Читать книгу Woman in the Water - Katerina Diamond, Katerina Diamond - Страница 15

Imogen handed Adrian a coffee she had picked up on the way over. He hadn’t left the hospital all night; he had barely slept since she had been discovered yesterday. He was a mess.

She looked at the woman. She could see instantly why Adrian was so affected by this case. Who wouldn’t be? The cuts and bruises across the woman’s face looked angry against her pale, shiny porcelain skin. Imogen could see the weave line of the woman’s hair extensions – not cheap ones, either. The nails she had left were acrylics, a French manicure. Her clothes were folded on the chair by the bed – Stella McCartney jeans that run at three hundred quid a go. Imogen wondered how much they would be worth now they had been cut into several pieces. There was also a gold ring, a wedding band, sitting on the bedside table. Presumably, it was hers. Whoever this lady was, she wasn’t destitute and yet still no one had reported her missing.

‘Hey,’ Adrian said, standing and stretching out of his hunched seated slumber.

Imogen waved Adrian over to the corner of the room, as far away from the woman as they could get without actually leaving the room.

‘We found another body in the water, about a mile from where you found the woman. Male, similar age – dead, though; much worse injuries than her. They must be connected. I’m going to have to ask her about it,’ she said quietly.

‘Why didn’t you call and tell me?’

‘I thought it would be better in person. DCI Kapoor wanted me to question her, so I thought it best just to tell you when I got here.’

The truth was, she wanted to check on Adrian. He had refused to leave until the woman had woken. Well, she was awake now.

‘Maybe he will have some ID on him. We still don’t know her name; she said she doesn’t remember.’

‘Do you believe her?’

‘I don’t know what I think, to be honest. I don’t know why she would lie. Do we know anything else about the body?’

‘No, but hopefully the pathologist will be able to tell us more. It’s possible he is your woman’s boyfriend but we don’t know that either. The DCI wants us back at the station to brief us after we have spoken to her.’

‘I don’t want to leave her.’

‘What did the doctor say?’

‘Dr Hadley said she is going to be fine – sore for a while, but fine. She was beaten quite badly, possibly with the intention of killing her. Now that we have found the other body, that seems quite likely. Whoever did this, I get the feeling it was personal. It must have been someone who had something against her, or him. She still had valuables on her so robbery wasn’t the end goal, and according to the doctor, neither was sexual assault. Most of the damage to her was on the surface, no internal injuries. I guess we need to figure out if they were both the target or if it’s something that’s only connected to one of them.’

‘It’s already been on the news that she’s in hospital,’ Imogen said.

It was almost impossible to keep a lid on any kind of news these days.

‘Do you think she could still be in danger?’ Adrian asked.

‘I don’t think we can know anything for sure at this point. That could be why she isn’t telling us her name. We need to speak to her.’

‘She woke briefly but she hasn’t said much about anything. It’s entirely possible she really doesn’t remember what happened, given the state of her and the injuries she sustained.’

‘Or she doesn’t want us to know what happened. Maybe she is still afraid. Whoever did this is still out there,’ Imogen said.

The truth was they could speculate all they wanted at this point. Until she gave them information, or they managed to identify the man whose body they found, they might as well just be pissing in the wind. Imogen could already see how invested Adrian was; he wasn’t about to walk away from this case. Imogen shuddered involuntarily, a chill at the nape of her neck. She had a bad feeling about this woman, whoever she was. Adrian was already well and truly hooked.