Page 4 of Dying Breath
Lucy had to bite her tongue. A murder investigation should take precedence over a bloody management meeting. But who was she to dictate to the powers that be? She was just a pawn in the whole bloody mess. He left her to it.
‘Right. Col, do we have a positive ID on the victim?’
Colin stood up and passed her a printout of an intelligence report. There was a large picture of the dead woman staring defiantly back at her from her custody record.
‘That’s Melanie Benson, forty-five years old. She has previous: drunk and disorderly, a couple of thefts from Debenhams, mainly small stuff. Nothing major and she hasn’t come to our attention in the last four years. She has a son, Andrew Benson, who was taken into care when he was six. According to her last Facebook update, she had been to visit him and take Christmas presents for her grandkids.’
‘Does he live locally?’
‘No, Manchester.’
‘At least we have a next of kin for her. Someone phone GMP and ask them to assign a family liaison officer once they’ve delivered the death message, and give them my contact details. Have you run background checks on him?’
Col nodded. ‘He’s as clean as a whistle. Works for some IT company. It seems he’s done well for himself, considering his childhood.’
Lucy smiled. ‘It’s nice to know that it happens, that sometimes there is a happy-ever-after. That gives us a starting point. If he comes to identify his mum’s body we can interview him then. Could he have been seeking revenge for her messing up his childhood?’
Mattie shrugged. ‘You never know, it’s always a possibility.’
Lucy secretly hoped it wasn’t. Would her son leave her lying naked? She didn’t think so but until he’d been interviewed and his alibi checked he couldn’t be ruled out.
‘Seeing as Melanie wasn’t dressed for the inclement weather, let’s start working our way through the most recent associates on the list. I want the nearest pubs to her home address checked. See if she was in there last night – she was out somewhere. Find me someone who spoke to her, saw her leave. Who was she with?’
She passed the sheet of paper around the room. Browning lifted his hand. ‘I remember her – it’s a few years since I dealt with her. She used to drink in The Ball and Chain. I remember going to arrest her there once for nicking.’
Lucy nodded. ‘Can you go there, take a copy of her picture and see if she was in last night? You know the score. Once we have a timeline of her last movements we can concentrate on some door-knocking. At the moment there’re no doors to knock on – there are no houses overlooking the part of Strawberry Fields where she was found. There’s no CCTV either, and the nearest shop that might have some is the Co-op on Harrel Lane, but we know that it will more than likely only cover the entrance of the shop, so that’s no good. I’ll get the PCSOs to check all the houses along the stretch of road before the Fields start, just in case any of them have their own CCTV. Is there anything I’ve missed?’
She looked around the room at the shaking heads – she wasn’t too proud to take advice or suggestions from anyone if it would help them to catch whoever had done this.
Chapter Five
Lucy went back to her office. Just as she closed the door her phone began to ring and she answered it, pleased to hear her teenage daughter’s voice.
‘Can I come around tonight?’
‘Of course you can, Ellie, you don’t need to ask.’
‘Just checking that you didn’t have a hot date or anything.’
Lucy giggled. ‘I most definitely don’t. I might not finish until late, though; there’s been a serious incident. But I’ll see you later.’
‘Okay. Bye.’
The phone went dead and Lucy released the breath she’d been holding. Since she’d come out of hospital Ellie had been on her best behaviour. She’d been worried that Ellie would explode about her working late and she hadn’t. It was nice to spend time with her daughter without wanting to kill her. They’d been through a rough couple of years and it was good to see the girl Ellie had once been slowly re-emerging through her teenage angst. With all the pizzas and Chinese takeaways they’d been eating, Lucy was glad that she no longer had to wear her uniform because she didn’t think it would fit her any more. Even her suit trousers had been a bit on the snug side this morning, so that was it: no more takeaways. At least until she could breathe out without fear of her button popping off. Her phone beeped signalling a text message and she saw Doctor Stephen King’s name flash up. He was supposed to take her out for a meal last night, but had phoned to cancel. There had been an emergency at the hospital and he couldn’t leave. She had understood because she knew from her own experience what it was like. Her job was the same, most of the time you floated along nicely until a major incident happened. Then it was all hands-on deck. George and Ellie had been the casualties of her workaholic life. Now that her relationship with Ellie was back on track she would do her best not to jeopardise it. She read the message and sighed.
Sorry about last night, I’ll pick you up at 7.30 and we can go for supper.
Lucy felt her heart sink, instead of wasting time texting back she dialled his number.
‘Good afternoon, beautiful.’
She felt the warm rush of blood as her cheeks began to glow.
‘Hello back, I’m sorry, I can’t make it tonight. I promised Ellie she could come around.’
There was a slight pause and she immediately detected the hint of annoyance in his voice when he spoke, her fingers curled into a tight ball.
‘Then why don’t I pick both of you up?’
