Free A Commonplace Killing by Siân Busby Page B

obliging.”
    He set down his cup on the tray, pleased when she didn’t leave immediately. He wiped the crumbs from his mouth with his handkerchief. She was looking at the ground, pensive; her face was slightly flushed, her tawny eyebrows knitted in consternation.
    “You know,” she said at last, “I was in Nairobi with the ATS.” Then without another word, she turned sharply and picked her way across the rubble and the weed patches with her tray of dirty tea things, leaving him wondering what on earth he had said to upset her.
    Lucas had come to stand at his shoulder, fanning himself with his hat.
    “I’ve arranged for a conference at Cally Road, sir, nine tomorrow morning.”
    Cooper thanked him. The DI ran the edge of his hand across his brow and shook a few drops of sweat on to the brown-tipped grass.
    “Shall I let the body go now, sir?”
    “Yes. Yes. I suppose we better had.”
    “Is everything alright, sir?”
    “Yes. Quite alright.” He sighed. “It’s been a long weekend.”
    “You’re telling me.”
    Cooper watched the stretcher-bearers lift the body, wrapped in a sheet, and carry it away. The next time he would see her would be in the morgue; the rest of the after-death routine was practical, tedious and best left to Lucas.
    “Sir, I think you’d better take a look at this.”
    Lucas was indicating the spot where, until a few moments before, the woman’s body had been lying, and pointing at the navy-blue raincoat that had been spread out upon the ground beneath her.
    “If I’m not very much mistaken, that’s a man’s mackintosh,” he said.
    Cooper came across and crouched beside the garment.
    “Bag it up,” he said when he had seen enough to know. “I’ll take it back to divisional HQ with me and give it a damn good going over.”
    For the first time that day there was a palpable energy to the murder scene. Lucas called across to Policewoman Tring, who was standing a short distance off bearing another tray laden with yet more cups of tea for the male officers.
    “Girlie, get rid of that tray and take the guv’nor to Stoke Newington straightaway with the samples,” he barked, “and when you’ve done that get yourself back here as quick as you can. I need you to support the men on door-to-door inquiries.”
    Cooper waved his hand dismissively.
    “Oh no,” he said. “I don’t need a lift. Waste of petrol and manpower. I can make do with the Tube. Besides,” he risked a quick glance at her, “Policewoman Tring would be much better used here.”
    Lucas brought his lips together shrewdly, the way he always did whenever he was about to countermand an order.
    “Do you really think it’s wise to entrust important evidence to the Piccadilly Line, sir?” he asked.
    They didn’t speak much on the drive back to Stoke Newington. The combination of heat and lack of sleep was beginning to get the better of him. He drooped against the side of the open window through which the warm air scarcely moved, thinking of sausages, mashed potatoes and fresh, not tinned, peas. When that became too tormenting he thought of Bach, St John Passion, of the night of sorrow measuring out its final hour, the woman lying in the morgue, the evil men do, the waste, the terrible bloody waste.
    “DI Lucas and the other men are all saying that the chances of catching the killer are next to none,” she said, “and it’s a waste to put so much effort into the investigation.” She swallowed hard. “One of them described it as a commonplace killing. What’s commonplace about a man strangling a woman with his bare hands?”
    He looked out of the window. We’ve just been through a war in which countless numbers perished, he thought; what’s one more corpse on a bomb-site?
    “There are around half a dozen murders committed in London every year that are never solved. An apparently random killing is the hardest case of all to crack. We shall all do our best, of course; but we must be realistic.”
    You had to