Death in the Sunshine (Retired Detectives Club, #1)(62)

‘Hank? Are you here?’ Her voice sounds over-loud in the quiet hallway.

There’s no answer.

She reaches the doorway to the Surveillance Suite. It’s gloomy in here, with the blinds covering the windows, but it’s clear the place has been ransacked. Files have been pulled from the shelves and computers are littered over the desks, their wiring spewing out from their plastic bodies like multicoloured intestines.

Moira keeps moving further into the suite. Blinking to help her eyes adjust as she scans the space looking for Hank. Seven strides into the room she stops.

Her heart rate accelerates. She feels a wave of nausea.

Over on the far side of the room, below the bank of screens that line the far wall and beside a large desk cluttered with several takeaway food containers and a half-drunk mug of coffee, Hank is lying on the floor.

His glasses are smashed. He isn’t moving. There’s a lot of blood.

Moira hurries to him. Kneeling beside him, she checks for a pulse. ‘Hank, can you hear me?’

He doesn’t answer.

She searches again for a pulse, struggling to listen for Hank’s when her own heart is hammering at her chest and temples so hard. She takes a breath, but can’t seem to get enough air. She gulps.

Please don’t let me have a panic attack.

She closes her eyes. Tries to do what the doc taught her. Knows she can’t panic. She has to focus. She has to see if Hank’s okay. She tries to take a shallower inhale. Doesn’t gulp. Keeps her eyes closed.

Her heart rate starts to feel steadier, and when she inhales she’s able to breathe in the air she needs. The panic is leaving her. She exhales, and takes another breath. Feels calmer. Then, opening her eyes, she tries to find Hank’s pulse again.

There. She feels a faint pulse this time and relief floods through her.

Leaning down, she checks that Hank’s breathing. Yes. Slow and shallow, but he is breathing. That’s good, but things are still serious. Moira doesn’t want to move him. From the location of the blood she guesses he was hit on the head from behind. The intruder must have crept up on him and taken him by surprise. He’s wearing headphones, the big noise-cancelling ones. If he’d been listening to music or a podcast or something he wouldn’t have heard the intruder coming. The poor guy wouldn’t have stood a chance.

She pulls her phone from her pocket and dials the number. As she waits for it to connect she looks again at the computers on the desk. Every one of them is damaged, and there are holes where their hard drives should be. All around Hank’s body there are crushed USB sticks – back-up copies of the CCTV footage, she assumes. She’s too late; any evidence the cameras caught is gone.

The call connects and starts to ring. The noise seems to vibrate in her brain. She swallows hard as another wave of nausea floods through her. Her vision starts to distort. The phone feels heavy in her hand. Her fingers start to shake.

Fighting nausea, Moira hopes she doesn’t lose consciousness again.





34


RICK


His cell phone is buzzing in his pants pocket, but Rick can’t answer because of the cuffs. Above him there’s a whole lot of shouting and drama. Lifting his head up from the lawn, he counts five sets of boots and one pair of leather slip-ons – six people – five cops and a friend. Two of the voices are far louder, and angrier, than the rest and he knows both of those – Philip and Detective Golding.

Rick looks across at Mikey who is spreadeagled in the dirt a little ways from him. There’s a clump of earth above his right eye from where his face has been pressed into the ground, and the kid’s looking wide-eyed and terrified. His whole body is shaking. Rick holds the kid’s gaze and mouths, ‘It’ll be okay. But remember – no lawyer, no talking.’

One of the cops notices Rick talking. He prods him in the ribs with his boot. ‘Hey, shut it.’

Rick ignores the cop. Keeps his eyes on Mikey until the kid nods.

‘Do. Not. Kick. Him. That is an assault on a senior citizen.’ Philip’s voice is louder now. Rick watches as the leather slip-ons step closer to one of the pairs of boots. ‘You move away from him this minute. And you, you uncuff him. He’s a guest of Betty Graften, the lady who owns this property. What the hell do you people think you’re doing? This man is a—’

‘No one is getting uncuffed until I give the order.’ Detective Golding’s voice is equally angry. ‘Mr Sweetman, you shouldn’t be out here. Go inside with the others.’

‘I will not leave until you uncuff this man. There’s no reason to hold him.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that.’

‘Then tell me the grounds you’re holding him on? Is he a suspect? Are you going to charge him? It can’t be for resisting arrest because you’ve got me, and two more witnesses in the house who watched what happened, and what we saw was a heavy-handed abuse of—’

‘Mary mother . . .’ Golding exhales hard, then turns and barks an order. ‘Do it.’

Moments later, Rick feels the cuffs being released.

‘Get up,’ says a male voice – the one that a few minutes earlier was screaming at him to get on the ground.

Rick’s glad to be free of the cuffs, but his shoulders are aching real bad from the ten minutes or so they’ve been on. He presses his hands into the ground and pushes himself up to standing, wincing as he straightens up.