Read Online Natural Causes by James Oswald - Free Book Online Page B

three long gulps. It hit his stomach with a heavy weight, making it gurgle as he pushed open the door.
    Grumpy Bob sat behind one of the tables, his head in his hands as he read a newspaper. He looked up as McLean entered, guiltily pulling a brown report folder over.
    'What've you got there, Bob?'
    'Err...' Grumpy Bob looked down at the folder, then turned it through a hundred and eighty degrees so he could read what was written on it. Finally he flipped it over, realising that he had been looking at the back. 'It's a report into a break in at the house of a Mrs Doris Squires. Back in June of last year. Me and the boy went to see her son this morning. He was quite surprised to hear from us. Wondered if we'd found his mother's lost jewellery.'
    'Where is Constable MacBride?' McLean looked around the room, but there really wasn't anywhere to hide.
    'I sent him on a doughnut run. He should be back any minute.'
    'Doughnuts? In this heat?' McLean pulled off his jacket and hung it on the back of the door. He drained the rest of the water, feeling slightly light-headed as the cold liquid washed his throat. His mind jumped back to Barnaby Smythe. A knife opening up his carotid artery, blood spilling out over his ruined body. Knowing he was dead. He shook his head to try and dislodge the image. Perhaps a bit of food would be a good idea after all.
    'Did you get anything useful from Mr Squires, then?' he asked.
    'Depends what you mean by useful. I think we can safely say old Mrs Squires didn't divulge the alarm code to anyone.'
    'They did have an alarm, then?'
    'Oh yes. Penstemmin Alarms, remote system. All the bells and whistles you could ask for. But Mrs Squires was very blind and a bit doolally. She never knew the code. Her son always set it. And she died at home, in her sleep. The burglary happened about two weeks later. The day she was buried. There was a note in the paper and an obituary too.'
    'Not a care worker, then. But still, it was Penstemmin alarm system. I guess we'd better check them out. Find out who's their liaison officer at HQ.'
    Grumpy Bob's complaint at being given more work to do was cut short by a sharp knock at the door. Before either of them could do anything, the handle dropped and it swung open to reveal a large cardboard box floating in mid-air. Closer inspection revealed the box to have blue-trousered legs beneath it. Small hands clasped at the edges of it and a muffled female voice came from behind.
    'Inspector McLean?'
    McLean reached out, taking the box. Behind it a red-faced Constable Alison Kydd stood catching her breath.
    'Thank you, sir. I'm not sure I could have carried that much longer.'
    'What is it, Alison?' Grumpy Bob asked, standing as McLean dumped the box down on the table and on top of Doris Squires.
    'The forensics team sent them up. Said they'd run all the tests they could and come up with nothing.'
    The opened box revealed a heap of evidence bags, all neatly tagged and labelled; the items found in the hidden alcoves along with thick files of forensic reports and crime scene photographs. The organs in their preserving jars were still at the mortuary, but there were photographs and test results confirming they were all from the girl. McLean lifted the first bag out, seeing a plain gold tie-pin and a piece of folded card. He leafed through the photographs until he found one of the two items in-situ, set in front of a cracked jar.
    'Have we got the other photos from the scene?' he asked. Grumpy Bob shuffled around the table, bent down in the corner and straightened back up again with a cracking of joints and a thick folder. He handed the latter over and McLean opened it up to reveal dozens of glossy A4 prints. 'Right, let's try and get this all in order. Constable... Alison, could you give us a hand?'
    The constable looked a bit sheepish. 'I'm supposed to be processing actions back in the Smythe incident room, sir.'
    'And I'm meant to be collating the forensic reports, but this will probably