Ten Guilty Men (A DCI Morton Crime Novel Book 3) by Sean Campbell, Daniel Campbell Page B

chiselled and overdressed for the office, Purcell was the polar opposite. His chubby cherub-like features belied a seriousness and attention to detail that Morton admired – and he had a box of doughnuts tucked under one arm.
    Purcell set the box on the edge of the desk where it perched atop a pile of old files. ‘Help yourself, gents.’
    Ayala waved off the offer of a doughnut.
    ‘Counting calories again?’ Purcell asked with a grin.
    ‘Nope. Just not piling them on like there’s a shortage on. Some of us actually need to be able to run after criminals.’
    ‘Touché. I’ll stick to the better-paid, safer work that comes with doughnuts. Speaking of food, did you guys spot the pizza boxes all over our victim’s house?’
    Ayala nodded, not removing his gaze from the box of doughnuts. ‘Hard to miss them. They were from Trattoria Da Mondo . Tiny place, a few doors up from Richmond Station. I called them up. Evidently, Miss DeLange was a fan. They don’t normally do deliveries, but she’s only five minutes around the corner and she tips well so they make an exception if it’s quiet enough to spare someone for five minutes.’
    Morton tapped his fingers lightly on the desk. ‘Did they deliver on the night of the party?’
    ‘The guy I spoke to didn’t know. Apparently three brothers own the place, and they alternate which nights they work.’
    ‘Hmm. It’s probably not important. She could have picked them up or sent someone else to pick them up or they could be from a month ago. There’s so much junk you’d never be able to tell. Send Mayberry anyway. Visiting a pizzeria should be just about within his sphere of competence. What have we got in the way of DNA, Stuart?’
    The tech swallowed a mouthful of doughnut. ‘Hundreds of samples. We don’t have the time to test everything, but I think we can make a good start by looking at a couple of the more relevant samples.’
    ‘Such as?’
    ‘Such as a toothbrush with male DNA stored in the en-suite to the master bedroom–’
    ‘Which probably belongs to the boyfriend, Kal Fielder,’ Morton said.
    ‘That was my thinking too. That sample’s donor has been all over the house so it’s a fairly safe assumption. I found seminal DNA from another donor–’
    ‘In her bedroom?’
    ‘Actually, no. We haven’t finished processing the bedroom yet. It was on a towel caught on a rosebush outside.’
    ‘Our mystery nudist.’
    Purcell’s eyes flew wide open. ‘ Nudist ?’
    ‘Yep. We’ve got a witness who saw a man fleeing the scene in the buff after midnight.’
    ‘That doesn’t seem like much of a getaway plan for a murder. If it were me, I’d wear dark clothing and sneak away.’
    ‘Quite. If he isn’t Kal Fielder then we’ve got two other male suspects. Door number one, Paddy Malone, convicted drug dealer. Door number two, our impostor Lord Culloden.’
    ‘Or it could be a third person entirely,’ Purcell suggested.
    ‘I doubt it. We’ve got the victim plus five others in the house when she died, as far as we know. We know this DNA is male, and we think it isn’t the boyfriend. Process of elimination says our most likely suspects are Malone and our unknown male.’
    ‘There’s nothing to suggest the DNA was from that night.’
    ‘The towel was outside. If it had been there for longer, why wouldn’t she have brought it back inside? It fits with the timeline – a man flees the house wrapped in a towel which gets caught on the rosebush. He then jumps the fence and disappears into the night,’ Ayala said.
    ‘I don’t buy someone committing murder but not having the faculties to get dressed before fleeing. And where did the clothes go? I didn’t see any trousers or shirts on the scene. Did you?’ Morton asked, a flash of a lost suit jacket flitting briefly into his mind. The orphaned jacket had to come from somewhere. Morton pushed the thought away. The presence of a suit jacket alone was immaterial. It could have been left by any of the