Pokrewne

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Chelsea Handler Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang (epub
Brit Brinson [Dia of the Dead Dia of the Dead (epub)
Cody Goodfellow [Radiant Dawn Radiant Dawn (epub)
Cate Tiernan [Immortal Belove Immortal Beloved (epub)
C J Busby [Deep Amber 01] Deep Amber (retail) (epub)
Carl Ashmore [Time Hunters 01 The Time Hunters (epub)
Drew Hayes [Super Powereds 02 Super Powereds Year 2 (epub) i
Beth Harbison [Shoe Addict 02 Secrets of a Shoe Addict (epub)
Cara Lynn Shultz [Dark World The Dark World (retail) (epub)
Clancy Tom Przygody Jacka Rya Czas patriotow

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.The rhododendrons were massive specimens, some of them ten or fifteen feet high.They grew their leaves where the light reached them, so on the back side they presented bare trunks and branches.What looked from the path like dense vegetation was in fact a series of hollow caves.With the thick mulch of bark on the ground, there was nothing to mar the uniformity of dark brown except the odd piece of litter.Blown in by the wind? It didn’t seem likely, inside the shrubbery.Left by kids playing, more like – or by someone hiding, lurking? Slider noted a cigarette packet (B&H), a torn strip of a Walker’s crisps bag, and two wrappers from chocolate bars: one Picnic and one Double Decker.‘We’ll have those,’ he said to Bailey.‘There’ll probably be some cigarette ends, as well.’‘There are,’ Bailey confirmed.‘Quite a lot scattered about.’‘Take them all,’ Slider said.Smokers were so used to throwing away the butt when they’d finished that they did it automatically, either not knowing, or forgetting, that DNA could be recovered from the saliva on them.‘Thank God there’s no such thing as a non-smoking murderer,’ said Atherton.In the heart of all this brown, in a clear space, lay the body.It was a young woman, dressed for jogging in knee-length black Lycra shorts, a sleeveless white shirt, trainers and short white socks.She was slim and fit-looking, with lightly tanned skin, and shortish, tousled blonde hair that gave Slider an unpleasant tug because it reminded him of Joanna’s.It was a shade lighter, though.Joanna’s was more bronze.The sunlight filtering through the leaves touched it here and there and made it gleam like true coin.She was lying on her back, one arm flung out, the other resting beside her body.Her face was very pretty, heart-shaped with a short, straight nose and full lips, parted to show good teeth.Her skin was smooth and lightly tanned, her hands well kept with short, unvarnished nails.She had small gold studs in her ears and a thin gold chain round her neck on which hung a gold disc – a St Christopher, he supposed.Around her waist was a sort of utility belt of elasticated webbing, on which was hung a plastic water-bottle on the right, a CD Walkman on the left, and a small zip purse in the middle.The headset was hanging round her neck, the cord loose, pulled out from the Walkman socket.He noted that the Walkman had been switched off.The warmth of the day was lifting a pleasant, woody smell from the bark chippings and birds were singing near and far off in the park.Broken by the gently moving leaves of a birch tree, sunshine was dappling the ground and the girl.She might have stretched out for a rest to gaze up at the patch of clear blue sky above, except that her T-shirt was spatched and blotted with blood.‘Multiple stab wounds,’ Atherton said, breaking the silence.‘Would that qualify as a “frenzied attack”?’ It was what police reports and the media always called it, a cliché there seemed no escaping.Atherton used it consciously, knowing Slider hated it.The bark was scuffed in the immediate area, though not as much as Slider would have expected it to be.He hunkered down close to the victim, and now he could smell the clean odours of her shampoo and body lotion, and under them the reek of blood.There were defence cuts on her forearms and the palms of her hands, the blood resting in them, hardly smeared at all.There was definitely blood on the bark immediately around and under the body, but it was impossible to see how much, or to discern any spread patterns.‘Is there blood anywhere else?’ he asked Bailey.‘We haven’t found any so far, but it’s impossible to be sure without close examination,’ Bailey said.‘All I can say is that it looks as though all the action happened in this spot.’Atherton, looking over Slider’s shoulder, said, ‘What’s that grey mark on the T-shirt? Sort of greyish-brown, a smudge?’‘I think it’s a footmark – or a toemark, at least,’ Slider said.‘He turned her over with his foot.She was lying face down and he turned her over.It’s the sort of dirty mark that could be left by a shoe.’‘I suppose he wanted to check she was dead.’‘We might possibly get a partial sole pattern from it,’ Slider said.‘Yes, sir,’ said Bailey.‘We have photographed it.’Slider stood up and looked back towards the north side of the shrubbery.‘I don’t understand why he dragged her in that way.Much easier the way we came in.’On both his previous outings, the Park Killer had dragged his victim under cover, once into a shrubbery and once into a rose garden, stabbed her to death, and escaped the scene without anyone’s seeing or hearing anything.Speed had to have been of the essence.Probably that was why he had not robbed or molested either of his victims.It was getting away with murder that interested him, it seemed.Atherton considered.‘The bushes give better cover on that side.If he’d lurked on the more open side, someone might have seen him.’‘I suppose,’ Slider said.He looked around to fix the scene in his mind, and then again down at the body [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]