Free Bitter Fruits: DI Erica Martin Book 1 (Erica Martin Thriller) by Alice Clark-Platts Page A

Emily at the Christmas Ball.’
    ‘Shorty?’
    ‘Uh, Chris Wells is his name. Mate of mine.’
    ‘Tell me about the photo, Nick.’
    Nick was chewing his lip, staring at his hands. ‘It was just a joke, right? For the lads. Emily was cool about it. Everyone does it. Everyone knows. You send texts, you email things. It’s just a
joke
.’
    Martin said nothing. She waited.
    Nick stood up all of a sudden. ‘Look, I’ve had enough of this. If you want to ask me anything else, I want a lawyer.’ He paused. ‘And my father.’
    Martin looked into Nick’s eyes for a moment, then seemed to weigh something up. ‘I think we’re done then, Nick. Don’t leave town, though,’ she said.
    ‘Are you kidding?’
    ‘Not in the slightest. We may well need to talk to you again in the coming days.’
    Nick got to his feet and hoisted his backpack on to his shoulder. ‘Right. Well, no plans to escape at the moment. Keep me posted.’
    Martin nodded as if to dismiss him, and he walked off towards the staircase without a backwards glance.
    ‘What do you think?’ Jones said quietly in the empty corridor as Nick disappeared down the stairs.
    ‘I think I want to get in the interview room with Rush,’ Martin said abruptly. She looked over at Jones, who met her gaze calmly. She took a breath. ‘Nick’s scared. He doesn’t know how much we know.’ She exhaled loudly. ‘Not that we know a huge amount right now.’ She paused, thinking. ‘Presumably he doesn’t know about the photos Emily had of him hidden in her bedroom cupboard.’
    ‘Emily had a crush on him. So what? What can he add in the light of a full confession from Rush?’
    Martin rolled her shoulders and moved her neck side to side to loosen it. ‘We don’t have a time of death yet. Nick admits he was there at the boathouse so he would have seen Emily. Why couldn’t he have followed her to the bridge, dumped her in the weir?’
    ‘The confession …’ Jones said again.
    ‘The confession bothers me,’ Martin said. ‘Still, we’re stuck with it until we can interview him, unfortunately.’ Her mobile phone beeped noisily, and she put it to her ear, looking at Jones as she listened. ‘Thanks, we’ll be right there.’ Martin snapped the phone shut.
    At once, a shrill bell rang out, and the lecture doors sprang open. Martin and Jones were surrounded by a cacophony, dozens of bodies, talking, jostling pastthem. The women faced each other, island-like in a moving sea.
    ‘Thank the Lord, Rush’s dad has finally arrived,’ Martin said over the rabble noise. ‘But Emily’s parents have also got here. Tennant’s taking them to the mortuary. We’ll have to meet them there before we can see Rush.’



11
     
    Emily started sleeping with Nick the night of the hockey formal. I knew this because she texted me in the early hours, after I had left Annabel, to tell me she was at his house. I had no illusions as to what that meant and tried to ignore it, staring up into the blackness of the night, trying to get back to sleep. She had obviously abandoned Annabel alone at the party – female betrayal always the result of attention from a prince.
    This became a pattern of sorts. Emily going out and me sometimes meeting her first for a drink. Then she would go on to join Nick and his cronies, and I would be relegated to a lonely latter part of the evening, sitting in a pub, drinking a pint and reading. I would eventually go back to my room and, Zack’s presence depending, hit the sack until the early hours, when I would get some sort of update from Emily.
    It’s odd but I didn’t really think this was a strange or pathetic way of life. I just accepted it as my lot. The rest of my life, which went on without her, was filled with daydreams and ideas: novels lackingcohesive plots, travel plans lacking cohesive funds. I studied and read and ran. That was my life. And when I did see Emily, everything was okay. I didn’t articulate it at the time, what I wanted from her. I