The Unquiet Grave by Steven Dunne Read Free Book Online Page A

frozen hands struggling to obey. Then he walked a few paces back towards the house to check Higginbottom had found his way. Keith Pullin, an emergency worker wearing a bright orange bib, was coming in the opposite direction.
    ‘Got a spare, John?’ he asked, sidling over to Noble.
    Noble inhaled and looked at him, wondering whether to unfurl the banter he’d imagined with Brook a moment ago. Instead he shook out a cigarette and soon Pullin was blowing his own smoke rings into the damp night air.
    ‘Lucky break, eh?’ said Pullin. Noble raised an inquiring eyebrow. Pullin nodded over to the response car where two uniformed constables, Jacques and Penrose, had finally cajoled their near-comatose handcuffed prisoner into the back seat of the squad car. ‘Beavis and Butthead putting the collar on Rasputin over there,’ he added by way of explanation. ‘They found the boy’s underpants on the mattress where the perv was sleeping. Torn to shreds.’
    ‘Torn or cut?’ asked Noble.
    ‘Does it matter?’
    Noble pulled a face at Pullin. He could almost hear Brook pontificating. Everything matters until it doesn’t, John .‘It matters.’
    ‘Well, I wouldn’t put it in the report before the lab gets them but I’d say they were cut off,’ conceded Pullin.
    ‘And did you find a blade?’
    ‘Not yet,’ replied Pullin.
    Noble set off for the patrol car to talk to Jacques and Penrose. When the two PCs had closed the door on the wild-haired vagrant, he’d promptly lost consciousness, his head lolling against the steaming window, oblivious to his surroundings. Neither officer made to get in the front of the car, instead walking towards Noble, eyeing his cigarette.
    ‘He say anything?’
    ‘Nothing intelligible, Sarge,’ said Penrose. ‘He’s out of it.’
    ‘There was gauze and blackened bottles all over his doss,’ continued Penrose. ‘Needles too.’
    ‘Not surprising,’ added Jacques. ‘They’ll take whatever they can get their hands on, this lot.’
    ‘Don’t generalise,’ said Noble to the surprise of all three of them. ‘We don’t know for sure it’s his gear,’ he added in an attempt to mollify.
    ‘Well, he stinks of paraffin too,’ added Penrose, somewhat miffed to have his street smarts questioned.
    ‘And we couldn’t see any mixers,’ chipped in Jacques, sniggering.
    ‘At least it covers the stench of shit coming off him.’ Penrose and Jacques now sniggered in harmony.
    Beavis and Butthead was right .‘What about a knife or a blade?’ asked Noble. ‘Is he carrying?’
    ‘Don’t think so, Sarge.’
    ‘Should we wait for the van?’ asked Penrose.
    Noble’s eyebrow headed north. ‘Why? You put a sheet down, didn’t you?’
    ‘Yeah, but he stinks like a fresh cowpat,’ complained Jacques.
    ‘Then get him to the station sharpish and get a tech to process him. We want clothes, fingernails, DNA, the lot. And assuming he’s not carrying a passport and credit cards, get him printed so we can get an ID. Do you two know the routine or do I need to write it down for you?’
    ‘Yes, Sarge,’ said the pair in unison, dragging themselves back to their vehicle like naughty schoolboys.
    ‘And do a thorough search for a blade,’ Noble shouted after them.
    A yell from the house and Pullin waved an evidence bag at Noble. Before the squad car could leave, Noble held up a hand to prevent departure. ‘Hang on.’ He jogged back to the gutted building.
    ‘They found the boy’s trainers under a coat in an old shopping trolley,’ said Pullin. ‘Same room as Rasputin’s mattress,’ he added significantly.
    Noble took possession and darted back to the squad car. ‘Open the back door,’ he said to Penrose. When the locks clicked, Noble opened the door and, kneeling, leaned into the vehicle, to hold the trainers against the vagrant’s feet. Noble puckered up his nose at the smell coming off the virtually rotted boots on the suspect’s left foot. He could even see the blackened flesh of a