Dead Pretty: The 5th DS McAvoy Novel (DS Aector McAvoy) by David Mark Page B

the gutter and posing a risk. I was partnered up with a PC and we weren’t far away so we went and checked it out. She was off her face but not unpleasant. I got her some water and checked she was okay and she said she had money for a taxi so we called one for her. Waited with her until it came. She sobered up enough to give us her name and address and then she started asking us why we hadn’t found O’Neill. Started giving us this stuff about him and his family being the scum of the earth and that the world was better off without him. Then she came out with it. Said that the lad her neighbour buys his weed off had been spreading it about that his body was in a house on Ryehill. He’d been in there, looking for copper. Found a body and recognised him. I asked her why he didn’t report it and she just shrugged and said he wanted to keep his head down. Then her taxi turned up.’
    Helen sits, waiting for more.
    ‘The officer you were with,’ she says, carefully. ‘He didn’t suggest bringing her in for a statement?’
    Vicki looks wretched, as though she doesn’t want to get anybody into trouble. She pulls a face.
    ‘She was drunk. He said it was just bullshit. Said we had her name and address if we needed it.’
    Helen raises her eyebrows. ‘You didn’t support that view?’
    ‘I thought it was worth investigating,’ says Vicki, looking back at the floor. ‘So I popped down there after my shift. There are half a dozen empty houses. I didn’t think it would take a moment to check it out. So I had a look in the windows. Tried the doors. I opened the letter box at one of them and the smell hit me. Rotting meat and something else. Something like vegetation. Like a fish-tank that hasn’t been cleaned. There was no mistaking it. I kicked the door in. There he was.’
    There is silence in the bar save for the sound of Helen’s pen scratching on the page. She deliberately keeps her eyes down in case the young officer is crying again.
    ‘You called it in?’ asks Helen. ‘Immediately? You weren’t concerned about getting into trouble? Not exactly procedure, is it?’
    Vicki rubs her thumb against the palm of her hand, as if pushing in a drawing pin. ‘I thought that wasn’t as important as getting people there. I thought I couldn’t get into trouble for doing what I thought was best.’
    Helen says nothing. She has found out to her cost just how naïve a perspective Vicki currently enjoys. She is about to press her for more when the phone rings. Her first instinct is to panic that something is wrong with Penelope. Then she realises the ringtone is not the one she has programmed for her father, who is currently babysitting. She answers with her name and rank, hoping that she is about to be told that DCI Archer has fallen from her horse and been fatally brutalised by a stallion. Instead, she hears the voice of Bernard Reardon, the lead science officer at the crime scene on Ryehill Grove. He’s a quiet, hardworking and professional man who has never made a pass at Helen or been disciplined for making inappropriate comments. As such, Helen does not expect him to rise much higher in the service.
    ‘DC Tremberg,’ he says. ‘I’m right in thinking you are looking after things in DCI Archer’s absence, yes?’
    Helen rolls her eyes and gives a little laugh. ‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ she says, sighing. ‘But yes, I’m down the road at the Freedom Centre, talking to the officer who found the body. You need me to come up?’
    ‘Probably not,’ says Reardon. ‘Not much to be gained, really. I’ll have the photos with you before the end of the day. We’re a little strained for resources, what with Professor Jackson-Savannah being otherwise engaged.’
    ‘He’s back, is he? Oh goody.’
    ‘Yes and no. He’s currently at the beck and call of DSU Pharaoh and her sergeant. I’m pleased we got this one and not the other. Young girl, so I’m told.’
    Helen chews on her thumbnail and wonders, for a