Page 121 of Dying Truth

He reached the end and shrugged. ‘On first inspection, it all looks fine. What were you hoping I would find?’

‘Not sure,’ she said, deflated.

‘Tragic accident, clearly,’ he said, scrolling back to the top. ‘Multiple internal injuries from the impact and yet surprisingly little injury to the head.’

‘Would she have tucked it under?’ Bryant asked.

Kim imagined an experienced diver would have done so.

‘Hard to say,’ he said, frowning and then reading again.

‘What is it?’ Kim asked.

‘It’s no smoking gun but there are two pieces of evidence that tend to cancel each other out.’

‘Go on,’ Kim urged.

‘Well, the theory of her head being tucked when she hit the ground explains the lack of head trauma but there are flesh marks to the neck that are not consistent with the head being tucked. It’s either one or the other but it can’t be both,’ he said.

‘So, why was this never investigated?’ Kim asked, outraged.

‘It was,’ Keats said, pointing to the bottom of the screen where a few initials were scrawled together.

‘That’s the signature of Burrows. DCI Larry Burrows, the officer in charge of the case.’

Eighty-Four

It took only a few calls to locate DCI Larry Burrows.

‘Never understood golf,’ Bryant said, as they headed down the fairway to the ninth hole of the Staffordshire Golf Course near Wombourne.

Recently renamed, the course claimed to be the most picturesque golf course in the Midlands. Even the avenues of pines, rhododendrons, and sixty-foot fir trees wouldn’t persuade her to part with over eight hundred quid to join, despite the fact it was popular with at least three local police forces.

‘Hit a ball and then follow it. Hit a ball then follow it,’ he said, shaking his head.

Kim reckoned most sports could be reduced to a similarly basic description, but with golf she certainly had to agree with her colleague.

‘There he is,’ she said, spotting the exceptionally tall male among a group of average-sized men. She recalled being introduced to him, briefly, when she had first joined the force. He had looked her up and down and dismissed her and then continued to talk to her male colleague.

That one simple action had told her all she’d needed to know.

‘DCI Burrows,’ she said, pushing herself into the middle of the group. ‘DI Stone and DS Bryant, may we have a word?’

He looked from one to the other and frowned. Although retired he clearly didn’t appreciate his golf game being interrupted.

‘One of your old cases, sir,’ she said, affording him the respect his position deserved.

‘Can’t it wait?’

‘Not really, sir,’ she answered, shortly.

He looked to his friends and sighed heavily as they moved away.

‘Really, my dear, couldn’t you have called and arranged—’

‘Chief Inspector Burrows, it’s regarding a fifteen-year-old girl named Lorraine Peters,’ she interrupted. She would allow his endearment to pass. Just once.

His tanned face remained blank.