Page 46 of Dead Serious: Case 3 Mr Bruce Reyes

“Bruce Reyes,” she answers as Danny’s piercing blue gaze locks on me.

“Okay. Well, thanks for letting me know.”

“Figured you’d be curious. Okay, gotta go. I’ve got to watch Sonia pack because she won’t let me do anything.”

“Enjoy Spain and give Sonia our love.”

“Will do,” Maddie says, and I hear her disconnect the call.

I let out a slow breath.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I mutter. “I mean, I knew it was him. It had to be, but to have it confirmed… and now his parents know that his body has been found. I mean, can you imagine that? After nearly forty years of not knowing what happened to your son, to find he was buried all this time beneath the pitch where he was last seen?”

“I know,” Danny says. “That’s not going to be easy for them. They must be quite old now, but maybe, as hard as it is to hear, it’ll give them some peace.”

I watch as Danny picks up his phone and scrolls through his list of contacts. He lifts his phone to his ear and waits for the person on the other end to answer.

“Hey, Briggs,” Danny greets. “It’s Hayes.”

What is this thing they have with greeting each other by their last names? Maddie and Danny don’t it. It makes no sense to me.

“Hayes.” The muffled voice on the other end isn’t as loud as Maddie’s and I have to strain to hear. And yes, I probably shouldn’t be, but what the hell, I get the feeling this is something to do with Bruce’s case, so I feel no guilt whatsoever. “I heard you bought yourself a broken leg. Bad luck.”

“Yeah,” Danny replies. “It’s a bit boring really, just sitting around waiting for them to let me come back to work.”

“Enjoy the break. We’re swamped here,” Briggs complains.

“So I hear. I was just talking to Maddie. She said they ID’d the bones we found, and the case landed up on your desk.”

“That’s right.” Briggs sighs loudly. “Not sure when we’ll get to it though. Got a stack more cases on my desk and we’ve still got our hands full with the Maeve Landon case you dropped in our laps. I’d be surprised if that one doesn’t go down in British history right alongside Harold Shipman in terms of body count. She certainly was prolific. It’s incredible she got away with killing for as long as she did.”

“I know what you mean.” Danny hums in agreement. “Which brings me to the point of my call. Now that you have the identity of the victim, I thought I’d offer my help.”

“Pardon?” Briggs replies in surprise.

“I’m just sitting around doing nothing while my leg heals enough for me to return to work, and even then, I’m going to be on desk duty for a while. Why don’t I start putting together the case file for the Reyes investigation for you? It might ease up a little of your workload.”

“Would you?” Briggs asks. “That’d be really helpful.”

“I’d be happy to.” Danny smiles beatifically.

“That’s really decent of you, Hayes. I owe you a pint once you’ve got your sea-legs under you again.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” he answers.

“Right. Well, I’ll get one of the clerks to email you over O’Hara’s report on the remains and a copy of the missing persons report. Let us know if you need anything else.”

“Will do,” Danny says and hangs up the phone, turning to me with a smug smile. “Just how much of that did you hear?”

“Pretty much all of it. That was very sneaky,” I say admiringly. “You managed to get them to let you have full access to the case and make them think you’re doing them a favour.”

Danny shrugs immodestly. “At least now we have a solid reason for poking around and asking questions if anyone notices.”

“Like I said, deliciously sneaky.”

After dumping the papers in my hands back into the box, I close Danny’s laptop and set it on the coffee table before carefully climbing onto the sofa to straddle his lap.