Bitter Fruits: DI Erica Martin Book 1 (Erica Martin Thriller) by Alice Clark-Platts Read Free Book Online Page B

was having regular parties.
    Martin bent down to examine an ashtray. She sniffed at it, the tang of weed still floating amidst the aroma of tobacco. Roaches fashioned of rolled-up cardboard remains of Rizla packets were scattered on the table. She carried on, making her way around the room. On a desk, no books to be seen, but Martin peered at a photo in an old silver frame: a woman with a young boy, perhaps eight years old. They stood at a garden gate, and the woman was laughing, the boy gazing up at her adoringly as the shutter clicked.
    In the bathroom, there was the usual male grooming detritus. Martin looked closely at the sink and wiped her gloved finger around its flat edge. It was impossible to tell whether the white powder was cocaine, no matter what the cops in American TV shows rubbed into their gums. But, as she pulled back the shower curtain, she saw a lighter and a teaspoon lying on the edge of the bath, its shiny surface stained brown.
    Calling to one of the officers to come inside and remove it, she was about to leave them to it when she noticed a small cupboard next to the bed.
    ‘Has anyone checked this?’ she asked, already moving across to it. She squatted down and rooted around the contents: some condoms, a half-drunk bottle of Bells, a girly magazine and some homosexual porn, which she passed to the exhibits officer to bag.
    At the bottom of the cupboard was a seemingly insignificant brass plate. Martin frowned, leaned in and got a fingernail underneath. She managed to flip the plate and hook it so that the bottom of the cupboard lifted upwards, revealing a tiny space concealed within. Inside was about an eighth of Black wrapped in foil, some more weed and, sure enough, a small, sealed packet of cocaine.
    Martin sat at her desk, thinking. She sighed and closed her eyes for a second before reaching forwards and checking her phone. Despite the sudden pull of this investigation, she couldn’t help herself. After the row last night, still she had heard nothing from Jim.
    Martin loved the way Jim looked first thing in the morning, how he’d looked that morning. His eyes were heavy-lidded, easier to look at than later, when he became wide-eyed about things. When she’d left, he would have dragged himself out of bed, creased from sleep, tugging his old university rugby shirt over his head from the back of his neck. He would have rubbed his face, as he did every morning, before hemoved under the shower, as if preparing himself for the change in sensory stimulation.
    Lately though, he had not been accepting of change. Jim hadn’t been prepared for the move away from Newcastle. His suit and tie, the clothes of a giant striding across the world, these were not the clothes befitting an hour’s commute in a car that didn’t match Jim’s expectations of himself. The house they had settled for, in a town outside the hub of the city, not where he had anticipated to be in his life just then.
    In the last few months, since she had been told of her promotion, Martin had felt shrink-wrapped by Jim. Five years older than her, sometimes he looked at her as if the weight of his experience was a hard cross to bear, that he was waiting for her to catch up. She sighed, rubbing her temples, trying to focus. It wouldn’t leave her, though, the truth of it – that the love for Jim she had first thing in the morning had generally waned by the end of the day. As if the day had grown him, or maybe her, beyond the reach of love.
    Martin opened a bottle of water and took a long drink, pushing these thoughts away. She took a couple of Ibuprofen and rubbed her temples, shaking it off, as Jones walked into Martin’s office precariously carrying two grande lattes and a paper bag containing,Martin hoped, an almond croissant. Jones sat at the desk opposite Martin and passed the bag to her.
    ‘Cheers.’ Martin said, tearing off a large piece of the croissant and popping it in her mouth. She fired up the computer on her desk and