The Eighth Witch by Maynard Sims Read Free Book Online

time…but when I got closer and saw the state of him… He looked as if he’d been in an RTA, and, at first, I thought that was what had happened to him. I figured he may have been hit by a car and staggered down to the canal bank. His clothes had almost been ripped from his back and he was cut and bruised to hell. It was only when I saw the bite marks that I began to question my earlier assessment.”
    “Bite marks?” Carter said.
    Ellis nodded. “Covered in them. His arms, legs, torso. It looked as if he’d been savaged by a pack of wild animals.”
    “What kind of bite marks?”
    “Nothing like I’ve ever seen before. They certainly weren’t dogs. I used to breed Staffordshire bull terriers, so I know. Been bitten a few times myself, and dog bites have a very distinctive pattern. The canines leave pretty deep wounds. But these bites weren’t like that. They were even, as if all the teeth were more or less the same length. They were what I imagine a human bite would look like…if our mouths were about three times the size they are, with three times as many teeth. Weird-looking things. And the other thing was that there were no tracks.”
    “Tracks?” Carter said.
    “Around the professor. There were his footprints, of course, but no one else’s, and certainly no animal tracks. The ground was wet from the rain earlier last night, so someone or something would have left marks, but it was as if he was totally alone on the towpath when the attack happened, and that’s just not possible. As I say, weird.”
    The lift arrived at the second floor and they stepped out as the doors slid open onto a long, cream-painted corridor.
    “All the private rooms are up here. Norton’s in the one at the end.”
    As they looked along, the door to Norton’s room opened and a young Indian doctor in a white coat stepped out, followed by two men, both dressed in overcoats.
    “That’s them,” Ellis said. “West Yorkshire Constabulary’s finest. Detective Inspector Ian Lacey and Detective Sergeant Matthew Sparks. Together they make quite a team. One hell of a clean-up rate between them.”
    As the three of them approached, Lacey turned and stared at them. “Who’ve you got there, Ellis? I told you to keep people away. It’s not a bloody floor show.”
    “Witnesses, sir,” Ellis said.
    A frown crossed Lacey’s brow, but he beckoned them forwards with a quick motion of his hand. He was a big man in his late forties, scruffily dressed, with prematurely gray hair and a complexion that made him look the outdoor type—wind-hewn and rugged. Sparks on the other hand looked like he rarely ventured out of the office. His skin was pale, almost white, and his fair hair was precision cut and very neat. The suit he wore carried a designer label and his black shoes were polished to a mirror finish.
    As she approached, Annie held out her hand. “Annie Ryder,” she said. “I teach at Claremont.”
    “And you say you saw the attack on Professor Norton last night?” Lacey said.
    “No.”
    Lacey glared at Ellis. “You said they were witnesses,” he said.
    “Professor Norton was on his way home from Ms. Ryder’s house when he was attacked, sir,” Ellis said quickly, feeling Lacey’s laser-gaze boring into him.
    “I knew that,” Lacey snapped. “I spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Chapman earlier. They told me the self-same thing. And as I understand it…” he said, turning his attention to Annie, “…it was them and not you who were the last people to see him before the attack.”
    “Yes, that’s right,” Annie said.
    “Then why are you here? And why did you tell the constable you were witnesses?”
    “We didn’t,” Annie said, suddenly flustered by the inspector’s accusatory tone.
    Carter watched the exchange with a wry smile playing on his lips. He’d come across policemen like Lacey before, who used brimstone and bluster to disguise the fact that there was a razor-sharp mind working underneath the façade. It was there in