Dark Winter by David Mark Read Free Book Online Page A

ten. The three of them stand in silence in the corridor for a moment. DC Nielsen and Sergeant McAvoy, naughty, clumsy, absentee schoolboys who’ve gravely disappointed a favourite teacher.
    Eventually, she sighs. ‘Anyway, you’re here now. I’m sure you had your reasons. Ben will bring you up to speed and you can start working the database. It’s a bit late to get much done on the phones, but we need the congregation loading into that matrix you came up with. I’m right in thinking that it was for this kind of case, yes? Lots of witnesses. Disparate backgrounds? Links between—’
    ‘Yes, yes,’ says McAvoy, suddenly enthusiastic. ‘It’s like a Venn diagram. We find out everything about a certain group of people, then load that into the system and see where there are parallels, or, in particular, overlaps, and—’
    ‘Fascinating,’ she says with a bright smile. ‘Like I said, Ben can bring you up to speed and get your statement.’
    ‘Ma’am?’
    ‘You were a witness, McAvoy. You saw who did this. They hit you in the bloody face with the murder weapon. Quite what you and ACC Everett were thinking …’
    ‘I was following orders, ma’am.’
    ‘Well, follow mine. There’ll be a briefing at eight,’ she says, looking at her watch, then clip-clops down the corridor in heeled biker boots.
    DC Nielsen raises an eyebrow at McAvoy. They both look like teenagers who’ve just got away with something, and there is an impish smile on both their faces as the junior officer steps back into the office and McAvoy follows him into the brightly lit room.
    DCs Helen Tremberg and Sophie Kirkland are sitting side by side at the same desk, staring an open laptop computer. Sophie is eating a slice of pizza and using it to gesture at something on the screen. It is the only computer in the room. The rest of the office is empty, save for some spilled and battered old files, and a firing squad of assorted binbags, which look like they’ve been sitting there by the wall for months.
    ‘Given us the presidential suite,’ says Ben, leading McAvoy to a semi-circle of plastic chairs by the window.
    ‘Looks like it. Why here? Why not back at Priory?’
    ‘Convenience, they said. Order came down from on high. I think they were imagining headlines.’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘Usual shit. Us being eight miles from the scene, when there’s a station three hundred yards from where it happened.’
    ‘But there’s facilities at Priory,’ says McAvoy, confused. ‘This can’t have been Pharaoh’s call.’
    ‘No, she thought it was bloody stupid as well. But she’s had to hit the ground running. By the time she got up to speed, the ACC had put out a press release saying this would be coordinated from our city-centre local policing team.’
    ‘So we’re running uphill?’ he asks.
    ‘In fucking treacle, Sarge.’
    He sighs. Plonks himself down in the hard-backed chair. He looks at his watch.
    ‘What do we know?’
    ‘Right,’ says Nielsen, jabbing a finger on the page. ‘Daphne Cotton. Fifteen. Residing with Tamara and Paul Cotton at Fergus Grove, Hessle. Nice little place, Sarge. Off a main road. Terraced. Three-bedroomed. Big front garden and a back yard. You know the ones? Back to front houses near the cemetery?’
    McAvoy nods. He and Roisin had been to view a house in the area when she was pregnant with Fin. Had decided against it. Too little parking and the kitchen was too small. Nice neighbourhood, though.
    ‘Brothers? Sisters?’
    ‘The family liaison is trying to get all that, but I don’t think so. Her parents are an older couple. White, obviously.’
    McAvoy screws up his face. ‘What?’
    ‘She’s adopted, Sarge,’ says Nielsen quickly.
    ‘She could have been adopted by black people, Constable,’ he says softly.
    Nielsen looks to the ceiling, as if considering this for the first time. ‘Yes,’ he concedes. ‘She could have been.’
    They sit in silence for a moment, both brooding over the point. Behind