Free The Burden of Doubt by Angela Dracup Page B

hard. She was dressed for work; a tight white sweater, a tiny black denim skirt and black high heels.
    ‘Why do you make funny shapes with your lips when you’re messing about with your eyes?’ Shaun demanded.
    ‘I’m not,’ she said.
    ‘Yes, you are.’
    ‘Oh, stop trying to stir things.’ She glanced at him, anxious yet defiant. ‘What’s up with you, anyway?’
    ‘Nowt. I’m just thinking.’
    ‘What about?’
    ‘Oh, Jesus! Shut it, woman.’ He felt a sense of hopelessness flood over him. Thoughts of his gran hurt so much, of how he’dtreated her, taken her for granted, ignored her, made her feel a useless old bitch. How he’d not realized what she’d meant to him until she’d gone. He hated hurting, in fact he didn’t think he could stand it another minute.
    He turned his thoughts to work the day before, the way the police had come swaggering in, accusing folks right left and centre, nicking their shoes for Christ’s sake. Cocky bastards, they thought they could do what they bloody liked. ‘A murder investigation,’ they’d said, all puffed up with their own importance. Not only could they do what they wanted, they could take what they wanted. Bloody thieving jerks, making him peel off his shoes and hand ’em over. He’d had to borrow a pair of ropey trainers from one of his pals. They didn’t fit him properly and they smelled like a fusty fox’s den. Not that he’d ever been near a fox’s den.
    Oh, he knew all about the police all right.
    The stirrings of anger made him feel better. Anger was better than hurting. In fact anger could be bloody brilliant, working you up, right up to a bloody climax. Like sex. Not that he got much of that these days. He’d thought Tina’d be a good lay when he first pulled her. But she turned out to be mostly giggle and tickle, more worried about getting her hair messed up and not doing anything ‘mucky’, as she called it, than giving him his thrills. He glanced at her now, fiddling around with her nails, silly cow. She was tasty though, nice tits and a good bum on her. He wondered about a quickie before he set off for work. Nah, forget it. She’d just duck and dive and bob away from him. No point getting himself worked up all for nothing.
    He pulled his thoughts back to the police. The plain clothes bloke with his smug little smile, the uniforms grinning and showing off, pleased as punch with themselves for having the licence to strut about like turkey cocks and lord it over everyone else. He’d keep that picture in his head today and for the days to come, let his hatred of the police mature and grow, until it was fully ripe, until it was truly sweet to taste – like the best cider.
     
    ‘Twins fathered by different blokes!’ Doug’s mouth was literally dropping open as he listened to Swift’s account of his conversation with Tanya Blake. ‘I’ve always said you’ve got the chance of learning something new every day in this job.’
    Laura agreed. ‘It’s certainly a good tale to tell my mum.’
    ‘So Moira was cheating on Patel,’ Doug reflected. ‘And we’re going to have to find the guy she was doing it with?’
    Swift nodded. ‘I’d guess it’s unlikely the good doctor Farrell was the victim of rape.’
    ‘Do we ask Patel as first go off?’ Laura wondered, giving an internal wince at the prospect.
    ‘That’s one way,’ Swift said. ‘Alternatively we could approach Moira’s GP to see what he or she might know. And we should also go back to her colleagues in the hospital team and root them out for questioning, no matter what else they’re up to.’
    ‘The workplace being a hotbed of adultery,’ Laura commented in support of her boss’s final suggestion.
    Swift’s mobile trilled. ‘Yes?’
    It was Finch with a summons for the DCI to go to his office. Urgency reverberated in the superintendent’s voice.
    ‘SOCOs have found a pair of heavily bloodstained trainers buried in the Farrell’s garden,’ he told Swift without