Piece of My Heart by Peter Robinson Read Free Book Online Page B

screwed up the newspaper, then excused himself, got out of the car and put it in the rubbish bin. Next he went into the telephone booth beside the fish and chip shop and dialed home. Janet answered onthe third ring. “Hello, darling,” she said. “Is anything wrong?”
    “No, nothing’s wrong,” said Chadwick. “I was wondering about Yvonne. How is she today?”
    “Back to normal, it seems.”
    “Did she say anything about last night?”
    “No. We didn’t talk. She left for school at the usual time and gave me a quick peck on the cheek on her way out. Look, let’s just leave it at that for the time being, darling, can’t we?”
    “If she’s sleeping with someone, I want to know who it is.”
    “And what good would that do you? What would you do if you knew? Go over and beat him up? Arrest him? Be sensible, Stan. She’ll tell us in her own time.”
    “Or when it’s too late.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Oh, never mind,” said Chadwick. “Look, I have to go. Don’t bother keeping dinner warm tonight. I’ll probably be late.”
    “How late?”
    “I don’t know. Don’t wait up.”
    “What is it?”
    “Murder. A nasty one. You’ll hear all about it on the evening news.”
    “Be careful, Stan.”
    “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
    Chadwick hung up and went back to the car.
    “Everything all right, sir?” Bradley asked, window rolled down, halfway through his post-fish-and-chips cigarette. The car’s interior smelled of lard, vinegar and warm newsprint.
    “Yes,” said Chadwick. “Right now, I think we’d better head back to Brimleigh Glen and see what’s been happening there, don’t you?”
     
    The search team had fastened tape to the four trees that surrounded the little grove deep in Brimleigh Woods, about two hundred yards from where the body had been found. The woods were dense enough that from there you couldn’t see as far as the field, and any noise would certainly have been drowned out by the music.
    The police dog had found the spot easily enough by following the smell of the victim’s blood. officers had also marked off the route the dog had taken and painted little crosses on the trees. Every inch of the path would have to be searched. For the moment, though, Chadwick, Enderby and Bradley stood behind the tape gazing down at the bloodstained ground.
    “This where it happened?” Chadwick asked.
    “So the experts tell me,” said Enderby, pointing to bloodstains on the leaves and undergrowth. “There’s some blood here, consistent with the wounds the victim received.”
    “Wouldn’t the killer have been covered in blood?” Bradley asked.
    “Not necessarily,” said Enderby. “Peculiar things, stab wounds. Certainly with a slashed neck artery or vein, or a head wound, there’s quite a lot of spatter, but with the heart, oddly enough, the edges of the wound close and most of the bleeding is internal; it doesn’t spurt the way many people think it does. There’s quite a bit of seepage, of course–that’s what you’re seeing here and in the sleeping bag–and I doubt he’d have got away with his hands completely clean. After all, it looks as if he stabbed her five or six times and twisted the blade.” He gestured to the edge of the copse. “If you look over there, though, by the stream, you can see that little pile of leaves. They’ve got traces of blood on them, too. I reckon that he tried to wipe it off with the leaves first, then he washed his hands in the running water.”
    “Get it all collected and sent to the lab,” said Chadwick, turning away. He wasn’t usually sentimental about victims, but he couldn’t get the image of the innocent-looking girl in the bloodstained white dress out of his mind, and he couldn’t help but think of his own daughter. “When did the doctor say he’d get around to the post-mortem?”
    “He said he’d try for later this afternoon, sir,” said Enderby.
    “Good.”
    “We’ve interviewed most of the people on