Page 28 of First Blood

‘How did you know that’s all I drink?’ Stacey asked, wide-eyed.

Bryant smiled at her. ‘Well, it could be that my super power is that I’m psychic or it could be the empty can in the bin that wasn’t there this morning.’

Stacey smiled her thanks.

‘Speak, Stacey,’ Kim instructed. ‘And this isn’t the army. You don’t have to ask.’

‘Okay, I’m feeling there’s something not quite right here.’

‘Go on,’ Kim said, wondering if the constable could put into words the feeling that had been dogging her since they’d learned his identity.

‘For a single man in his twenties it’s like we’re only getting part of the story, half the man. I can only find him with a half-hearted account with just one weird post. This computer ay even got Facebook on it.’

‘Could do it from his phone,’ Bryant observed.

Stacey nodded her understanding. ‘I get that but if this is his only computer he literally has no life at all. We all like easy access to everything: on our phones, computers, tablets. I have everything loaded on ’em all. He doesn’t even have his emails hooked up to this computer and there’s no search history at all.’

‘Deleted?’ Kim asked.

Stacey shook her head. ‘Still leaves a trace.’

‘Is the computer new?’ Bryant asked. ‘Perhaps he’s in the process of switching stuff over.’

‘He’s had this laptop for eighteen months.’

Kim sighed heavily. The constable had, in fact, located the unease in her stomach.

‘Ten hours on and we know very little about our victim, except that apparently he was not a very nice man,’ she said, quoting the lady at Wing Sun.

‘All I’ve found is this,’ Stacey said, returning to her own computer and turning the screen.

Kim frowned at the one-word post on Facebook.

‘What the hell does that mean?’

Stacey shrugged.

‘Okay,’ she said, checking her watch. ‘Get into that tomorrow and the phone company but we’ll call it a night. It’s been one hell of a first day,’ she said, fully aware that she was addressing only two thirds of her entire team.

His absence had better be worth it.

Chapter Twenty-One

Kim turned the Ninja left as she headed out of the station car park.

She knew full well that she was on borrowed time in the mid-December weather and that she would have to bench it and use the ten-year-old Golf that sat on her drive. But every day was like a gift of the freedom to be herself.

She tried to put her thoughts of the day behind her and just enjoy the feel of the bike obeying her commands.

That thought led her straight to DS Dawson, appreciating the irony that the officer she’d seen the least had occupied her thoughts the most. A part of her was impressed he’d had the gumption to do what he had. But that wasn’t the biggest part of her. That larger portion was pissed off that he’d been unable to follow her instructions or assist his colleague once the workload had increased.

You couldn’t always force someone to be a team player and she sensed he was an ambitious young man, but his career aspirations were in serious jeopardy if he thought he was going to treat her like a mug.

She hadn’t voiced any of her aggravation, because he would be dealt with and she would do it in her own way, in her own time.

Her thoughts inevitably turned to their victim, Luke Fenton, who had been killed and tortured in the most horrific manner, and all they knew was that he wasn’t a very nice man because he’d stiffed the local Chinese. Somehow she knew that was not going to help them find his killer.

How was there so little of his life imprinted on the computer?