Cold Kill by Neil White

‘People who behave in that way often have something to hide.’
    ‘What, you think that Don Roberts might be involved?’
    ‘I don’t know, but we have to look,’ Joe said, and then pointed to two detectives at the back of the room, scouring through papers and then looking at a computer screen. ‘That’s their job.’
    ‘What are they looking at?’ Laura asked.
    ‘Just old intelligence reports, to check for any allegations of sexual abuse within his family.’
    ‘Do you think she was about to expose him?’
    ‘Maybe there was nothing to expose,’ Joe said, ‘but I would rather we looked and found nothing than not look and miss it. A lot of men who kill their daughters do it because they are about to be exposed. It’s a mixture of betrayal and sexual confusion and downright fear that they are about to be shown up for what they really are. So they lash out.’
    ‘And stuff their daughter’s vagina with leaves and dirt?’ Laura said, her eyebrows raised.
    ‘Well, that’s pretty extreme,’ Joe replied, ‘but like with the boyfriend, that would be all part of the cover-up, to deflect attention, to make it look like the murder was done by the same person who killed Deborah Corley.’
    ‘But we didn’t disclose the details of that murder,’ Laura said.
    ‘So we need to see if there is a leak anywhere,’ Joe said. ‘Don might have some friends in the police. Yes, he’s a crook and a thug, but some officers think that they might pick up some useful information if they keep their enemies close, but in reality, it’s more than that. There’s a bond, like opponents shaking hands away from the arena. I’ve seen a lot of hardline coppers end up working for defence firms, working hard to keep the crooks free. There is one I know who works as a driver for a defence firm, acting like a taxi for criminals, picking them up and taking them to court.’
    ‘That sounds demeaning,’ Laura said.
    ‘It is, but it’s not about the money,’ Joe said. ‘It’s just about finding a way to stay in the game, because as much as the cops like to fight the crooks, they love the game more than anything, and they miss it when they retire.’
    ‘So you think Don Roberts might have received information about how Deborah Corley died and re-enacted it to pass the blame?’
    ‘It’s just one more possibility.’
    Laura sat down and sighed. ‘This could be never-ending.’
    ‘Worse than that,’ Joe said. ‘We might only find out that Don Roberts isn’t a copycat killer when someone else dies, because he would be stupid to repeat it, just for effect.’
    ‘We could arrest him,’ Laura said.
    Joe shook his head. ‘You’ll get nothing from him. Even if he’s innocent, he’ll clam up.’
    ‘So what now? A visit to the boyfriend?’
    Joe checked his watch. ‘In a couple of hours from now.’
    ‘Why so long?’
    ‘Because we’ve got a post-mortem to attend,’ he said, and then pointed towards the door.
    When Laura looked around, she saw Carson beckoning them over. She took a deep breath. The queasy feeling in her stomach told her that it was too early in the day to watch a young woman sliced open.

Chapter Eighteen

    Jack threw his car keys onto the table. Bobby was safely at school, and so he headed to the kitchen to make a coffee, just pausing to switch on his laptop. He needed another kick-start, the booze still hanging heavy from the night before.
    The steam from the cup bathed his face as he stood over his computer, and his hands paused over the wedding brochures that cluttered the table. Not today, he told himself, and pushed them to one side.
    Once the computer had finished booting up, Jack started his day as he always did, by quickly surfing the newspaper websites, just to check for the headlines of the day. He was looking for something extra this time though, for the Jane Roberts story, trying to find anything that would shed light on what was in the emails from the night before. Gorged on the floor and