Free Made To Be Broken by Rebecca Bradley Page A

neither of whom, it seems, had family on the drug either. Sir, we have two suspicious deaths by the same MO.’
    ‘So, other than the digoxin toxicity, how are the people linked?’
    ‘As far as we can see at this time, they’re not. We’ve a lot of work to do to try and find that connection. With Lianne Beers we had at least had her ex-husband with a motive to kill her because he gained custody of their daughter and his new family was complete, with his annoying ex-wife no longer in the picture. Now with a young boy dead by the same MO we have a problem, because we don’t have anyone immediately obvious who would want him dead. I mean, a lad of his age, who does?’
    Grey studied me as I continued to lay it out for him.
    ‘With Lianne we didn’t even know if it was suspicious or if it was an accident or suicide, though we haven’t found any obvious ways she could have done it to herself and there’s nothing of concern on her computer or diaries. But now that Finlay is dead we can at least rule out suicide – even if we can’t rule out some kind of accidental poisoning.’
    ‘But accident how?’
    ‘That, I don’t know. Industrial accident of some description?’
    ‘So, how do you progress this?’
    ‘We look at who has access to digoxin. There will be pharmacies, distribution centres, hospitals and other places, I’m presuming. Maybe there was an accident at one of these places that managed to affect both Lianne and Finlay so we also try to find that link between them both.’
    I paused for breath.
    ‘I also think we need to come up with a media strategy. We need to get ahead of this if we can.’
    ‘You’re right. We don’t have a good track record with the Today . See Claire and set up a press conference for later this afternoon, get out there and show the public we’re in front of it. Ask them for their help; see if they can link the two victims as well as asking for witnesses to the offences.’
    ‘Me?’
    ‘Yes. Who did you think was going to do it?’
    I ran my fingers through my fringe. ‘I hadn’t.’
    ‘Okay. You’ll be fine.’
    ‘What are we doing about disclosing the digoxin?’
    ‘Thoughts?’
    ‘We keep it to ourselves. If we disclose the information we risk copycats and we won’t know one offender from the other. Plus, if we withhold it we have that information to confirm the truth if anyone walks in wanting to make admissions. You know how weird people can be on high profile cases. It’s documented well enough.’
    ‘Right again. You know what you’re doing, Hannah, which is why I said you’d be fine with the press conference, you’re the obvious person for the job.’
    ‘If you think so.’
    I didn’t want to do this. Ethan would be there. Mixing the personal with the professional again. But I knew I had to get a grip.

31
     
    The nerves danced through me like small bolts of electricity having a party at my expense. I was sure I could probably make a lightbulb glow if anyone chose to attach one to me at this point. I didn’t join the job to get myself in front of a bunch of cameras or a crowd of journalists. Including Ethan. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that I was doing the press conference that was making me so jittery or that Ethan was out there in a chair waiting to throw a question at me at the earliest opportunity. We hadn’t talked since the evening of the inquest. Seeing him again had dredged up all the old feelings I had for him but it had also thrown me into a tailspin. Could I really have expected him to wait for me when it was an impossibility that we could maintain a relationship in the roles we held? It had still knocked me for six when he told me he’d been seeing other people, but I’d done my best to look pleased; was that the right word? Comfortable with it, may be a better way of phrasing it. He’d gone on to clarify that he wasn’t in a relationship but that he’d been dating, he wanted to be open and for me to know.
    Well, now I