Death's Privilege by Darryl Donaghue Read Free Book Online

you gave him enough to do?’ Sarah looked around the room to get her bearing.
    ‘Enough to make sure he won’t be bothering us for a while.’
    The scene guard told them he and his partner had arrived at 11:45 and quickly established the scene in the room. No other scenes were being guarded as, from what they knew so far, the incident was isolated to room 334. It was a queen-size room, booked by a single female two days ago. She’d checked in the previous day at 16:35 with one small bag and a garment bag that was unzipped, empty and hooked on the wardrobe handle. Her brown leather shoulder bag was open on the white, still-made bed sheets. A small beige boutique paper bag with brown rope handles fastened with a knot lay on its side on the white bedside table; the rim was covered in white powder. Sarah used her pen to open the bag and saw wraps of white powder inside.
    ‘Posh way to carry drugs. Looks like something from a fancy chocolate shop. Her make-up is open all over her bed; she was in a rush to head out somewhere. Was that purse found like that?’ Sarah walked around the scene, being careful where she stepped.
    ‘It was in the bag. I opened it to check for ID,’ responded the scene guard.
    ‘Move anything else?’ She sketched the room in her book as the scene guard confirmed neither he nor his partner had touched anything. ‘Where’s her phone?’
    ‘No sign of a phone.’
    ‘The rim of the bath looks like the display counter at Harrods. Any more anti-aging creams and she’d have woken up a toddler.’ Dales walked out of the bathroom waving his hand in front of his nose. ‘Why do women think smelling like fruit is in any way appealing?’
    ‘Maybe they don’t do it with you in mind?’
    ‘Well, they don’t doll themselves up to sit indoors and watch the cricket. She was partying with someone last night and by the looks of that dress, it was someone she was looking to impress.’ Dales looked the body up and down. Sheila lay at the base of the bed, black frilly dress hitched up and legs apart, not wide enough to suggest they’d been pulled that way, but wide enough to notice. She looked good for forty-four. It was hard to tell how much was natural and what had been plastered over by the products in the bathroom. Over the next few weeks, the decay and the rot would leave her looking like any other corpse. No matter the money, the products, the implants, she’d look the same as her neighbours lying side by side in the ground. ‘You ever considered curling your hair? It’s a good look, a little eighties, but that’s all rage again now.’
    ‘Seen this? Pretty unusual bag to be carrying drugs around in.’ Sarah pointed her pen towards the rope-handled bag.
    ‘Hiding in plain sight. Affluent-looking woman carrying around something that looks like a lingerie bag, who’s going to question her?’ Dales turned Sheila’s hands at the wrists. There was a trace of white powder under her fingernails.
    ‘I thought chocolates.’
    ‘You would, Gladstone, you would.’
    She didn’t ask him to clarify his comment. It’d been a while since she'd bought underwear that would fit in a bag that small. It’d been a while since she'd bought underwear that wasn’t three for two at M&S. Sarah crouched down over the body and looked up at Dales and the guard. ‘Gentlemen, give the lady some privacy, please.’ Sarah turned Sheila’s body by her shoulders. She unzipped the dress, revealing the clasp of a black lacy bra. No marks on her back save for a Celtic tattoo between her shoulder blades. She lifted her curly, blonde locks to find no marks on her neck and, on pulling down the top of her dress, nothing on her chest. Her thighs had some reddening from the tight dress, nothing more and, although there were no visible marks on her inner thighs, there was no way of telling if she’d had any sexual contact without a proper examination. ‘Okay, you can open your eyes now.’
    Dales turned back around. ‘You