new. There simply wasn’t enough data available yet to pinpoint any specific patterns forming. He took a sip of the mud-coloured coffee he had grabbed on the way up and pulled a face. Pure gut rot. He glugged it down anyway. Needs must. If they could uncover a motive in this case it might lead to the killer. What had the dead priest done that had been so heinous it had led to his murder? Could he have interfered with somebody’s kid? Farrell thought back to his own years as an altar boy and couldn’t recall a single instance when Boyd’s conduct had made him uneasy. It didn’t fit the mode of killing either. An outraged father would have charged at Boyd like a bull at a gate. There would have been no finessing at the crime scene. Unless, of course, the killer had dressed it up to look like a nut job to throw them off the scent. It was no good. He was going round in circles. Glancing at his watch, Farrell realized it was nearly time for the final briefing of the day.

On the way to the MCA room he decided to pay a visit to the tiny fingerprint lab, where any prints from the murder crime scene would be undergoing analysis. A middle-aged civilian woman was hard at work with her back to him, and he couldn’t for the life of him remember her name.

‘Hi there, er …’

She spun round to face him and was wearing a name tag. Saved.

‘Barbara, how’s it going?’ he said, aiming for a jovial tone. Name tags might be the answer to his prayers, on the one hand, but he always felt uncomfortable having to read it off a woman’s chest. That was a whole other can of worms in the hermetically sealed politically correct goldfish bowl they all had to operate in these days.

Not being inhibited by any rank she promptly shot him down in flames.

‘Now then, Inspector Farrell, it’ll take as long as it takes. There’s no point going out of your way to try and butter me up. When I get something you’ll be the first to know. Now, was there anything else, or will I be getting on with my work now?’

‘Yes, just you carry on,’ said Farrell, turning swiftly on his heel. Talk about taking no prisoners. Feathers distinctly ruffled he headed for the MCA room.

The alarm on his watch beeped. He reached into his pocket automatically, to pop a pill, then withdrew his hand. Surely one day wouldn’t hurt? He was already shattered and didn’t want to take anything with a sedative effect, however minimal.

In the MCA room, Farrell started briefing the Investigation Team, which got bigger and bigger all the time as more and more officers became involved. Initial door-to-door enquiries had drawn a blank. No one had seen or heard anything. Time to widen out the search.

‘DS Byers, any leads thrown up by HOLMES?’

Byers gave a hollow laugh.

‘Are you kidding, Sir? All the initial statements have been fed into the system and it’s throwing out names, cars, and streets like there’s no tomorrow.’

‘Keep on it with the rest of your team then, Byers. Let me know if anything interesting comes to the fore,’ said Farrell. He’d put Byers in charge of an eager team of young constables figuring it might make him more motivated.

‘DS Stirling, how did your meeting with the sister go this afternoon?’

‘Different to what I expected, Sir. She’s quite a formidable lady. It was as if she was more bothered about the embarrassment of him being murdered than the fact that he was dead. A real cold fish.’

‘Any idea of who might want to kill him?’ asked Farrell.

‘Not a clue, Sir,’ said Stirling. ‘Her precise words were … I don’t exactly move in those sorts of circles.’

A ripple of hilarity wound round the room, dying down as Farrell’s face remained expressionless. He gave them all a hard stare. Some shifted nervously in their seats.

‘So,’ he said slowly, ‘what you’re telling me is that we don’t yet have a single hot lead in this investigation?’ He paused for effect and then thundered. ‘That’s not good enough. Get back out there; keep interviewing till you uncover something worthwhile. Interview parishioners, the sewing circle, the postman. I want no avenue of enquiry left unexplored. A man has died a horrible death. We owe it to him to apprehend the killer and by God that is what we’re going to do.’

Farrell swept out of the room and there was a flurry of activity as the door shut behind him. He was troubled by the lack of progress in the case. The first forty-eight hours in a murder investigation were crucial and so far they had next to nothing to go on.