The Verge Practice Read Online Free Page B

of Latin American countries.
    Brock couldn’t fault the investigation, assuming the initial assumptions were correct, and there seemed nothing to suggest otherwise. The only thing that niggled was a certain vagueness about the forensic evidence, an absence of information, which Brock found unusual. The handle of the murder weapon had revealed no fingerprints or DNA traces of the assailant; the victim’s body showed no signs of injury apart from the fatal wound; the bedding on which she lay had been recently changed, and offered no forensic data; and neither did a single driving glove, found on the floor of Verge’s car. It was almost as if the murder setting had been sterilised, wiped of drama and significance.
    He sighed, poured himself a glass of wine and opened the file containing a summary of each of the 1863 reported sightings of Verge from around the world which had been officially logged up to and including the previous Sunday, quite apart from the thousands more that had been recorded on the various Verge websites that had sprung up.
    He was interrupted by the phone ringing at his elbow.
    ‘I thought we were going to meet this weekend.’
    Brock recognised Suzanne’s voice, sounding slightly peeved.
    ‘Yes, I’m sorry. I was about to phone. Something came up yesterday, and now I’m up to my ears in files. I don’t think I’m going to make it.’
    ‘Oh dear. A new case?’ Her voice softened, prepared to be mollified.
    ‘An old one, but they’ve decided it needs a fresh look, and they’ve dumped it on me.’
    ‘It must be important. It’s not the Verge case, is it?’
    Brock was astonished. ‘Well . . . yes, it is actually.’
    ‘Oh David, that’s fantastic! And you’re in charge of it now?’
    ‘Well, yes . . .’
    ‘Just wait till I tell the kids. They’ll be thrilled. Stewart thinks he got away in a submarine, and Miranda’s sure she’s seen him in our shop. Of course, they both think you should have been on it from the start.’ Then a thought struck her. ‘But you don’t mean to say you’ve been down here without telling us?’
    ‘No . . . Why?’
    ‘Well, to see the place where he disappeared. Bexhill.
    The kids are sure he would have come through Battle on his way down to the coast.’
    Brock hadn’t really registered the fact that Verge’s jumping point had been quite close to where Suzanne lived with her two grandchildren. ‘No, I hadn’t got that far yet.’
    ‘Well obviously you must. We’ve been down there to look for clues. We can show you exactly where the car was found. Stewart found an icecream wrapper that he thought should have been dusted for prints, but our local nick weren’t much interested. No doubt he’ll give it to you. And we worked out how Verge could have got to the Channel ports from there, that is if he wasn’t picked up by a passing submarine.’
    ‘You seem to know a lot about this.’
    She laughed. ‘Of course we do! David, this is the biggest thing since Princess Di. The beautiful couple, the crime of passion, the disappearance. We follow every move. Stewart’s got a map of the world on his bedroom wall with pins stuck in for each sighting reported in the papers.’
    More than I’ve got, Brock thought.
    ‘Anyway, you’ll have to come down. Why not make it tomorrow? The forecast is fine. We can have a picnic on the very spot.’
    Brock looked around at the papers piled around his feet and said, ‘You know, I think that’s an excellent idea. I’ll be there by noon, and you can give me a briefing.’
    And so the following day Brock found himself sitting on a tartan travelling rug laid out on the patch of beach just below where Charles Verge’s car had been abandoned, holding a chicken drumstick in one hand and in the other the bulging scrapbook which Stewart and Miranda had compiled of the crime. He found their information a good deal more readable than the police files, especially concerning the principal characters. There was an amazing