Free Deadly Code by Lin Anderson Page A

lassie's. The boy was its minder. She went singing to earn the money for dope.
    'Try the local psycho ward, son,' he shrugged, 'that's where they all end up.'
    Spike didn't answer, knowing if Esther was headed for the mental hospital he would have to get her out fast, before they pumped her full of sedatives and sectioned her.

Chapter 12
     
    'Are you sure your stomach can stand it? I wouldn't want you passing out again.'
    ‘I’m fine,' Rhona said firmly. 'Let's take a look.'
    'What, now?' Chrissy looked puzzled.
    'Why not?'
    'Well I thought. . .'
    Chrissy short of words was a sight to behold.
    'You thought what?' Rhona knew what she was going to say, but she would let her say it all the same.
    Chrissy said: 'I thought you would want to talk to Sean first.'
    'Sean can wait.'
    Rhona didn't want to think about Sean at this moment, or what had happened at the club. She would have to deal with that later.
    After she'd recovered from her faint, Phillips had told her that the investigation surrounding the foot was being taken over by the MOD and she was not to discuss the matter any further. Rhona reminded him that this was Scotland and under Scots law, the Procurator Fiscal for the area decided whether a crime had been committed and instructed the police to investigate. Phillips quoted the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005.
    Rhona shut up at this point. Whoever the foot belonged to, it looked like a potential embarrassment to the MOD.
    She arrived at the lab full of righteous indignation which Chrissy fuelled even further with the story of the removed foot and samples.
    'Bill says he can do nothing. Sissons won't talk about it and I wasn't allowed to process DNA samples from the possible relatives.'
    'The foot didn't come from a fisherman.'
    'But I thought if the MOD was worried about a submarine . . .'
    'I suspect that's not the issue any more. They're worried about something else.'
    'Who do they think it is?'
    Rhona shook her head. 'Phillips started quoting the Antiterrorism Act.'
    'Bloody hell.'
    They both considered the implication of that.
    Chrissy's face took on a wry look.
    'They don't know we have the hand.'
    The vision of Phillips' face when he heard that she had the hand before he did almost made up for Rhona's irritation. She reached for her lab coat and pulled it on over her travel suit and whisky-splashed legs.
    'You smell like a drunk,' Chrissy told her.
    'Always the kind word.'
    The two women looked at one another, silently acknowledging their pleasure at seeing each other.
    'Okay, you'd better show me where you hid it.'
    Chrissy, Rhona had to admit, had been pretty devious. In fact Chrissy and Bill Wilson were looking like the perfect criminal team.
    They always said when the good went bad, they were very good at it.
    The hand was stashed in a back room behind the main lab. Chrissy had pinched (or borrowed) a wee fridge from somewhere and the hand was resting on the middle shelf. Rhona pulled on her gloves and took it out, trying not to think of disintegrating boiled chicken.
    'We can get it down to pathology as soon as we've sampled,' Chrissy said with a worried face.
    'Of course.'
    It was just as well she had known nothing of the hand when she was interviewed (or interrogated) by the smarmy Phillips. It was enough that she revealed she'd heard of Dr MacAulay. That in itself had taken some explaining.
    Fainting and breaking his crystal glass had helped, although she wasn't totally convinced Phillips hadn't put some truth drug in her drink.
    One thing was sure, Rhona hadn't mentioned Andre's name.
    A body decomposes in air twice as quickly as it does in water. The left hand had been in water about the same length of time as the foot. The information from Bill was that the woman had thrown a stick for her dog and it had not returned with it. Instead it had stood among the rocks and barked until she came for a look. It could have been worse. The dog might have retrieved the hand, tossing the decomposing tissues in