The Advent of Murder (A Faith Morgan Mystery) by Martha Ockley Page B

placate her than give the answer she wanted. She tried another tack.
    “I suppose it could have been suicide,” she mused.
    “Bruise on the hip and two knocks to the head,” countered Peter. Faith examined Ben’s profile, trying to read him. He ignored her.
    Inebriation made you reckless and clumsy. If the boy had been drunk or high… Lots of the young seemed to deal with emotion that way these days. Lucas might have had an accident. His phone had been in his hip pocket, and it had been hit hard enough to break the casing. She tried to imagine a scenario to explain such a bruise and the wounded head. She was conscious of Ben waiting for something – for what? For her to make a fool of herself?
    “ Two knocks to the head?” she repeated, slowly.
    Peter nodded. Holding his palms flat, fingers stretched out, he pantomimed a blow with the flat of his hand up the right side of his face, bisecting the temple and then, with the opposite hand, tapped the front part of the crown of his head.
    “Here and here.”
    Ben was watching her, his expression sober.
    “So he was facing his attacker,” she stated. Ben looked away again. He grunted, and she recognized it as his way of agreeing. Faith turned to Peter.
    “Could either of the knocks have been post-mortem?” She knew as she said the words she was being silly.
    “Official cause of death is drowning, but the pathologist is taking a second look – the theory is that the blows got him in the water.”
    Faith closed her eyes briefly. That poor boy, dazed and hurt, falling, and the water closing over him, pulling him down. He’d been falling most of his life, she reflected. Peter was still speaking. “Being carried down in flood water with all that debris knocked the body about a bit.” Had she ever been used to this? “He was carried downstream.” Peter concluded as if giving her a brownie point, “You were right. He didn’t die where he was found.”
    Faith felt the thrill of vindication. Markham was looking more unlikely by the second. She tried not to let her voice betray her sense of triumph. “Any idea where he went in?”
    Ben crooked an eyebrow at her. “Give us a chance,” he said.
    So they were still looking. Faith thought of Oliver Markham as she had last seen him, his fists clenched at his side.
    “What about under the fingernails – was there anything?” If there had been a fight, the river water might not have washed all evidence away.
    “No evidence of defensive wounds,” Peter said. “Traces of his own blood around the nail beds on the right hand.”
    “Just his own blood.” Faith saw Lucas, disorientated and putting his hand to his bloodied head…
    “Any drugs in his system? Was he drunk?” she asked.
    “Nothing in the blood tests. Clean and sober,” Ben answered her, curtly.
    “Really? Nothing?”
    “Not a trace. And no signs of regular use. It seems Lucas was a good boy.” Ben’s expression was grim. Faith wincedinternally in sympathy. Ben had his faults, but what had first drawn her to him was his fierce feeling for the victims; she knew it was the reason he did the job, even if he would never admit it, even to himself.
    Faith thought about the chronology. If Lucas died on Saturday… She considered the Sunday just past. Advent II. As she remembered, it had felt like a really long day – six times she had hurried down the muddy back way between the vicarage and church, as heavy rain swept across the county. The main service had been joyous, though. It was the yearly Toy Service. Her congregation had turned out in their wellington boots and umbrellas, clasping wrapped gifts for the Salvation Army collection. The slightly damp parcels with their garish paper covers still occupied her vestry. (The volunteer who was due to collect them had been felled by a bout of flu. She made a mental note – she really must work out a time to deliver those to the drop-in centre this week.)
    So Lucas Bagshaw might already have been lying dead in