SECRET CRIMES a gripping crime thriller full of suspense by MICHAEL HAMBLING Page A

other staff, I want to know. Don’t keep things from me. For this week, you and I can have a quick chat together each day, no more than a minute or two. From then on, once a week will do. You’re down as her official immediate superior, but this kind of thing is probably new to you. Is that right?’
    Marsh nodded. ‘Doesn’t she want to be open about it?’
    ‘We decided that this is the best way, considering we’re up to our eyes in this case. I don’t want people losing focus and, believe me, this would be a huge distraction. Maybe in the fullness of time we’ll decide differently, but not now.’
    ‘I thought we could put her onto background checks at first. There’s a lot we don’t know about all these people. That means I can free up Jimmy for more direct inquiries,’ he said.
    ‘Sounds good to me. I’m off to see Benny Goodall now. He’ll have already started the post-mortem and I want to have a chat while it’s all fresh in his mind. I’ll see you all later. Thanks for that message this morning, by the way. I’ve set the wheels in motion to move them to a safe house.’
    ‘Does it need to be both of them, ma’am? Surely it’s only Mrs Corrigan who’s in danger? Ed Wilton only met them by chance.’
    ‘He was a witness, Barry. And meeting by chance might equally well apply to Rosemary.’ She turned to Marsh with a slight smile. ‘Anyway, I have a feeling that the two of them might now be an item. I’m a soft-centred sentimentalist at heart, you know. I don’t want to put a spanner in the works at this early stage.’
    * * *
    Sophie caught sight of the tall frame of Dorset’s senior pathologist ahead of her in the hospital corridor as she approached his office.
    ‘Morning, Benny!’ she called. ‘How are you on this bright, sunny morning?’
    A particularly hard flurry of raindrops hit the window beside him, and he turned.
    ‘All the better for seeing you, O golden-haired one. How’s Martin?’
    ‘A bit down. Work problems, so I’m sure he’d appreciate an evening out with you in the pub, if you fancy it. I’ll leave it to you. How did the PM go?’
    He ushered her into his office. ‘Interesting. As you surmised, some of the bruising was caused prior to death, and there’s a fairly serious contusion on the left side of her head that would have concussed her, and some severe bruising around her midriff. But she died from drowning.’
    ‘Really? So she was alive when she was dumped on the shoreline?’ Sophie sat down on a soft chair.
    ‘No. The water in her lungs was from a tap. The only sea water was in her mouth and nose.’
    ‘So she was concussed by a blow to the head, then drowned, then taken out and dumped in the rock pool? Is that what you’re saying?’
    ‘I’m not saying anything, Sophie. I don’t do speculation, as you well know. It was also fairly obvious that she was sexually active prior to death. Very sexually active.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘We found traces of semen in all three major orifices. It’s all safely bottled up and off for DNA analysis. But there were no signs of rape. No significant rupture of any tissue, and a lubricant had been used in her anus.’
    ‘So it seems as if it was consensual?’
    ‘No evidence to the contrary is as far as I’d go. But as I said, there were no signs of tissue damage to the throat, anus or vagina. Make of that what you will.’
    ‘Is there any evidence of the order of events? Did the sex happen before the blow to the head?’
    ‘Okay, I will hazard a guess on this one, and I’d say very probably the sex did occur earlier. It’s hard to imagine how such sex could happen with an unconscious body. And since the semen traces were still present, she obviously didn’t have time to bathe or shower afterwards. But what are your thoughts? You’re the detective.’
    ‘From what you’ve told me? She had sex with three men, maybe at the same time. Something quickly went wrong and she was hit around the head. She was