‘Police evidence,’ Penn said, disgusted that the thought had even entered her head. ‘And no, I don’t know when it’ll be returned. Who is your normal type of customer?’
‘Normally the wife or girlfriend,’ Suzanne answered. ‘And they always want to know what was said.’
Penn ignored her second attempt at getting the recording back. ‘Okay, Ms Compton, I can either go through the records myself, or you can just tell me who Nadine met with yesterday.’
She pushed forward a piece of paper that had been face down on her desk.
He looked at the name at the top of the page.
His mouth fell open as he took out his phone.
Forty-Nine
It was almost twelve by the time Bryant pulled up outside Russells Hall Hospital.
Kim jumped out of the car and began heading to the morgue. Bryant finally caught her just inside the main entrance.
‘Tell me again why we’re not going to speak to him straight away?’
‘Because I want to know exactly how incriminating that audio is before we interview him.’
Kim had felt just a few seconds of light-headedness when Penn had revealed that the man Nadine had met was none other than Joe Butler, the man who was allegedly cut up over losing his boys because Ashley Reynolds hadn’t tried hard enough to keep them. They already knew the man had a temper.
‘Why wouldn’t he have taken the recording after he killed her?’
‘Fingerprints,’ Kim said. ‘He may have acted in a fit of rage, or he might not have known about it. He might have thought the photos were the only proof, something he could try and get out of if he could silence Nadine.’ She pushed open the morgue door.
‘What a lovely surprise,’ Keats said, buzzing her through to his anteroom.
‘Not here to see you,’ she said, stepping around the open body bag on a gurney.
Two men in black moved out of her way.
Kim had walked in on this process before. When passing over a body to a funeral home, the pathologist would complete a form noting all the marks on the body at the point of handover. Any further damage done was not down to him.
Keats hadn’t been thrilled with her when she’d compared it to completing a hire car disclaimer, listing the dents and scratches to the bodywork before it went out on lease.
This must be the body of George Hubbard, released now the case was closed and Martha Stout had been charged with murder.
‘All done,’ Keats said, zipping up the body bag to cover the gunshot wound to the left temple.
A part of her wanted to ask Keats to put him back in the fridge, explain that there was more to this story. But that was sure to get back to Woody, and he’d made his feelings clear on the matter.
‘Is Mitch home?’ she asked as the undertakers wheeled the gurney out of the way.
Keats took mock offence. ‘Oh, Inspector, you don’t bring me flowers any more.’
‘I never did, and you ain’t Barbra Streisand, so I’ll take that as a yes.’
She headed through the anteroom and down the corridor to Mitch’s small lab at the end.
The majority of tech work was carried out at Ridgepoint House, Birmingham, but Mitch preferred his small office in the morgue.
‘Hey, Mitch, got the tape recorder?’ she asked once she entered.
He tipped his head at her lack of greeting. ‘Hey, Mitch, how are you doing? How’s the wife? You know, pleasantries and all that.’
Kim had met his wife and had no wish to ask after her health.
