Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)

grudge against George. Clearly she stood to gain financially from his death. If Amy had harboured a grievance against her husband’s business partner strong enough to account for her mutilating him as he lay dying, then the whole case would start to make sense. They had obviously been in contact through Patrick, and there were any number of ways in which they could have fallen out. But this was all speculation.

     
    Geraldine grabbed a coffee from the canteen before she made her way to her office, planning her day as she strode along the corridor. All she wanted to do was sit quietly and mull over what she knew, but as she opened the door to the office, she saw Nick apparently having a clear out. His desk was covered with papers that had spread out across the floor. Files were stacked beside Geraldine’s desk. There was even a small pile on her chair. He turned and beamed at her, the hair sticking up on top of his head no longer striking her as comical, but intensely irritating.
    ‘Good morning.’
    The cheerful greeting grated on her foul mood.
    ‘Most people would have asked before putting stuff on my chair,’ she snapped.

     
    Nick looked surprised. He half opened his mouth as though about to reply, then turned away.
    ‘You weren’t here,’ he said, his tone frosty.
    Geraldine looked pointedly at her watch.
    ‘It’s not even nine. I’m hardly late. It would have been courteous to wait until I arrived before spreading your papers around.’
    ‘This is because of DS Haley, gossiping behind my back, isn’t it?’ he demanded unexpectedly.
    His face had tautened with repressed fury, but his voice was steady.
    ‘Sam Haley. She’s been spreading stories about me, hasn’t she? What has she been saying?’ He scowled. ‘I never should have let it go, that first time, when she gave me a roasting for a careless remark. Ever since then she’s been nothing but trouble.’

     
    Geraldine was suddenly sick of the whole place. As if the stress and pressure of a murder investigation wasn’t bad enough, she now had to share an office with an irate colleague who was making an increasingly poor job of concealing his hostility towards her sergeant. It didn’t help to know that Nick’s grumbling was a knee-jerk response to her own bad temper. Much as she valued her job, she sometimes felt there must be more to life than the pursuit of those who ended it for others. But she knew she could never do anything else.

CHAPTER 41
     
    G eraldine had been in the job far too long to be surprised by anything that came up, so she didn’t question being called to the scene when a body was pulled out of the canal near Highbury. It wasn’t immediately apparent how this victim was related to her current murder investigation. As she drove to the canal she couldn’t help worrying that the body was that of a dark-haired woman whose DNA matched that found on Patrick. Her concern was irrational; there was no reason why the body in the river should be the witness they were seeking.

     
    They needed to find the unknown witness urgently. Without an opportunity to question her, they might never work out Patrick’s movements on the day he was killed. If that was the case, the identity of his killer might forever remain a mystery. They had all been quietly hopeful that questioning the woman who had been with Patrick on the day he died would help them to work out what had happened. But although the DNA sample gave them a profile, it remained worthless without a viable match.

     
    It was barely light when Geraldine reached the canal, and early enough to be cold. She thrust her hands into the pockets of her thin grey jacket, pulling it more tightly around her as she walked along the deserted canal path. A fine mist lay on the waste ground alongside the water, lending the scene an eerie atmosphere which was intensified by the forensic tent looming ahead, a vast apparition dimly visible through the haze. As she approached, the silence was disturbed by a muted murmur of voices punctuated by an occasional shout.
    ‘Over here!’
    ‘Get a move on with that tape!’
    ‘Watch out!’

     
    In keeping with the surreal quality of the scene, a tall dark figure materialised as abruptly as if he had stepped out from the wings of a stage. Already the sun was beginning to shine weakly through clouds, burning off the mist. Geraldine held up her warrant card, and the uniformed officer blocking her path stepped aside with a barely perceptible