The Reluctant Detective (Faith Morgan Mysteries) by Martha Ockley Page B

into the back of him. Instinctively, he put out an arm to hold her back. There were stains on the concrete step disappearing into the patchy gravelled earth beyond. Ben crouched down. He touched the ground lightly. He stood up, the tips of his fingers smudged red.
    “Blood – or looks like. Fairly recent.” He stepped around the stains, pulling on a fresh pair of latex gloves. “Careful of those.” The tone of his voice had changed: calmer, authoritative. Faith’s senses clicked into a higher state of alert.
    He turned the door handle. The door wasn’t locked.
    The front door opened into a kitchen. No hallway. The light was dim. Faith received the impression of shades of sadness; no true colour anywhere. The furniture seemed sparse and utilitarian. A table, a few chairs, and a dirty Rayburn stove in the old chimney nook, its top encrusted with the charred remains of ancient spills. By it stood an old Windsor chair with a dog basket at its feet. Some traces of quality gleamed out in the line of the chair’s curved oak back and legs, visible from under the drape of a plaid blanket and the dirty blue woollen shawl thrown over it. In the basket, old clothes and newspapers formed a nest. Newspapers lay everywhere: in the basket, littering the table and on the floor, sheets trampled with mud and dirt and less savoury stains.
    They found other spurts and dashes of blood.
    “What went on here?” Her own voice sounded startlingly vivid to Faith in the dank silence of the room.
    Ben just grunted. “There’s more here.” He bent over the chair, picking up a corner of the plaid cloth: a dark, stiff stain.
    “It’s soaked and dried. Some time ago.” He cocked his head, contemplating the shape of the stain. “Might have been wrapped round something?”
    Faith joined him, noticing the roughly conical shape, maybe five inches high and broader at its base.
    “A forearm, a wrist?” she suggested.
    “Perhaps.”
    That corner stank. Beneath the matted dog hair, traces of bile and excrement soiled the basket. The furniture, the dirt, the smell, the very walls seemed to seep an atmosphere of despair. A sudden urgency to get out into the full light gripped Faith.
    Footsteps crunched on gravel and a shadow passed the window.
    “Inspector Shorter?” a man’s voice called from outside.
    A uniformed policeman appeared in the doorway carrying his helmet: a middle-aged man, heavy set and greying. His cheeks were flushed.
    “Where’ve you been, constable?” Ben barked.
    “Hanson. Jim Hanson, sir.”
    “I thought you had orders to meet me here, at the house?”
    “Ran into two RSPCA officers as I arrived. They requested my assistance.”
    “And why was that? For God’s sake, mind your feet!”
    The constable skipped back a step and looked down bemusedly at his feet. He had scuffed the stain by the door.
    “Get some tape and mark that area!” Ben’s voice had the force of a blow. The constable didn’t move.
    “Well?” Ben demanded.
    Jim Hanson eyed Faith, uncertainly.
    “There’s something you should see in the barn, sir,” he said earnestly. Ben scrutinized his face.
    “Now?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Lead on.”
    Jim Hanson set off around the corner of the house, then he hesitated.
    “Perhaps the lady would prefer to stay here.”
    “Nonsense,” Faith said briskly. “There’s no need for that. I’m Faith Morgan, Reverend Morgan.” She was glad to be wearing her clerical uniform. Police, firefighters, the medical profession, they were all inclined to give dog collars professional courtesy. Just another one of the emergency services. “I am taking over at St James’s.”
    Jim seemed too preoccupied to want to make an issue of it. He took his cue from Ben, and she followed after them unhindered.
    They rounded the corner of the house where a space opened out. Farm buildings clustered around an unkempt yard, grass growing through its cracked concrete surface. PC Hanson walked on, but Ben stopped. On the ground was a