Cross and Burn by Val McDermid Read Free Book Online Page A

hollow shell of the barn. Seeing it through his eyes, she understood the extent of what she’d done. Only the kitchen area remained unscathed. Everything else was stripped to the bare bones. The last job was the demolition of the gallery floor where Michael and Lucy had been murdered on their bed. She’d already ripped out the staircase. Today’s task was to break down the supporting beam that held up the floor so she could set about the final stage of destroying it. She pointed to the sturdy timber. ‘That’s my next job.’
    ‘You’re not taking the whole beam out, are you?’ He craned his head to follow the beam up to the A-frame joist that ran the width of the barn.
    ‘If I take that out, the floor will start to collapse. It’ll be much easier to break it down.’
    Nicholas stared at her as if she was mad. ‘If you take that out, your whole roof will collapse. That’s a major structural beam. It’s been there since the barn was built.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘I’m sure. I’m not an engineer, but I’ve been around old buildings all my life.’ Suspicious, Carol followed his pointing finger as he outlined the structure of the hammer beam truss. ‘If you don’t believe me, get a structural engineer in to have a look. But please, don’t get rid of it until you’ve taken advice.’ He looked so distressed that she surrendered her instinctive mistrust of anyone trying to tell her what to do.
    ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll work around it.’ She crouched down again and ruffled the dog’s fur. ‘Looks like you did me a favour, Jess.’
    ‘We’re always happy to help,’ Nicholas said. ‘I’ll be off now. No doubt I’ll see you around?’
    Carol made a noncommittal sound and followed him to the door. She stood and watched him leave her land and strike out across the rough pasture towards his home. It occurred to her that she’d been more friendly to the dog than to its owner. There was a time when that would have embarrassed her.
    Not any more.

10
     
    T here was a terrible moment when Paula misunderstood what she was looking at. The shaggy blonde hair, the square shoulders, the legs that had always brought Anne Bancroft to mind; all markers for Carol Jordan. She’d never seen her naked except in fantasy, but her imagination was enough to blur the reality in front of her for a split second. Then she understood that the dead woman sprawled on the floor was not Carol Jordan. She was the wrong body shape. Too heavy in the hips and thighs, too squat in the torso. But it had been a head-swimming moment.
    Fielding had caught it too, which wasn’t going to help her respect for Paula. ‘You all right, McIntyre? I’d have thought you’d be used to this by now.’
    Paula coughed into her paper mask. ‘With respect, ma’am, I never want to be used to it.’
    Fielding turned away with a shrug. ‘Fair enough.’ She took a couple of steps towards the body, stooping for a closer look. ‘He didn’t want us to recognise her, that’s for sure. Look at that.’ She pointed to the mash of flesh and bone that had been the woman’s face. The naked body was a mass of bruises and abrasions. Paula had seen plenty of victims of violence, but she couldn’t remember a body that had taken such a comprehensive beating.
    Then another possibility flashed across her mind. She’d been slow to make the connection. But a description of this bludgeoned woman would also fit Bev McAndrew. Her breakfast coffee burned at the back of her throat and she sidestepped a CSI photographer for a better view. For the second time, relief made her weak in the knees. This wasn’t Bev. Torin’s mother was taller and slimmer, with bigger breasts. Whoever this woman was, she wasn’t the missing pharmacist.
    Paula looked around the room. It was a dismal place to die. The walls were stained with damp and mould and the floorboards were filthy with ground-in dirt. A sagging sofa faced a scarred coffee table whose missing leg had been