Free What Lies in the Dark by CM Thompson

knows that people need to see him working, need apunchbag, need to be reassured that they are actually doing something, but so far the results are disappointing and no one will forgive him for that. Even though they see he is working hard and even though they know it is not his fault. The assailant has managed to pull an entire station apart with one single well-planned murder.
    The other detectives are not helping. Interviews by Dalbiac and Vogel have ended with officers storming out, swearing, launching a formal complaint or all three. No one so far had come out smiling. To Fletcher, they seem to be making a bad situation even worse. He was one of the first to be interviewed and had been grilled almost abusively about the lack of progress on the case. While those detectives are there, everyone in the station suspects everyone else, hating and resenting the implication that one of their own could have done that, that to Shannon Leona.
    It’s funeral week, Stella McQam is cremated with little ceremony. No family attend, just three of her friends. Unknowingly, as they sob, they are watched by waiting cameras. Adelina’s funeral is next, closed casket. Adelina’s funeral is crowded, the sobbers gathered in close, the chorus of cries echoes from grave stone to grave stone. Jack Sasha stands protectively close to his wife’s casket. The fierce anger has faded, his face is a chiselled blank. Jack is accepting the,
“I am sorry - if there is anything I can do.”
The handshakes with small nods. He barely notices who is talking to him. This is fortunate for the mousey woman. She approaches Jack with her head fixed on the ground. She has deliberately worn the same dress that she had worn to her daughter’s funeral. She has caught a few of the mourners staring at her, trying to figure out who she is. She waits on the outsides of the throes, waiting to catch Jack on his own. She knows, from her own sad experience, that being alone at the funeral is a rarely given reprieve.
    She whispers in his ear, “May I talk to you, Mr Sasha?”
    The response is an immediate scowl, “Leave mealone.”
    “Please, Mr Sasha.”
    Jack Sasha growls at her.
    “I am not a reporter.”
    “Then who the fuck are you?” Jack glares at the mousey woman.
    “My name is Jennifer Taylor.”
    He doesn’t recognise her, why would he? Her daughter’s death had not attracted the same amount of attention. She had not appeared on the news threatening revenge. “I am Fran Lizzie Taylor’s mother.” She says with a hushed whisper.
    Anna Stevenson is also at the funeral. She wears carefully selected black strappy heels, ones that Adelina would have approved of. Ones that say, I can be sexy but still sorrowful. Also she wears a skimpy black dress, carefully designed to minimise her flabby gut. Her make-up has been carefully chosen for its waterproof elements and has been slightly reapplied. She is going for it – well she would be, had Jack not walked off with the strange timid women who had approached him moments before. She and Jack disappear behind another gravestone, much to the astonishment of the other bereaved. Anna is not impressed. Adelina’s mother has started wailing again, unhappy that her daughter’s husband is already cavorting with another. Anna stares at the red rose and white lily arrangements that surround the cut in the earth. A stone sinks deep within her stomach, it is finally hitting just whose funeral she is attending. For the first time Anna Stevenson feels ashamed of herself, slowly backing away, alone to her car, to collapse in a gooey pile of tears.
    Shannon Leona’s funeral will be on Friday. Her autopsied body has finally been released. Officers who had attended the search are still under suspicion. Some have even been warned that perhaps they should not attend Shannon’s funeral, particularly those who were members of Shannon’s search group and the unfortunate officers who had arrived back late.
    Fletcher lies in bed,