Read Online DARK CRIMES a gripping detective thriller full of suspense by MICHAEL HAMBLING - Free Book Online Page B

Are you alright?’ Martin said.
    ‘Her face. I think I’ve seen it before somewhere. And quite recently.’
    ‘Whose face?’
    ‘Susie Pater. The young woman who was killed today. It was you mentioning faces just now. I knew something was niggling away at the back of my mind. Now where could it have been?’

CHAPTER 5: Scars and Bruises
    Wednesday Morning, Week 1
     
    It was a bright and sunny morning with a fresh breeze blowing in from the sea. Sophie had sent a message to the incident room, listing the tasks she wanted done in the first half of the morning. Meanwhile she visited Benny Goodall at his lab in the hospital in Dorchester.
    As soon as he saw her walk in, Benny said, ‘I always see you and think ‘here’s trouble!’ You look as fresh as ever, though I expect you were up half the night.’
    ‘It’s all down to the careful application of cosmetics, Benny. Though careful is maybe not the word I should have chosen on this particular morning. Just don’t examine me too closely under a strong light.’
    They stood in front of a flat screen in his office.
    ‘Here are the results of the scans I had done,’ said Goodall.
    He clipped an X-ray to the screen and turned on the backlight.
    ‘What am I looking at?’
    ‘It shows her left leg below the knee. If you look carefully you can see the residual marks from a hairline fracture mid-fibula and lying just to the outside of centre. Here.’
    He pointed to the scan, where a slight, thin shadow lay across the thinner of the two shin bones.
    ‘Now if you look closely with this magnifying glass, you’ll also see a slight darkening on the surface of the tibia. It wasn’t broken, but it does have a residual bruise scar.’
    ‘So?’
    The most common explanation for this type of scarring is a kick. It’s why footballers wear shin-pads. A hard kick in the middle of the shin can slide off the stronger tibia. It catches in the gap and causes the fibula to break. In this case it wasn’t a complete break, just a hairline crack. But it’s there, as clear as day.’
    ‘Can you be sure that it was caused by a kick?’
    ‘No, not totally. There could be other reasons. But it is likely.’
    ‘Okay . . . Could you face me, Benny? I want to act this out. It’s your right leg, and I’m standing opposite you. I kick out like so.’
    She moved her right leg so that the toe of her boot touched his shin, and then slid across the leg towards the outside.
    ‘That doesn’t seem right. Let me try the left.’
    This time she stood with her right leg taking her weight, and acted out a kick with the left.
    ‘That seems more like it. The toe-cap area is more front-on to the tibia, and catches the gap more forcefully. I think the chances are that he was left-footed. Wouldn’t you kick out with your stronger foot?’
    ‘Almost always. But we are dealing in probabilities here, not absolutes. The scarring was probably caused by a hard kick. It was probably from a left foot. This means that the perpetrator was probably left-footed. They’re all probables.’
    ‘Benny, what I do is always built on probabilities. And I’ve got even more ifs than you. After all, she may have been playing hockey or football and the break may have nothing whatsoever to do with the case. But there are the other marks that you spotted, and taken together it all tends to point one way, doesn’t it?’
    ‘I’m not an expert on domestic violence, Sophie. But I have seen plenty of evidence for it over the years. And I have to say that this bone-scarring, coupled with the skin marks, does tend to point that way. They seem to fit the pattern. Here are the photos for you.’
    Sophie looked at the close-up images of the marks on Donna’s arms and face.
    ‘Do you think that the faint marks on her neck could have been due to attempted strangulation?’
    ‘Well, I did wonder that yesterday when I first spotted them. And nothing in the close-up images would count against it. But they are almost healed, so