Salton Killings Read Online Free Page A

lot.”
    â€œThe dead girl was fifteen, sir,” Rutter began crisply. “She was in her last year at the local secondary mod., had only a few weeks to go.”
    He leaned across and handed Woodend a photograph. It was the same one that had been in the
Sketch
, except that in the newspaper they had shown only her face, cutting out the rest of her body and the people standing next to her.
    Diane was standing on the beach at Blackpool – he could see the Tower behind her and a donkey just to her left – with one parent on either side. She was wearing a swimsuit that seemed to Woodend to be rather too old-fashioned, too all-enveloping, for such a young girl. Her blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders. She looked pretty, he thought, but then most of them did at that age.
    She wasn’t smiling, and she wasn’t looking at the camera. Instead, her attention was concentrated on her father. What did her expression remind him of? Woodend closed his eyes and tried to conjure up the image.
    That was it! He’d been with the allied army on the push into Germany, a sergeant by that time. His section had been one of the first to reach Belsen. The emaciated faces of the prisoners had been distressing, but it had been the eyes that had really got him – haunted and hunted. Diane Thorburn had eyes like that.
    Her father’s hand was resting on her shoulder. Woodend knew he couldn’t possibly see it in a black and white photograph, yet he
felt
that the hand was not really resting at all. Instead, it was restraining, squeezing the life out of the poor kid.
    â€œI think she was a very unhappy child,” he said.
    â€œProbably, sir,” Rutter replied, as though he thought that while it might not be a stupid remark, it was at best a pointless one.
    â€œYou think the state of her happiness is irrelevant, don’t you?” Woodend demanded.
    â€œWell, yes. I mean it’s not as if she chose to be killed and . . .”
    â€œShe may not have chosen it,” Woodend said, “but she could have invited it. I’m not sayin’ somebody killed her as a favour, to put her out of her misery, but I’ve come across stranger motives. They might not make sense to you, but I’ve never arrested a murderer yet who didn’t think he had a perfectly logical reason for doin’ what he’d done. If you’re goin’ to work with me, you’ll have to learn – and learn quickly – that in a murder inquiry we have to take
everythin
’ into consideration.”
    He could see that he had not got through to Rutter. He was tired of breaking in new sergeants, but if this one was going to be of any use to him, he supposed he’d better try.
    â€œDo you know that in some countries they still use Sherlock Holmes books as police trainin’ manuals?” he asked.
    â€œNo, sir,” Rutter replied, puzzled.
    â€œAn’ it’s not a bad idea,” Woodend continued. “There’s a lot in Conan Doyle – observation, deduction, analysis – but that’s only half the picture.” He reached into his other voluminous pocket, the one that had not held the sandwich, and pulled out a book. “They should use this an’ all.”
    â€œ
Great Expectations
?” Rutter read, his perplexity deepening. “Dickens?”
    â€œOh, not just
Great Expectations
,” Woodend said. “Not even just Dickens, though for my money he’s the best of the lot. Have you read the book?”
    â€œWe studied it in school, sir.”
    â€œYou still remember the story, do you?”
    â€œMore or less.”
    â€œRight,” Woodend continued. “Imagine you were dropped in the middle of the book an’ asked to conduct an investigation. You’d be lost. Why should Pip, a workin’-class lad, have turned his back on his own folks? How could Estella, a beautiful young woman, be so cold an’ emotionless?” He chuckled.