Black Daffodil (Trevor Joseph Detective series) Read Online Free Page A

back in the chair. ‘Robbins broke down the chemical composition of the pills we found on Hodges. It’s our worst nightmare. A synthetic drug that can be created for pence by any teenage chemistry student who has the formula. And all he’d have to do to assemble the ingredients is take a trip to the local supermarket. Every one of them can be found in proprietary brands of cleaning agents.’
    ‘You think Alec Hodges made it and gave it to Jake Phillips?’
    ‘No. Both had been injected in the back of their knees with a fluid in which pills had been dissolved. There were bruises on their backs and residue was found on their skin. Blood tests revealed dangerously high doses in both their bodies. We have to consider the possibility that whoever administered the drug was trying to kill one or both of them.’
    ‘They could have injected one another.’
    ‘It’s possible but if they were willing, why the bruises? Why not just take the pills?’
    ‘Greater and more instant effect,’ Trevor closed the report. ‘If one of them was the manufacturer …’
    ‘They are film, not science, students.’
    ‘Alec Hodges has been questioned?’ Trevor checked.
    ‘He was out of it when he was taken into the psychiatric ward, and he’s still out of it. The doctors came up with the usual, ‘the patient is too ill to be interviewed crap’ for three days. Never mind that this is a potential murder case and a particularly nasty one that could have repercussions for the community. No one was allowed to go near our man until we got a court order the day before yesterday, and even then there were problems with the hospital authorities. It doesn’t help that Daddy Hodges is a judge who knows how to work the system.’
    ‘Did Alec Hodges say anything useful?’ Trevor asked.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Is he permanently damaged?’
    ‘When he first came round, he was hyper. The doctors sedated him. According to his consultant and the officers who have tried to interview him he hasn’t said one sensible word since. Scans indicate his brain cells are turning to soup.’
    ‘Is the damage permanent?’
    ‘Professor Robbins studied Alec Hodges’ medical notes. In his opinion the damage is irreversible. But, until yesterday, Hodges was the only one we knew of who had taken the drug so we had no one to compare him with.’
    Trevor dropped the report into his in-tray. ‘What happened yesterday?’
    ‘Disturbance in a tower block flat on a no-go Welsh council estate a few miles from that penthouse on the Bay, and at the opposite end of the economic spectrum. Three dead and four in the same state and on the same psychiatric ward as Alec Hodges. No sign of force being used on any of them. Evidence points to the dead injecting themselves.’ Bill pulled a sheet of paper from the front of the file marked Classified . ‘Pills were found on one of them and blood tests on all seven confirm the same cocktail as Hodges and Phillips, but the pills were of a higher concentration than the ones found in Hodges’ pocket.’
    ‘Did the victims die from the effect of the drug?’
    ‘One jumped from an eighth-floor window, shouting he could fly. Another was knifed in the heart. The third – who we think did the knifing – drank two pints of bleach.’
    ‘Any idea where they acquired the pills?’ Trevor asked.
    ‘No survivor’s in a fit state to give any useful information. But it has to be more than a coincidence that the drug has travelled from a millionaire’s penthouse down to the nearest council estate in a few days.’
    ‘What about the other people who were at the party in the penthouse with Phillips and Hodges? Someone must have seen something.’
    ‘You’d think so. But everyone the locals interviewed appear to have been blind and deaf, or engrossed in an orgy in one of the bedrooms.’
    ‘They must have friends, acquaintances. Anyone hazard a guess as to where Alec got hold of the junk you found in his pocket?’
    ‘Alec Hodges and Jake