Dying Bad Read Online Free

yours, Dave?’ The query was casual, she was concentrating on possible exit and entry routes, clocking hidden cameras.
    â€˜I see you and—’ he was hamming it up, fingers massaging temples – ‘a tall dark guy who’s dead fit and going places. Initials are DH.’
    She twitched a lip
. Yeah right.
That’s definitely what she called wishful thinking.

THREE
    I t was far too good to be true. A cursory glance, even from a distance, had told Sarah the victim wasn’t Jas Ram. The body was too short, too fat, and what little flesh was exposed, too white. Besides, knowing Ram, he wouldn’t be seen dead in cheap shoes and an ill-fitting shiny black suit.
    After liaising briefly with the crime scene manager and the first attending officers, the DI now hunkered down by the body; the pathologist Richard Patten squatted across from her. Space was limited and cross-contamination the last thing they needed. Harries was down the road picking the duty inspector’s brain.
    Sarah cast a curious glance over her shoulder. ‘How come you thought he was Asian, Phil?’
    The ruined face could’ve been any ethnicity, but a trouser leg had ridden up and the few inches of skin on show was definitely pale. The black shirt had a Nehru collar but sartorial preference hardly counted as a pointer to race.
    â€˜My mistake, ma’am.’ Helmet under arm, PC Ryan stood the other side of the tape studying a pair of hastily borrowed Doc Martens. His own boots, bagged and tagged, were with forensics. Not many cops come across a body by chance. Phil Ryan had been on foot patrol and virtually tripped over the bloody thing. His partner, Linda Fellows had been tasked with keeping the attendance log and was currently working the street, recording anything with a pulse.
    Not something troubling Mr Shiny Suit.
    â€˜I’m sorry, like.’ Beads of sweat glistened over Ryan’s top lip. Surely, he wasn’t hot? Every time anyone opened their mouth, Sarah thought a new pope had been elected. ‘It was a lot darker then, ma’am, couldn’t really see much of anything.’
    So, why speculate?
She let it go. The guy might as well have ‘newbie’ tattooed on his forehead. At least he was upfront about the slip and probably still freaked out from the shock. Once he got over it, he’d likely dine out on the story. From what she’d gleaned so far, everything else had been done by the book. Which the experienced uniformed inspector who’d turned out could have written: an outer perimeter had been established, the inner forensic corridor laid and the crime scene secured. The actions were built into a cop’s DNA: if it was too late to save a life, top priority was preserving the evidence.
    That the victim was a goner was as plain as the nose . . . Sarah sniffed. It wasn’t the best analogy, given the state of his face. Death had been formally pronounced by the divisional surgeon before Sarah arrived. A doctor had to declare life extinct even when a body had no head, let alone heartbeat. At least the medico hadn’t hung around, the fewer live bodies trampling the scene the better.
    Uniformed officers posted at both ends of the street were keeping out any passing punters. Chambers Row was neither rat run, nor pedestrian cut through, but police activity was like a magnet. Sarah had encountered grandstanders at previous crime scenes totally convinced a cop show was being shot. Mind, these days, savvy types hefted their own cameras with an eye to flogging the footage. That’s if the media weren’t already out in force. Which, a quick scout round confirmed, they still weren’t.
    She had to shield her eyes for a few seconds when the auxiliary lighting kicked in. They’d been making do with torches and strategically-directed full beams from a cop car. Enough light had been cast to see the victim was Caucasian, middle-aged and, as far as Sarah could tell,