Free The Other Woman by Jill McGown

I’ll be with you in … well, what’s the weather like?’
    â€˜Bloody awful, sir.’
    There was a silence after that, which Lloyd broke with the suggestion that neither of them had wanted to make. Rapists sometimes went over the edge.
    â€˜Has he gone one step further this time?’
    â€˜Can’t be sure, sir. Her clothes are disarranged, but it doesn’t look like a sex attack. Not at first glance, anyway.’
    Lloyd thanked Finch, and put down the phone. He wasn’t certain, as he reached for his jacket, whether Finch’s final statement was good news or bad news. A rapist turned murderer was always bad news. But two violent criminals in one not very large town was worse.
    He drove out of the village, stopping at the roundabout to check for sudden traffic coming out of the void, then drove on, picking up speed as the visibility lengthened and it was possible to remember what driving without a blindfold was like, only to slow down again as another bank of fog rolled in.
    At the top of the hill was the grim paraphernalia of sudden violent death. Police cars, ambulance, people milling around, the area being cordoned off. The blue lights blinked blearily through the mist, and Lloyd pulled into the side of the road, a little way away from the crush of vehicles. With just a little reluctance, he got out of the car, and looked at the fog swirling round the orange glow of the street-light, the last one before the football ground, and the unlit bypass.
    It was popularly supposed to be on nights like these that Jack the Ripper had stalked Whitechapel, he thought, with the gas-lamps guttering as the hansom cab clip-clopped its way into the mask of smoke and mist, leaving his latest victim on the cobbled street. Shivering, he walked purposefully towards the car park, and the police surgeon loomed out of the darkness as he approached.
    â€˜Lloyd – I’ve certified death, taken temperatures – all the usual stuff. Left notes with your sergeant. Bright lad, that.’
    Lloyd nodded.
    â€˜Do you want me to hang around for the pathologist?’
    â€˜No, Doctor, thank you. It could take him hours to get here in this.’
    â€˜Right, I’ll be off then.’
    Lloyd moved towards the cordoned-off area where the duty inspector was organising the uniforms for a search, and where the victim presumably lay. He carefully followed the path indicated.
    â€˜Evening,’ said the inspector. ‘I’ve got my lads doing a search of the immediate area in case he’s broken in to a building or anything, but I expect he’s long gone.’
    Lloyd nodded. Close to, he could see her by the fuzzy beam of the inspector’s torch-light, half-sitting, half-lying, her head slumped against the thick concrete upright of the fencing, a man’s tie tightly wound round her neck.
    Finch was taking a call on the car radio; Lloyd looked down once again at the girl, then over at the football ground, and the black shapes of the floodlights in the mist. ‘Find someone who can switch these things on!’ he shouted angrily. ‘I’m not waiting all bloody night for lights to arrive!’
    The inspector went off to comply with the request; Finch hastily finished his call, and came over to where Lloyd stood. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you were here.’ He looked a little anxious, but Lloyd wasn’t angry with him. ‘I should have thought about getting the lights on,’ he said.
    After a few minutes, the inspector returned. ‘Mr Parker has said he’ll get the groundsman out,’ he said.
    â€˜Good.’ Lloyd sighed. ‘Thanks.’ He turned to Finch as the other man walked away. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘ Tell me what you know.’
    Finch took a breath. ‘I know that we’re doing Parker for breach of the peace,’ he said. ‘And now we’re asking him to help us out.’
    Lloyd sighed.