Free Six Dead Men by Rae Stoltenkamp Page A

bandanna and the Portuguese prick swagger came bursting in double barrel fingers blazing. His image didn’t quite match the knight on a white charger that he was aiming for. But I took my hands off her and held them up as though confronted by a gun wielding sheriff. I backed away still licking the flavour of melon Bacardi Breezer from my lips.

Chapter 5
    Detective Inspector Deed had known Madie Bricot would run. He had not been sure where, but he had been certain she would. Inside of himself; the man, Robert Deed, felt a small nervous fluttering which he knew to be Madie's panic. He knew this as certainly as he knew that his lungs processed the oxygen he took in every day.
    He told himself he was following her to tie up loose ends. He thought with shame of his bullying tactics at her sister's house to procure information. When he found Junior Bricot lolling on the steps he knew the soft faced youth could be easily manipulated. Deed did not fear reprisals. He knew how to be subtly intimidating when he wanted to be.
    He sat now in a first class carriage of the intercity train to Manchester. He was unusually struggling his way through a Times crossword to distract himself from the fear he would not find her and a disquiet that he was on the verge of killing his career. At the edges of the newspaper he began creating anagrams with Madie Bricot's name. He started off with four and five letter words he could find in her name.
    RAID, TRAID, MAID, BRAID
    Madie, not Madison . The name had come to him so easily in the interview, as though he had always called her that. The truncated version of her name pleased him, seemed to fit with her personality and physique. He put all the letters of her name together and tried making long nonsense words from the symbols.
    MADIEBRICOT
    TRIBMAIDOC
    DIMABCOTRI
    DAMBICORTI
    BACIDIMORTE
    Deed looked at his watch - six minutes to go before arrival. Beneath the list of words he rewrote his final nonsense word in larger letters, allowing his pen to trace over each letter again till there was a distinct indentation in the paper. He boxed the word and turned the box into a three dimensional image.

    BACIDIMORTE

    Deed then drew a stack of boxes above this until it looked like a set of steps leading into the unknown.
    Why kid yourself Robert? This is not about the case at all. It's all about her. What is it about this girl that has you behaving like this? Why don't you just get on the next train back to London as soon as you get off from this one? She’s definitely involved in these deaths. Either she’s an accomplice or she’s a murderer. Every instinct you have is telling you all this. Even her own testimony damns her. The fact she was with these men shortly before their deaths is circumstantial evidence. Pass the facts on. Let someone else deal with the case.
    He sighed. It's the scent of her, the look of her, the feel of her. You bloody fool Robert Deed.
    Deed glanced out of the window. People around him began to gather their belongings together. He tossed his newspaper onto the table and it slid into the arm of the businessman sitting across from him.
    "So sorry." Deed exclaimed, but the man's eyes were resting on Robert's scribbled letters at the edge of the paper. He snapped his laptop shut and addressed Deed. "If you put spaces, the words, they are Italian."
    “What?”
    “The letters you write. They are Italian words.”
    Deed looked at the man with consternation.
    “You do not speak Italian?”
    “No.” He felt some shame at this admission. Italy was one of his favourite holiday destinations and he was always thinking about learning Italian but never seemed to find the time to fulfil the ambition.
    The man picked up Deed's pen and rewrote the figures on the paper, this time with spaces between letters to form Italian words: BACI - DI - MORTE.
    One word in particular jumped out at Robert. I don't need to speak Italian to know what that word means. He felt a cold shiver pass from the base