Free 'Til Death (DI Steven Marr Book 1) - UK Crime Fiction Whodunnit Thriller by SP Edwards

only patronising Lizzie anyway: I’m sure she’ll have no problems dealing with the fallout.’
    ‘Even less so if she doesn’t find out.’
    Sam sighed.
    ‘I don’t know; I’m happy to let him suffer. No more than he deserves. But I don’t know…ruining a family is something else.’
    Becky smiled, reached across the desk to rest her hand on Sam’s.
    ‘If the family’s strong enough, it can be put back together,’ she said. ‘And if it can’t, it wasn’t you who ruined it, Ma’am. I like the boss, I won’t pretend I don’t, but anything bad that happens to him now is entirely his doing. I think he knows it, too.’
    ‘I suppose.’
    ‘Besides, look at Gregor Stanic; Michelle and John Markham. That’s a ruined family. There are some things that you just can’t come back from. I don’t think a fling is one of them.’
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER NINETEEN
     
     
    Caroline’s hands shook as she typed out the search term into Google.
    Heaven and hell.
    Images flooded the page. Flames. Darkness. Faces twisted up in suffering.
    She sighed.
    Caroline had never believed in any of it, even when she was very young. She’d sung hymns at school, and like most of her classmates hadn’t believed a word.
    Even as a girl, she’d been unable to reconcile the messages of love and mercy with the suffering.
    It had seemed impossible to reconcile it with the suffering, the pain in the world. Earlier that week, TVs and social media had been flooded with the news of pilot, slowly burned to death by the terrorist group. Caroline hadn’t known what was worse: that the video existed, or that hundreds of thousands of people had been happy to watch it. Whatever they told themselves, it amounted to the same thing: people gawping at a public execution, just as they did back in the middle ages.
    Anna had died alone. Died in the mud, in the dark. No-one to hold her and tell her it was all going to be OK. No-one to whisper in her ear and tell her that she was loved. That people cared.
    The sorts of things, in other words, that Anna had always said to her. Whenever an attack came, or when Caroline was at her lowest, it was always Anna who’d pick up the phone. Anna, who’d answer the ringing of her own mobile, whatever time of day it was.
    ‘What’s up chick?’ she’d say.
    And then she’d just listen .
    No matter how stupid Caroline felt, no matter if it was something that she knew wasn’t something to get worried about. Some nights Anna would come over, and they’d just sit down and watch stupid, trashy TV. Caroline would cry on her shoulder, and Anna would say the right things, the things that would help Caroline feel like life was worth it.
    Even when Anna was at work and unable to take a call, she’d send texts. Nothing too deep: quotes from TV shows, jokes she’d read in a magazine, photos of some hot guy from the papers: anything that would help to take Caroline’s mind off the day to day.
    Caroline sighed.
    And now Anna was gone. And it felt like the last bit of life had gone with her. It had been much easier to smile, to laugh, to be normal, with her friend around.
    Anna gone.
    Life, gone.
    Caroline knew what she had to do.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER TWENTY
     
     
    The call came the next evening.
    Marr was grateful that Lucy, Caroline’s line manager, had been more attentive than Anna’s. When Caroline hadn’t arrived for her shift, Lucy had popped round to make sure she was OK.
    They found Caroline’s body in the bath. A green bathing suit covered her up. The ends of her fingers and toes had wrinkled up from time spent in the water. Two clean cuts had been made: one on each wrist. Both were deep; one deep enough to reveal a thin sliver of white bone. The bottom of the bath was invisible, hidden behind the deeper crimson of the water.
    ‘She knew what she was doing.’ Becky said.
    Marr nodded. This was emphatically not a cry for help. There was music playing on the portable speakers,