Read Online Violent Exposure by Katherine Howell - Free Book Online

to go home,’ he said.
    ‘It won’t take much longer,’ Ella said sweetly. ‘Could you move back here, please?’
    He shuffled his chair to the table and Ella held out the CCTV photo. ‘Do you know this man?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Is he the man you walked into outside the Crawfords’house?’
    Bridges rubbed his eyes. ‘Hard to say.’
    Ella propped her chin in her hand. Dennis crossed his legs and laced his hands in his lap. Bridges frowned under the scrutiny. ‘I can’t really see him well enough, but I don’t think it’s him.’
    ‘How is this man different from the one you bumped into?’ Ella said.
    More frowning. ‘He might be taller? I don’t know.’ Bridges clutched his shoulders.‘I really want to go home. I can, can’t I, if I’m not under arrest? I’m so tired.’
    Ella looked at Dennis. He exhaled through his teeth. ‘Okay. We’re going to need all your clothes.’
    ‘Huh?’
    ‘You bumped into him and he could be the killer,’ Dennis said. ‘He might’ve left evidence on you. So.’ He gestured. ‘Clothes off. We’ll take your prints too, in case you touched anything in the house.’ Bridgessighed.
    Ella stood up. ‘We’ll give you something to wear home.’ There was a box of old clothes out by the cells.
    He started unbuttoning his shirt. ‘And you’ll give me a lift back to my car, right?’
    Ella found a worn tracksuit, too short in the limbs, and a constable to drive him back to his car at the Crawfords’ house.
    In the corridor, Dennis checked his watch. ‘Forty minutes till the PM starts.You hungry?’
    Glebe Morgue looked better in sunshine. Ella walked in ahead of Dennis, full of eggs Benedict and buzzing from still more coffee, keen to see what the post-mortem would reveal.
    The business side of the place smelled as it always did, of disinfectant and cold meat, like a cross between a hospital and butcher’s shop. Suzanne Crawford’s body was laid out on the table and Dr Sam Fieldingwas readying her equipment with the help of her assistant.
    ‘Hi, guys,’ she said. ‘Lovely day.’
    ‘It is indeed.’ Dennis laid down the evidence bag containing the knife from the hedge.
    Sam smiled, then turned to the body, which had been photographed and washed. ‘Formalities first: can you confirm the identity of this person?’
    ‘Suzanne Crawford, identified by her parents,’ Dennis said.
    ‘Ta.’Sam began by examining the stab wounds. ‘Measure up that knife there, please, Helen.’
    Her assistant bent over the bag with a ruler. Ella looked past her to Suzanne’s body, so still and silent on the stainless-steel table. Right now the only flaws in her skin were the stab wounds, but soon Sam would make the Y incision running from both shoulders to the pit of her stomach then down the lengthof her belly. She would slice around the back of her head and roll her scalp forward to her eyebrows so she could examine her brain. She would lift out the internal organs, lungs and liver heavy in her gloved hands, intestines like slippery ropes, all to be weighed and measured and cut apart. This time yesterday Suzanne might’ve been full of eggs Benedict herself. Ella shivered.
    Helen said, ‘Bladewidth three-point-five at the hilt, length twenty centimetres.’
    Sam turned from the body and inspected the knife. ‘This is it. Look.’
    Ella came close.
    ‘These marks on her skin here are from the hilt,’ Sam said. ‘The knife went in all the way on two of the three wounds. The marks are the same size and shape, plus see how there’s a chip out of the hilt just there? The same defect is visible onher skin.’ She held a magnifying glass so they could see. ‘This is your murder weapon.’
    Ella clenched her fists behind her back.
    Sam picked up a probe and a light and leaned over the wounds. ‘Hmm. Something in here.’
    Ella leaned in beside her.
    ‘Something very small.’ Sam picked up a pair of fine tweezers. After a moment of careful work she lifted a thin piece of grey