Blind to the Bones. Stephen Booth

Чтение книги онлайн.

       10

      Scenes of crime officer Liz Petty shook her head. She was crouching in long grass next to a path that ran between trees at the edge of a field.

      ‘I’ve taken samples from everything in the surrounding area,’ she said. ‘But there are no signs of disturbance, and I can’t see anything that looks like blood. Of course, it depends on the timescale. If it was here a long time, the rain would have washed most traces away by now. But the lab might be able to find something.’

      ‘Don’t worry. I’m not hopeful,’ said Diane Fry.

      Beyond the trees, a new crop was showing bright and green in the field. Fry had no idea what the crop might be. She was only glad that the field didn’t contain livestock – she didn’t get on with livestock.

      She looked towards some distant farm buildings surrounded by a series of limestone walls. The road behind her was narrow, and ran between two more walls. It was no more than a byway that wandered between rural lanes, and she had seen no buildings since she’d turned off from the last village, just outside Chapel-en-le-Frith. She tried to call up a picture of Emma in this place, but she failed. She couldn’t imagine any reason why Emma Renshaw should have been here.

      ‘No, it doesn’t make sense.’

      ‘More likely somebody stopped at the roadside and chucked the phone over the wall,’ said Petty.

      ‘Almost certainly.’

      ‘Are you all right, Diane?’

      Fry looked at the SOCO in surprise. She had worked with Liz Petty a number of times, and saw her often around West Street. They had exchanged small talk at crime scenes, and recently had found themselves having a drink together in a corner of the room at the leaving party for their division’s old DCI, Stewart Tailby. But surely only friends asked you if you were all right in that tone of voice.

      ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said.

      ‘I just thought you seemed a bit down today.’

      ‘Down?’

      ‘Fed up. I don’t want to intrude, but if you ever wanted to have a chat, you know, we could go out for a drink some time.’

      Fry tried to remember what they might have talked about at Mr Tailby’s party. Had she given the impression she wanted to be friendly? Surely she hadn’t told Liz Petty anything about her private life?

      ‘Well, thanks for the offer,’ she said.

      ‘That’s OK, Diane. Just let me know.’ Petty stood up and stretched her legs, rustling in her white protective suit. ‘Anyway, I’m about to pack up here. There’s a suspicious death up in Longdendale they need some assistance with.’

      ‘Yes, I know,’ said Fry. ‘I heard.’

      ‘You’re not going to be working on it?’

      ‘Apparently, not. I have enough to contend with at the moment.’

      Petty clambered over the wall and began to put away her equipment in her van. ‘It probably won’t be anything interesting anyway,’ she said.

      Fry looked at the grass where Emma Renshaw’s mobile phone had been found, and thought of Emma’s parents, perhaps waiting even now for their daughter to come home.

      ‘Probably not,’ she said. ‘But at least it might be something in the real world.’

      The police officers protecting the scene at the air shaft were starting to get a bit edgy. The place was difficult to find, and it had taken a couple of attempts by the fire service to guide them up the track. Another patrol car had been positioned at the gateway off the A628, but there was no sign yet of the rest of the team – the forensic medical examiner, the CID, the Scientific СКАЧАТЬ