Death by Beauty by Gabrielle Lord Page B

anything like poison. I’d better get out of here,’ she continued, stowing her laptop in her
     briefcase. ‘I’ve got so much work on my desk at the moment – I might as well stay there all night. Except I can’t.’ She looked
     at her watch. ‘Hell, I’ve got the sex workers meeting in a couple of hours.’
    ‘Angie is liaison officer with the sex-workers outreach group,’ Gemma explained to Kit, adding, ‘I’ll talk to Naomi, too.
     She’s running Baroque Occasions now, the brothel my old mate Shelley bought. Naomi always knows what’s going on in town, and
     if she doesn’t she has the network to find out.’
    ‘I’ve got loads of people to interview about the two dead women,’ said Angie, ‘second interviews with their families, friends
     and acquaintances, just in case they’ve remembered something. I’ll be calling on you for help, Gemster. What do you say? How
     about helping me with getting witness statements? They’d all have to be done officially by me or someone else on the team
     later, but you could help the interviewees get their facts marshalled?’
    ‘I’ll do what I can,’ said Gemma. ‘It’s so long since I exercised my mind with a complicated case like this.’
    ‘I can pay you by doing a lot of overtime and quietly slipping something extra your way.’
    ‘Deal,’ said Gemma.
    ‘Good,’ said Angie, handing Gemma a list of contacts for Marie-Louise Palier. ‘So, what’s the grim smile all about?’
    ‘I thought I was going to work part time for a while. You know, start back slowly. Let Rafi and I both get used to the idea
     of leaving him at daycare. Then you come and tempt me.’
    ‘Crime never sleeps, Gems,’ Angie quoted, with her cheeky smile. ‘And it doesn’t work part time. Rachel Starr’s murder doesn’t
     strike me as a first attempt. With this sort of violence, the killer has to have committed previous serious assaults. Maybe
     he’s even responsible for earlier, unsolved murders. If we can find
any
physical evidence, I feel sure we’ll get a match from the Crimtrak database. This is not the behaviour of a newbie. Sonia
     at DAL suggested calling in the palynologist to see if he can get anything botanical from the clothes. So I’m doing that.’
    Gemma walked with Kit and Angie to the door, then watched as they walked up the stone stairs that led to the road above. Just
     as she took the first step, Kit called back: ‘There’s always a reason for an obliterating attack. There’s always a logic to
     it. Find the reason and you’re over halfway to finding the killer.’

CHAPTER 6
    Gemma collected Rafi from daycare and fed him a sandwich, then played with him on the rug in the living room. He giggled with
     pleasure, his plump starfish hands reaching out for her, grabbing strands of hair and yanking them. ‘Ouch!’ she cried, wincing
     and untangling the strands from his strong little fingers, while he shrieked with joy and bounced his fat, nappy-covered bottom
     on the rug before rolling over and breaking into a high-speed escape. He was recovering from his heartbreak at being left
     in the mornings at the daycare centre. Gemma wondered whether the wrench to him was as bad as the ache in her heart, as she
     turned her back on him and hurried away those first few mornings, to the sound of his distressed crying, ignoring the powerful,
     hard-wired impulse to run back and pick him up. His carer reassured her that he was settling in well.
    With Rafi playing around her, she put on a load of washing and cleaned up in the kitchen, setting the table in the living
     room to be ready when Mike came home.
    When she finally put Rafi to bed, he grizzled for a while, but the sounds became quieter and then finally there was silence.
     She sneaked in and looked at him lying on his back with his head turned a little towards the door, one hand near his face,
     the other stretched out. She kissed him softly.
    She tiptoed out and walked onto the deck, breathing in the