Bone Machine Read Online Free Page A

For the last week they had taken priority over everything else.
    Ashley Malcolm. Nineteen. First-year student at the University of Northumbria, studying photography. Disappeared six days
     ago leaving no word, no note, no clues. Like she had just vanished into thin air from a street in Fenham.
    CCTV tapes had been watched and rewatched; witnesses, friends, lecturers and boyfriend had been questioned and requestioned.
     All with no positive outcome. For a time suspicion had fallen on her boyfriend, Michael Nell. Theyhad found him uncooperative and obnoxious, two things that are guaranteed to make the police take a deeper than casual interest
     in a person. Nattrass and Turnbull had obliged, leaning on him somewhat in an effort to ascertain guilt or innocence, find
     his breaking point, but ultimately nothing had come of it. Despite their dislike of him, with no body there was a limit to
     how far they could go.
    And now this.
    ‘So what d’you reckon?’ said Turnbull. ‘Should we assume it’s her? Or wait?’
    ‘What is it they tell us in training courses?’ said Nattrass. ‘Never assume. It makes an “ass” out of “u” and “me”.’
    ‘But those wankers have never had to do this for a livin’.’
    ‘True.’ Nattrass tried to look anywhere but at the cemetery. She failed. ‘Instinct tells me it
is
her. I mean, I hope it’s not but in a way I suppose I hope it is too.’
    Turnbull looked at her, nodded. ‘I know what you mean. If it’s her we can get going. If it’s not … we’ve got a nutter on the
     loose.’
    ‘I think it’s safe to say we’ve got that anyway, Paul.’
    Turnbull stood up. ‘Hope for the best, fear the worst, eh?’
    Nattrass looked around. She had to call it in. Wait for an SIO to be assigned. Contact the General Hospital, arrange for the
     body to be transferred to the mortuary there. Accompany the body along with the pathologist. Maintain the chain of evidence.
    She sighed. What she hoped. What she feared. Rarely the same.
    ‘Always the same, isn’t it, Paul?’ Nattrass said. ‘Hope and fear.’
    She and her team were going to be in for a very long night.

4
    Katya opened her eyes. Looked around. The room was strange, unfamiliar. Seconds went by while she orientated herself, while
     memory caught up with waking. Then realized where she was. And smiled.
    Katya stretched languidly, then curled herself up into a ball. She sighed. Pulled the duvet up over her chin, wrapped it tight
     around her, closed her eyes. Stayed as still as she could. Listened to the silence.
    No one to tell her to get up, shout orders at her, punish her for transgressions she wasn’t aware she had made, abuse her
     because they were bored and she was their property. No one to use her body against her will.
    A proper bed. Not a stinking, lumpen mattress on a bare, cold floor. Rows of shivering, dirty bodies with snot-teared faces.
     Sleep virtually impossible because of the noise, the fights, the casual rapes. Cries of pain and beyond-pain, the stink of
     bodies and hopelessness. A house of human degradation.
    From there she would be taken to the other house. Where men paid to use her body and the creepy landlord watched. The money
     she made snatched from her. Her loan, still repaying. Then into the car, back again. And on. And on.
    She screwed her eyes up tight, tried to banish the images from her mind, make them dissipate like the fog of a nightmare.
     Focus on the present.
    She had just woken from her best night’s sleep in ages.The best waking she had experienced for months. So rested she could have been out for days. She allowed her mind to float,
     unable to remember the last time she had been so relaxed. She luxuriated in her body’s freedom like she would in a warm bubble
     bath. She snuggled down hard, not wanting the comfort to end, not wanting to face the harsh world again. Wanting to stay safe.
    But she knew she would have to get up soon. If for no other reason than her bladder told her