A Killing Kindness by Reginald Hill Read Free Book Online Page A

said.  'In fact the body was hidden, whereas with the  others, the killer obviously wanted it to be found.  Also, to let herself be picked up at that time of  night (and there had to be a car - she wasn't  going to walk five miles to the canal!), it had to  be someone she knew.'
    Dalziel wasn't much interested. He knew it was part of the sequence. But he didn't mind exploding  a younger colleague.
    'Mebbe she just scrambled away and fell in. He wouldn't be about to jump in after her, would he?  Or mebbe he left her for dead, all neatly laid out,  and she recovered enough to roll over. Splash! Or  mebbe he was disturbed and just slipped her over  the edge, not wanting her to be found while he  was still so close in the vicinity. And as for the  car, mebbe he pulled her into it, threatened her  with a knife, even knocked her out. Or mebbe it  was someone she'd trust without knowing him, a copper, say. What were you doing that night,  Peter?'
    Laughter (Dalziel's). End of discussion.
    Curiously, the one thing which seemed to confirm the superintendent's judgement that Brenda's  death was linked with the others, he had treated  most dismissively.
    'Anyone can make a phone call,' he said. 'And  everyone's got a Complete Shakespeare. I've got a  Complete Shakespeare!'
    Pascoe sat in his office and studied the pathologist's reports which he knew almost off by heart. All three women had been strangled by someone  using both hands. The bruising on their necks indicated this and the cartilage in the area of the voice  boxes was fractured to a degree which demonstrated the violence and strength of the attack. But  the pathologist was adamant that Brenda Sorby  had not been quite dead when she went into the water . . . all over me, choking, the water, all boiling at  first, and roaring, and seething . . . Pascoe shook the  medium's taped words out of his mind and went  on with his reading.
    There was a degree of lividity down the left side which was unusual for a corpse taken from the  water, but it could be explained by the fact that  the body seemed to have been wedged in the  debris by the canal bank rather than rolling free  in the current. Also (another difference from the  previous cases) there was some bruising around  and underneath the breasts, possibly indicating a  sexual assault, though the lacerations caused by  the barge propeller had made examination difficult  in this area. Elsewhere there was no indication of  sexual interference.
    Pascoe sighed. The bloody pathologist thought  he was having things difficult!
    Sergeant Wield came in.
    'I just had CRO run some of those fairground  people through the computer,' he announced.
    'Including Miss Stanhope?' said Pascoe with a  grin.
    Wield's creased and pitted face had shown no  response to Pascoe's twitting about Pauline Stanhope's interest earlier that day. Now he managed  something not unlike a grimace.
    'There was a statement from her and her aunt,'  he said. 'Like all the rest. Nothing. This was interesting, though.'
    David Lee had been in the hands of the police several times. Disorderly conduct had cost him  half a dozen fines. In 1974 he had been put on probation for assault on his common law wife.  Assaulting a council officer in charge of an operation to move on a gypsy encampment got him  three months in 1976, and this had been doubled  in 1978 when he punched a police officer who  was attempting to stop him from beating another  common law wife.
    There was also a charge of rape in 1979, dismissed by a majority verdict.
    'What made you pick on this one?' wondered  Pascoe. 'Not because I saw him chatting up Miss  Pauline, I hope?'
    'There's half a dozen others,' grunted Wield. 'If  you'd care to have a look.'
    Pascoe thought for a moment.
    'Tell you what,' he said. 'If Mrs Sorby's such  an enthusiast for peering over the Great Divide,  perhaps Brenda got roped in too.'
    'And might have known about the Madame