Cold Coffin Read Online Free Page A

patterned ridges from the sole of a man-size boot. “I wonder who he was, Tim?”
    “A mugger who killed Trent for his money?”
    “But his wallet is still on him. Would a mugger have bothered to put it back? Let’s have it out and take a look.”
    Boulter removed the wallet from the dead man’s hip pocket, touching only one corner. It contained several banknotes, a driving licence and a couple of credit cards.
    “Not a mugger, then,” said Kate. “Whoever pulled him out, why did they just leave him without informing us? Was it someone passing by who didn’t want to get involved with the police? Or is the explanation more sinister?”
    “Ah, the doc’s arrived,” said Boulter, looking up. “He might be able to tell us something useful.”
    Kate pulled a face. “Not if he can help it, he won’t.”
    The police surgeon and the Detective Chief Inspector were not sympatico. Short, self-important male; tall, self-confident female. Neither missed a chance, within the bounds of protocol, to score off the other.
    “Good morning, Dr. Meddowes,” Kate said heartily as he walked up to them a minute later.
    “Oh, it’s you!” He gave her a sour look. “Rather a come-down for you, Chief Inspector, to be attending a simple accident case.”
    “Accident?”
    “That’s what I was told.”
    “We have a dead man, doctor. At least, I imagine your expert findings will confirm the fact that he’s dead. The precise cause of death is something we still have to establish.”
    “What do you suspect?”
    “Oh, I shall keep an open mind and allow the evidence to speak for itself.”
    No reply to that. Chalk up one point, Kate.
    The doctor put his findings succinctly; reluctant to help the jumped-up female, but too professionally honest to hold back from saying anything that he believed was pertinent.
    “Dead. Cause of death., drowning. He was in the water for some hours, judging from the wrinkling of the skin on his hands. Probably overnight.”
    “Really?” queried Kate in surprise. “But it’s obvious he’s only been out of the water a short while.”
    The doctor shrugged. “Didn’t whoever found him pull him out?”
    “Not so. He was found exactly like this.”
    “Hmm? I note there are some abrasions and slight bruising on the back of his neck.” He tugged down the neckband of the sweater for her to see better. “I wonder how they got there.”
    Situated where they were, it was difficult to believe the injuries had been accidentally sustained. Kate felt a sharpening of her senses, a conviction that this was a case of unlawful killing.
    “As if,” she hazarded, “he was knocked on the head and thrown into the water?”
    “Isn’t that a matter for you to decide, Chief Inspector? Or are you elevating me to the CID?”
    Okay, that evens the score, Kate. She gave Boulter a glare for daring to grin.
    When Dr. Meddowes had departed, Kate took another look at the body. Gavin Trent had been a thin, lanky man, aged somewhere around forty. His hair, now darkened by the water, would be a greying mid-brown and had begun to recede. A small moustache had been grown to conceal, she guessed, his weak mouth.
    “This is where he was pulled out, Tim, but not necessarily where he went in. There’s a bit of current flowing through this pond, so the body could have drifted. Let’s have a look around.”
    Kate beckoned forward a uniformed PC to stand guard over the body. Then she and Boulter skirted the edge of the pond, examining the ground, taking care not to trample on any possible evidence. Slightly more than halfway round they came to a spot where there were signs of the grass and bracken having been trampled upon recently. Nowhere else around the perimeter was there any kind of disturbance.
    “It looks as if this is the place, Tim,” she said, returning to the spot. “But nothing suggests that a violent struggle took place here. So was he hit over the head and thrown in unconscious? Or ... it might even be possible