Life Sentence Read Online Free Page A

quite dead. And it’s suddenly become urgent.’
    Through the haze of fatigue she heard words that intrigued her. She straightened. To her intense irritation, Mark stopped, and got up to switch on his kettle.
    ‘Unless you’d rather have a blast of coffee?’ His hand moved from his tea caddy to hover over his percolator. ‘No? Green? Excellent.’ While he waited for the kettleto boil, he reached across to an ivy geranium on his windowsill and removed a dead leaf, dropping it in the waste bin. To her amazement he bent to retrieve it, putting it in another bin. ‘I mustn’t mess up the recycling, must I? Here – is that strong enough? Good.’ Sitting at his desk again, he burrowed in his desk, producing a tin of expensive organic biscuits.
    Was this what being a widower had done to him, reduced him to this sort of old-maidish domesticity? Or was the term not ‘reduce’ but ‘elevate’?
    She smiled and took a biscuit. It was very good. Ah, the rush of sugar!
    He patted a thick file. ‘You can see a lot of effort’s already been put into this. But not enough – you’ll see that we’re no nearer to solving it than on the day it happened.’
    ‘Who was the victim?’
    ‘A middle-aged woman. Found in the undergrowth just off a lay-by on the B2067, northbound. Nearly two years ago.’
    ‘Two years? Well, it’s the old twenty-four hour syndrome, I suppose. If you don’t start getting results straight away, it may take months to get them.’
    ‘Quite. And often matters are allowed to drift, and it’s just another unsolved crime and you hope you can pin it on some con already doing time for something else.’
    ‘So what’s different about this one?’
    He laughed. ‘Is it the tea, the biscuit – here, haveanother – or the challenge? You already look a different woman.’ He took a sip of his tea. He might use mugs but they were bone china, as good as she used at home. ‘What’s different about this one is that the charge may soon change from assault and aggravated rape to murder.’
    ‘
May
change?’
    ‘The victim – we only know her first name, which is Elise – is in what they call a persistent vegetative state. PVS. The medics have been treating her all this time, and now they want to pull the plug on her.’
    Her voice was sharp. ‘Is that for medical or budgetary reasons?’
    He raised a placatory hand. ‘Simply humanity, from what I gather. The courts are involved. Elise will be allocated a lawyer whose job it is to fight for her life, such as it is, while the hospital authorities will argue that withdrawing food will permit Elise to die naturally – which technically, apart from the fact her heart’s still beating, she’s already done. Did at the time of the assault.’
    A little silence fell.
    Fran broke it. ‘Why me?’
    ‘Because I want to assure the court that we’ve done all we possibly can. By putting you in charge, with your reputation, not to mention your rank, I’m demonstrating that. Of all the officers at my disposal, you’re the best for the job. But because the case is pretty nearly cold, some of the urgency has gone out of it. After all, to put it brutally, Elise isn’t going anywhere, and the courts takeforever in these cases anyway. So if you need to dash down to Devon at short notice, you needn’t feel so guilty. You won’t be inconveniencing two teams – and let’s face it, no matter how well you cover, currently your work has to be delegated to people who aren’t paid to do it. It might look good on their CVs if it’s official, but if it’s a favour for you, it wouldn’t get on their CV.’
    ‘I take your point. You’ve been very patient so far,’ she added, wishing she could fire up and deny the implicit accusation.
    ‘Not me. Your teams. And they’ve been as loyal as you could wish. But at least now some of them will get promotions, albeit temporary, until your future is settled. One way or another.’
    ‘I’ve got to do it, Mark.’ She realised