Free Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 01 - Cocoa and Chanel by Donna Joy Usher Page B

I was doing was right. I carefully placed the loaded gun in the holster and went back out to where Roger was waiting.
    ‘So what are we doing?’ I asked, trying to make my voice sound nonchalant. I didn’t do a very good job and instead it was tinged with excitement.
    Roger flashed a grin at me. ‘We’re going to drive around and play my favourite game.’
    I was dying to know what his favourite game was. Was it at all possible that it was catch and kiss?
    ‘We’re going to play let’s imagine who’s breaking the law.’
    Oh. That game.
    We drove around for about an hour, taking turns to point out people and guess what they were up to. A man on his cell phone was suddenly a drug dealer calling in an order. A woman walking up the street in a short skirt was a lady of the night on an early shift. A girl fighting with a man was a victim of domestic abuse.
    I hadn’t had so much fun in ages.
    We worked our way down to the other end of King’s Cross – the seedy part, as Roger called it – and were heading back to the station when Roger said, ‘That’s weird.’
    ‘What’s weird?’
    He pulled the car over next to the curb in a no standing zone (ahhh, the perks of being a policeman) and stopped.
    ‘The lane back there. There are normally some hookers hanging out near the entry.’
    ‘Even during the day?’
    ‘No rest for the wicked.’
    ‘Maybe they’ve gone for coffee.’
    ‘No. They guard their territory pretty well. They would have left at least one here.’ He hopped out of the car and I followed suit. ‘Check your weapon,’ he said.
    I nodded nervously and felt for it at my waist. Check – one weapon.
    The lane was narrow with a long line of properties backing onto it on either side. I followed him into it, looking around nervously for would-be muggers or drug dealers.
    ‘This was originally built as a dunny lane,’ Roger said in a low voice.
    ‘A dunny lane?’ I noticed he had drawn his gun and copied him.
    ‘Back in the day before sewerage systems, the waste was taken away up these lanes.’
    It felt like a sewerage lane – oppressive and mucky, and scary to boot. My anxiety was increasing exponentially with the distance from the car; my heart beat wild, my breathing ragged. I wanted to ask him to return to the vehicle, but I couldn’t. Firstly because I didn’t want him to know I was scared and secondly because this was my job.
    Eventually we could see the end in the distance and I felt Roger relax. ‘Stupid imagination,’ he said, starting to turn towards the car. But then he stopped and stiffened, staring towards the back corner of the lane.
    A piece of pink chiffon fluttered in the breeze.
    ‘Not again,’ I heard Roger say, his voice a low moan of distress.
    I followed him to the chiffon, my eyes travelling slowly down the bright slash of pink. My thinking was robotic as I documented that the material belonged to a blouse with pearl buttons and a sash waist and that the colour looked good against the soft crème of the short skirt. My eyes moved on, against my wishes, to a swan neck, a delicate angular cheek, before settling, finally, on the horror of her staring eyes.
    She would have been pretty if she weren’t covered in blood. Even through the smudge of red on her face I could see the cheekbones, the curve of her lips. Her limbs lay in a jumble, her clothes askew. It looked as if she had been fighting: her fingers curled into claws, her legs bent for kicking. Fighting until the life had left her, leaking out through the wound at her throat.
    I staggered away and threw up, heaving up my donuts as tears tracked freely down my face. The image of her body was burnt into my mind; even with my eyes closed I could see her clearly.
    When I was finished with the puking, I wiped my mouth on a tissue and turned back towards the woman.
    ‘First dead body?’ Roger asked.
    ‘No, I see them all the time.’
    He smiled wryly at me. ‘Sorry.’
    ‘All part of the job,’ I said, shrugging.