Page 31 of Her Lips Are Sealed

Ben pointed to the entrance to the site.

‘We’ll leave him with you guys to sort out, is that okay? I’m going to get Morgan back to the station to get cleaned up and get a search warrant organised so task force can go in.’

‘Fine by me, boss, we’ve got all night to babysit the worst escapee in the history of runners that I ever had the misfortune to come across.’

Morgan laughed. She’d never met him before, but she liked his sense of humour which seemed even funnier with his soft Scottish accent.

And she was relieved. Running indicated guilt. Had they just caught their killer?

TWENTY

Morgan bathed her nose in warm water that was trickling out of the tap, watching it turn from clear to a faint pinkish brown. She was in the ladies changing room. She poked at her nose and found it still in the right place. It wasn’t broken, thank God.

‘Morgan Brookes, if it was going to be anyone it had to be you.’

Morgan grinned at Wendy, then realised she didn’t look too good. There were dark circles under her eyes, her skin glistened with a fine sheen of perspiration and she looked as if someone had drained all of the colour from her face.

‘Never mind me, are you okay?’

‘Feel a bit queasy to be honest with you. I haven’t been sleeping too good and now I think I’ve caught a sickness bug off someone. Although God knows who because I try my best not to get too close to anyone.’

‘Urgh, I hate being sick.’

‘Me too, maybe it’s just tiredness.’

‘Why aren’t you sleeping?’

Wendy shrugged. ‘Everyone blames it on perimenopause, but I’m just knackered and the woman next door has this cat that thinks it’s in a boyband. Stands in my front garden at the same time early hours of the morning, screaming its head off at every other cat in the street.’

Morgan laughed. ‘Oh, the joys of things to look forward to when I get older. Can’t you tell her to keep it inside?’

‘Uh-uh, being a woman is full of them and I’m not that old, cheeky. I can’t ask her, she’s a little old lady with a cat flap so it goes in and out whenever it wants. How was the other crime scene? I heard it come in.’

‘Awful, very similar to the first one. They’re definitely connected. She looked like she’d been dead longer though, same red lips, similar note too.’

Wendy was shaking her head. ‘Oh no, a series? That’s all we need. I’m tired of this, tired of misogynistic men thinking they have the right to do this to women. It sets a rage burning inside of me that no amount of Chardonnay can extinguish. And that’s without the perimenopausal symptoms on top of the seething fury.’

‘Claire said something similar earlier and me too. The being tired of the violence I mean, I’m not at the perimenopause stage yet.’

‘I heard the guy did a runner and broke his arm and leg.’

Morgan smiled at her. ‘Not sure if he’s even the guy, but he looks guilty to me by running off like that. Didn’t even ask what we wanted to speak to him about. He legged it out of the back door and was over the wall of a building site within seconds. You should see how deep the hole is he landed in.’

Wendy crossed her fingers on both hands. ‘I’m going to pray it’s him and you caught him. Thankfully Joe is going to document that scene. I’ve had enough for one day. I’m going home to either throw up or pass out.’

‘Me too, we deserve a bit of luck. Rachel and Ash deserve justice; that scene… it was gruesome.’ She looked at Wendy wincing. ‘Aw, Wendy, do you want me to drive you home? Can I get you anything?’

‘No, I’m okay. Just feeling right sorry for myself, be right once I’m tucked up under a duvet with my electric blanket on.’

Morgan wanted to hug her, but she didn’t want to catch anything either, she was too busy for that. She gave herself one last quick glance in the mirror then headed to the lifts, where she got caught by Mads who was coming out of the report writing room.

‘Hellfire, who did you get into a fight with?’

‘Paul Graham.’

‘The guy that’s still in the bottom of a big hole?’ He started to laugh, then tried to compose himself. ‘Did you push him? Wouldn’t blame you after hitting you in the face. I mean, it’s not like he wouldn’t have deserved it.’

‘No, I did not.’