Cut You Dead (Dr. Samantha Willerby Mystery #4) - A J Waines Page 0,30

Only nineteen when someone dragged her to a railway line and stood by as a train came and...’ I couldn’t go on.

He raised his other arm as if he was about to comfort me, then picked up his glass. ‘It would be a conflict of interest if you were a detective investigating this case. But you’re not. You’re gathering ideas together to put forward to the cold case team.’ He said it with gravitas, as much to remind me of the confines of my role as to reassure me.

I let go of his arm. ‘And Hazel’s case? It’s making me think Hazel’s death wasn’t an accident.’

‘We’d need evidence to show it wasn’t. I’ve been updating her file, so I’m pretty clear on the details. Hazel was definitely alone on the balcony according to the report. She had a history of risk-taking, snapping daredevil selfies. People do these stunts for social media fame, then they lose their balance or the wind blows and – poof – they’re gone.’

‘What if the killer knew Hazel took dangerous selfies and crashed her party, then pushed her?’

‘Evidence,’ he said.

That word again.

He went on. ‘Every witness said there was no one else with her on the balcony. The people at her party stood and watched from the inner door. It was windy. She fell off. End of.’

A twitchy silence hung between us.

His voice softened. ‘What else have you found?’ He reached out for another handful of nuts and realised I’d scoffed the last one. He dusted the salt off his hands.

‘Nothing really. I can’t get beyond these three cases. They’ve got under my skin. The thought of dropping this and moving on to something else doesn’t feel right. At all. I know there’s something here. I just know it.’ I felt my shoulders droop, defeat making my limbs like lead.

‘And you’d feel like you were letting Lorna down if you didn’t follow this up?’

‘Yes!’ I said, gazing deeply into his infinity-pool eyes. ‘I want to see her killer brought to justice. I knew you’d understand.’

‘I do, but I also know about the limitations. You can’t step in and turn this into your own private investigation. You’ve been given privileged information that has to be dealt with in the right way. You’re not the person to be investigating it. You have no authority to–’

I drew back, closing my eyes. ‘I know, I know. Claussen made it all very clear.’

‘You need to start with evidence of delusional behaviour and find cases you think could be linked. Not one where you have personal involvement with one of the victims and where one of the deaths isn’t even on the cards for murder.’

I stopped and took a long slug of wine. ‘Perhaps I should call it a day and go back to my patients at the hospital.’

He jerked back his chin. ‘That doesn’t sound like the Sam Willerby I know.’

I sighed without a smile and sank back wearily in the seat. ‘But, I’m not going to get anywhere.’

‘Isn’t today officially only day one of your assignment?’

It already seemed like an age since I’d first embarked on this task. That’s what emotional involvement did to you.

I wrinkled my nose. ‘I suppose it is.’

He scooped his wayward hair away from his forehead in a broad stroke. ‘I’ve never known anyone like you, Sam. The way you think, the way you notice things no one else ever sees.’

I savoured his words, wanting to believe them.

‘You’ve got one of the sharpest minds I’ve come across,’ he went on, ‘and normally you have the tenacity of a camel.’

‘Shouldn’t that be donkey?’ I queried with a grin.

‘Don’t interrupt.’ He took in my face, then looked away, shaking his head wearily. ‘I don’t know what it is about you, but after all these years, you still manage to take my breath away...’ His words petered out.

A tingle scampered down the back of my neck. He’d never said anything remotely like this to me before. My eyes shot down to the table.

‘I think you might have gone a bit off-topic,’ I said, taking a sudden interest in the beer coaster under my glass.

He shrugged. ‘Yeah, well a bloke is allowed to get sidetracked now and again.’

He was watching me, his head slightly tipped on one side. I wanted to go back to the bit about taking his breath away. Had I misheard him?

‘I know you too well to say “don’t give up”,’ he said tenderly. ‘You’ll find a way through this. You’ll discover something else you can get