Winding Up the Serpent by Priscilla Masters Read Free Book Online Page A

death certificate.’
    â€˜Dr Levin?’ she asked.
    â€˜That’s the one I was thinking of,’ Sammy said, failing to notice her tentative tone, the faint flush. ‘Get Mat Levin to do the PM.’ He grinned reassuringly at her. ‘He’ll find something, I’m sure. Maybe drugs. I don’t know. All I can tell you is this. She died here, without a struggle, on the bed, late last night.’
    Joanna noticed Mike give a distinct smirk. ‘And you can’t suggest a cause of death?’
    Sammy Bose shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘She was a slightly plump, otherwise healthy woman who died. That’s all.’
    But that was not all. And now, she thought, Matthew was to be involved – again. She gave a deep sigh and suddenly she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the thought that she would soon be seeing him again.
    Sammy Bose cleared his throat. ‘If it’s any help, Inspector,’ he said, ‘I think she probably died of natural causes. In fact the only thing I’m unhappy about ...’ he frowned, ‘is the obvious – it’s the clothes. If it wasn’t for those ... My God,’ he said suddenly. ‘It’s a nasty thought – perhaps masturbation ... I don’t know. Maybe excitement brought on ... Maybe you’re right. Maybe her heart or her brain – possibly a subarachnoid haemorrhage. Sometimes the first you know of a weakness can be when the blood vessel bursts.’
    He glanced at the bottle of champagne. ‘And that doesn’t help.’
    â€˜Do you know her next of kin?’
    He frowned. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t think I ever heard her mention family. I don’t think there was one.’
    Joanna turned to Mike. ‘We’d better get on with the PM before contacting the relatives.’ Then, to Sammy Bose, ‘OK to remove the body?’
    He nodded. ‘Fine. And you know what pathologists are like – the sooner the better. Fresh meat,’ he said cheerfully.
    â€˜Right,’ she said briskly to Mike, ‘we can move the body but we’d better get the SOCOs over here. I want this place searched.’

Chapter 5
    For how long had the house been a prison? She put out her hand to touch the glass. Grey and cold, lifeless. An invisible barrier that held her inside these walls. She looked around the room, suddenly finding it unbearably large and open, and then back at the glass. The outside world seemed bright, a Disney view, intrusive. Angrily she pulled the curtains across with a snap. How dare it sit outside and stare in at her quiet privacy? She moved away from the window, backed towards the door and through into the hall. She liked it here, in her prison. It was cool and dull, and safe. The sun never came through. Some days she would sit at the foot of the stairs, clasping her knees with her hands. Then she would dream of Stevie. She smiled and hugged herself. ‘Stevie,’ she whispered. ‘Stevie.’ Suddenly she longed to touch all the familiar things, look out at the world through the bars of his cot, play with the soft, fluffy toys and hear the quiet tinkle of the musical box.
    These were Pamella’s anchors on normality ... chairs and tables, old pictures and books... soft toys.
    Joanna was sitting in the car with Mike Korpanski. In one hand she held a notebook, in the other a sharpened pencil.
    â€˜The place to start is the surgery,’ she said. ‘We can move from there to next of kin ... friends ... Perhaps from there we can find out – ill health, suicide intent ...’ She glanced at him.
    â€˜Murder,’ he mocked.
    â€˜We can’t rule it out,’ she said. ‘And someone was with her last night.’
    He shook his head. ‘We don’t know that, ma’am.’
    Joanna leaned forward and started the engine. ‘We don’t know it,’ she said, ‘but I certainly suspect