On Laughton Moor Read Online Free Page A

again as the assembled officers got to their feet, eager to get home. Bishop remained seated for a moment, rubbing her aching temples with her fingertips, then stood and joined the crowd pushing to leave the room. She moved forward, stumbling a little as her foot caught the heel of the person in front of her.
      ‘I’m sorry.’ she said automatically.
    The woman she’d stepped on bent to adjust her shoe, straightened up and turned with a smile. Bishop gazed for a second into dancing blue eyes before the woman said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’  She disappeared into the crowd.
     
      Knight was waiting for Bishop in the corridor, standing apart from the stream of officers now jostling their way towards the exit doors.
    ‘Not much to go on so far.’ he said ‘Are you okay? About the photo, I mean?’ he clarified quickly. She smiled.
    ‘Yes thanks, sir. I’ll admit, it shook me up at first, but I’m fine, honestly. What do you think about it? The DCI didn’t make much of it in there.’ She nodded towards the room they had just left.
    ‘I don’t really know what to think.’ Knight admitted. ‘It might mean nothing, just a joke or a mistake, the wrong photo printed and Pollard shoved in his pocked meaning to put it in the bin later.’
    Bishop frowned. ‘But why would you take a photo of a police station in the first place? It’s not as if it’s some sort of historical building, or even a pretty one – it’s horrible, just loads of bricks, concrete and glass.’
    ‘True, and it’s not as if it was taken on a night out, a load of drunken mates posing in the street. This was taken during the day and when we were working – you’re proof of that.’
    ‘It’s just strange, like the DCI said.’
    ‘I think we’ll just leave the photo out of the investigation for now, though the usual tests for fingerprints and so on will be run on the original.’
    ‘Do you think there’s more to it than Pollard chatting up some bloke’s girlfriend, and the bloke smacking Pollard one later then? The DCI didn’t seem to think so.’
    Knight thought, but didn’t say, that Kendrick didn’t want to consider the possibility just yet, that it potentially made the situation much more complicated.

 
     
    5
     
     
     
     
    Knight sat back on his sofa with a plate that had contained fish, chips and mushy peas on his lap. He didn’t think he had many vices, but fish and chips were one of them. He closed his eyes, relaxing for possibly the first time since Craig Pollard’s body had been found. It was a strange case.  Initially, it had seemed fairly straightforward, but the lack of leads and witnesses, not to mention the absence of the weapon used to kill Pollard bothered Knight. Then there was the photograph. He closed his eyes, wondering what it could mean then started, almost losing the plate from his lap as his mobile phone began to ring. He snatched it up from the cushion beside him. The display told him the caller was Catherine Bishop.
    ‘Sir? Are you there?’
    Bishop sounded strange, panicked almost.
       ‘Catherine?’
      ‘I’m sorry to call you but I’ve got a problem, I think it’s related to the Pollard case.’
      ‘What do you mean? I thought you were on your way home?’
      ‘I am at home. The thing is, I think someone else has been here too, well I know they have. They’ve posted me a photo.’
    ‘A photo? Of what?’
    ‘It’s me in my living room, taken through the window, and another picture that I haven’t completely figured out yet.’
    Knight got to his feet, hurriedly setting the plate on the floor.
    ‘What’s your address?’
     
     
    Fifteen minutes later, Knight stood in Catherine Bishop’s kitchen. She lived in a semi detached house on a new estate. At the back of the property, patio doors led into a small garden; that was the window the photo had been taken through. The picture lay on the pine table, DS Bishop clearly visible, relaxing on her sofa with a paperback