Bodies Read Online Free

without holding my breath, I could get a better idea of Health and Vitality’s studio. It was a good-sized room, perhaps thirteen feet or so by twenty-five, and though it was decorated in a nondescript white, colour was added by the blue satin drape that was hung over the far wall. In a pile near the fireplace were ten or twelve other coloured materials, no doubt alternative drapes. The fireplace itself, an early nineteenth-century job if my eye didn’t deceive me, had been picked out in blue and white in a mock-Wedgwood sort of way, and no doubt it served as a “feature” for occasional poses. The floor was a nondescript lino, but again there were various rugs around, clean and spruce, that no doubt could be used for certain types of shot. There was a large window overlooking Windlesham Street, but it had a white drape pinned over it. Of furniture there was none, though I had registered a door outside that could possibly lead to a storeroom. Surely for some of the shots they might use a sofa, or chairs? The bareness of the room had meant that the models’ clothes had been left in piles on the floor. The man had had a holdall, and had left a tracksuit carefully folded on top of it. The girl had left her clothes piled neatly on top of an Evening Standard. Both had registered, presumably, the slight film of dust on everything.
    â€œNow, how did they die?” I asked.
    â€œBullets from a thirty-two automatic,” said Joplin, reeling it off from his notebook. “This boy here—”
    He pointed to the lanky body behind the cameras.
    â€œI think his name might be Herbert,” I said.
    â€œIt is. Dale Herbert. We’ve found his student card. He was shot twice. Apparently the first only got him in the shoulder. The girl wasalso shot twice, though Doc thinks the first in fact killed her. Just finishing off the round, I suppose.”
    â€œA man who knew how to handle a gun, then.”
    â€œCertainly no novice. A man with real training, even if not necessarily a hired killer. You’ll get a report on the bullets eventually, but ballistics suspect a rather elderly automatic. One of the bullets went through the girl, and we picked it up off the floor, so they’ve had a good look at it.”
    â€œRight. Now, who are they?”
    â€œThe only one we’re not sure of is the man. The model, I mean. There’s no name on the holdall, and the only clothes are the track-suit, running shoes, boxer shorts and so on. We reckon he’d been at a track, or a gym. Oh, there is a birthday card in the holdall, with ‘Love from Debbie’ on it.”
    â€œSome birthday present he’s had,” I commented. “What about the others? The cameraman I take it is Bob Cordle?”
    â€œThat’s it. All the cameras and their boxes are labelled, and there’s a bank card in his wallet. Dale Herbert seems to have been a student at the City of London Poly, by the way, so there shouldn’t be any trouble tracing him. The girl’s a student too, funnily enough.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œThat’s right. Probably post-grad, I’d say, because she’s twenty-four. Name of Susan Platt-Morrison. Apparently a student at Bedford College. There’s also a letter in her handbag from ‘Mummy’—headed notepaper, address in the Thames Valley.”
    â€œI see. Do you think Mummy in the Thames Valley knew she modelled for Bodies? No doubt we’ll find that out before long. Well, we seem to be getting there. I suppose I’d better have my own look at the bodies before they’re carted off.”
    It wasn’t something I ever liked doing. (Many policemen do, by the way—some in a completely abstract way which springs from the fact that murder cases are for us what high C’s are for a tenor, others in a way that leaves no one in any doubt of the frank enjoyment they extract from the contemplation of violence and death.) Four