A Pitying of Doves Read Online Free Page B

confines of this small upstairs flat.
    Salter wandered into the bedroom and opened a drawer beside the bed. A pile of erotic lingerie lay in an untidy bundle. Perhaps Tony Holland, with his unerring eye for the possibility, had not been wrong. The thought irritated her, enough that she didn’t bring the items to the attention of either Jejeune or Maik. Both knew what they were doing when they searched a location. One of them would eventually find the lingerie without any help from her.
    For now, Danny was still examining the contents of the kitchen cabinets, but Jejeune’s mercurial attention had already alighted elsewhere; on an academic paper lying on the desk. Beneath the title, the author’s name, David Nyce, had been scratched out and Phoebe Hunter’s name penciled in above it. Jejeune spent some time leafing through the paper, studying the occasional passage closely. He flipped to the bibliography and made a face.
    â€œIf Mr. Nyce did author this paper, he certainly seems to enjoy quoting from his own work.”
    â€œTo anybody who knows him, sir, that would hardly come as a surprise,” said Salter, coming over to join him, “and I think you’ll find it’s Dr. Nyce. I may as well mention it, because he certainly will.”
    â€œYou know him well, Constable?”
    Salter nodded, “Most people around here know David Nyce. He makes it his business to ensure we are all well aware of his genius.”
    â€œThen perhaps we should seek an audience ourselves. Can you set it up, please, Sergeant?”
    Maik’s expression suggested it wasn’t going to be the most pleasant task he faced that day, but he said nothing. His phone rang. He answered it and listened without speaking before hanging up. “Wild Maggie appears to have gone to ground. Her car is missing, too.”
    â€œShe’ll turn up,” said Salter. “I’ll stay on it until she does.”
    â€œThis Margaret Wylde, would you say she’s a strong woman? Physically, I mean?”
    Salter seemed to tense at Jejeune’s question. “I know it would have taken some strength to shove that poor girl back onto that branch, sir, but believe me, I’ve seen Maggie in action. She can get really worked up.” There was a moment’s hesitation. “Sir, if I could just say … well, I know you like to look at all angles, the Latin American thing, for example, but I don’t think we should ignore the obvious here, I mean, you know, Occam’s razor and all that.”
    Maik managed to keep his sigh internal, but only just. Occam’s razor was all over the Internet and the popular media these days, so he had known it was only a matter of time before somebody tried to introduce it into a murder inquiry. Enter Lauren Salter, Saltmarsh Division’s resident expert in trending topics and other related idiocy.
    Occam’s razor! The idea that the simplest explanation was usually the correct one. Common sense, they used to call it in Maik’s day. But, of course, now everything had to have its own marketing label. Maik would have bet a good portion of his meagre sergeant’s salary that Salter knew only the barest details about Occam’s razor — the pop culture, ten-second sound-byte version. But that didn’t change the fact that she had a point. Latin America was a long way to come to end up murdered in a bird cage in north Norfolk. On the other hand, it made sense that Salter would be looking to push Maggie as a suspect. She wanted to punish herself for her failure to protect Phoebe Hunter, and Maik knew only too well how easy it was to rush to judgment in those circumstances. A musical note from the constable’s phone stopped Maik from having to come down on one side or the other on the question of Maggie’s guilt, at least for the moment.
    Salter read the text message herself before wordlessly handing over the phone to Jejeune. The BTO received