Page 49 of Her Lips Are Sealed

‘My pleasure, I hope you manage to catch whoever is doing this.’

‘I intend to, don’t worry.’

Morgan balanced the drinks in the footwell of her car, the bag on the passenger seat, and bid goodbye to Jade, driving carefully towards the station.

When she got there, she phoned Cain who answered on the first ring. ‘I have coffee and cakes but need a hand.’

‘On my way.’ He hung up and she smiled, he didn’t even ask where she was.

The door to the changing rooms flew open and he strode towards her, grinning.

‘This is getting a bit much, first Amy now you. What’s with all the kiss arsing?’

‘I’m not, I needed coffee and knew you’d cry if I didn’t get you one and that meant I’d have to get everyone one, so that’s the reason.’

‘You’re a good woman, Brookes, don’t let anyone tell you any different.’

‘Jeez, thanks, Cain.’

He winked at her then leaned down and picked up the tray of four lattes. ‘It’s all going down inside.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, Paul Graham is being picked up in the next hour to come here to be interviewed. Ben has asked Lucy to interview with him, and Marc has spat his dummy out big time. He’s gone AWOL again and if you ask me he’s just jealous.’

‘You know it’s so unprofessional of him to just disappear like he does. I needed to speak to him about a woman who grabbed me last night as I was rushing into the station. She said she’d been and spoken to him about a weird guy hanging around near her flat and he’d not done anything about it.’

‘Are you surprised, like really?’

‘No, but she was very upset. I need to go speak to the duty sergeant and tell them about her. I didn’t have time last night.’

They took the drinks and cakes up to the office then Morgan left to go speak to Mads, who was laughing loudly on the phone in his office. She knocked on the door and he waved her in.

Placing his hand over the receiver, he arched one eyebrow at her. ‘Where’s my coffee and cake?’

Morgan felt bad, she would have brought him one if she’d known he was in. She shrugged. ‘Sorry, I didn’t know you were in this morning.’

‘Yeah, likely story. Hang on, no, not you. I’ll ring you later, Ez, okay.’ He put the phone down. ‘What’s up?’

‘Did Marc ask for patrols to pay passing attention to Crosslands Mews in Coniston?’

He shook his head. ‘No, might have asked someone else though. Why?’

‘Is it on the briefing?’

‘Let me check.’ He brought up the morning’s briefing and shook his head. ‘No.’

‘I was stopped by a Lisa Palmer on my way into the station last night, who said she’d been here a couple of days ago and spoke to Marc about a weird guy hanging around near to her flat.’

‘Doesn’t ring any bells.’

Morgan sighed. ‘It’s okay, I gave her my number to ring me if he turns up again. Can you ask whoever’s covering Coniston to give it some attention?’

‘Yes, no problem.’

He began to type the address into the page with the call logs, and it brought up a report. ‘There’s a log on, the night after the murder. Christ Almighty, it was the crew who came up from Barrow. It hasn’t even been closed. I don’t even know if they found it and turned up.’

‘They didn’t, she said nobody bothered to phone or knock at her address. Can we make sure if she calls again that someone goes? It’s a bit of a red flag some weirdo hanging around and a murder in the space of forty-eight hours.’