Flashpoint by Felicity Young Read Free Book Online

employment: Glenroyd Ladies’ College.’ His voice bounced loudly off the steel furniture of the stark office.
    With mounting excitement, Cam flicked the pages of the fax until he came to the coronial section: Autopsy yet to be completed. Then the SOCO report: Yet to be completed. Shit, the frustration of small town policing.
    Then he reminded himself why he was here and his eyes were drawn again to the phone.
    He forced his attention back to the fax in front of him. There was a PS from SOCO. It seemed he was correct in identifying the smell on the rag as petrol (premium unleaded, said the lab) and what’s more, they’d identified the rag as being part of the waistband of a pair of King Gee work shorts. He wondered if the waistband could be matched up to any clothing the victim was wearing. There’d been no visible trace of clothing on the burned body but there was always the chance of fibre or chemical residue.
    He tapped his pen against his teeth for a moment, then phoned the pathologist in Toorrup. He’d met Doctor McManus at the crime scene the other day and had been struck by his pleasant, approachable manner.
    â€˜Can’t you tell me anything yet, Doc? Fibres? Chemicals?’
    â€˜Sorry, no, Sergeant. He’s on tomorrow’s list though.’
    â€˜You checked out his teeth, so you must have had a look at him.’
    â€˜Just a cursory glance when I made the dental impression I’m afraid.’
    â€˜How about a time of death then?’
    â€˜Oh, going by the crusting of the skin and the hydration levels, I can pretty well make an estimate that this person was dead approximately twelve hours before he was burned. I can’t give you anything moreaccurate until I’ve opened him up.’
    Twelve hours before he’d been burned.
    Cam thanked the pathologist and hung up, then started to scribble a time line on the pad in front of him. Ruth Tilly reported the fire at eleven on Sunday morning. The fire brigade arrived at 11.20 and extinguished the fire. They hadn’t noticed the body, situated as it was away from the perimeter of the fire and camouflaged among the burned debris.
    Jo Bowman found the charred body at approximately ten o’clock the following morning, Monday.
    Herbert Bell must have died sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.
    He doodled some curly question marks on the pad, then wrote the name Cliff Donovan. Cliff was captain of the bushfire brigade and town mechanic. Underneath Cliff ’s name he wrote Angelo Arnoldi, then fire assistant, apprentice mechanic.
    Ruby’s boyfriend?
    His chin dropped on to his hand and he drew some large circles around Angelo’s name.
    There was a tap at the door.
    â€˜Hey, Sarge. You looked like you needed a cuppa.’ Leanne peered into the office as if there might be a man-eating lion sitting at his desk.
    â€˜Thanks, put it here.’ Cam cleared a space on his messy desk. The girl put the cup down and turned to leave.
    â€˜Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘Shut the door and come in, take a seat.’
    Leanne glanced back at Vince’s hunched form in the front office.
    â€˜We need to talk about the Bell case,’ Cam said in a voice loud enough for the Senior Constable to hear.
    He unlocked the filing cabinet, riffled through the bulging dividers then thumped a pile of files on his desk. ‘I’ve been going through some old case files, trying to get a feel of the place, pinpointing the trouble spots. There’s not much I wouldn’t expect to find in a country town of this size: stock theft, burglary, property damage, shoplifting – some cases solved, others unsolved.’ He stopped reading and looked at her over the top of his glasses. ‘I’ve also been going through the personnel files, and frankly, I’m not liking everything I read.’
    She shifted in her chair and began to bite at her lower lip.
    â€˜Relax. I’m talking about