BooksBarbecue
Back Perfect Crime Save as PDF
Chapters (55)
  1. PERFECT CRIME
  2. Dedication
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Chapter Twenty-One
  24. Chapter Twenty-Two
  25. Chapter Twenty-Three
  26. Chapter Twenty-Four
  27. Chapter Twenty-Five
  28. Chapter Twenty-Six
  29. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  30. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  31. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  32. Chapter Thirty
  33. Chapter Thirty-One
  34. Chapter Thirty-Two
  35. Chapter Thirty-Three
  36. Chapter Thirty-Four
  37. Chapter Thirty-Five
  38. Chapter Thirty-Six
  39. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  40. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  41. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  42. Chapter Forty
  43. Chapter Forty-One
  44. Chapter Forty-Two
  45. Chapter Forty-Three
  46. Acknowledgments
  47. Can’t get enough of the Perfect series?
  48. Chapter 1
  49. Loved Perfect Silence? Then why not get back to where it all started with book one of the D.I. Callanach series?
  50. Welcome to Edinburgh.Murder capital of Europe.
  51. The worst dangers are the ones we can’t see …
  52. When silence falls, who will hear their cries?
  53. About the Author
  54. By the same author:
  55. About the Publisher

She broke the call off, taking the SIM card from the back of the phone and crushing it beneath her boot. The pub landlady was a good person, or so she’d gathered from the things the farmer had said about her. Mariam could do no more than that. Common sense dictated that she not make the call, but there was wrong and there was right, and the two rarely had much overlap. The thought of him lying there with his head half off, after whatever it was the man had done to him – she hadn’t been able to face taking a closer look – that was wrong.

The killer was out there somewhere and what sort of person would she be if she let him go simply to protect her own liberty? A man who could kill like that would kill again. Her own husband had been shot in the head at the hands of robbers when he’d refused to hand over his only pair of shoes. Mariam was damned if she would let such people walk free. The police in Mali had merely shrugged, overwhelmed and under-resourced, too worried about their own families to do much more than make a note of the event. This was Scotland, though. This was a world where something could and would be done. Mariam prayed her own children wouldn’t have to suffer in the process.

Chapter Twenty-Six

15 March

By the time Ava arrived at the farmhouse, forensic investigations were in full swing. Dr Ailsa Lambert had come and gone, and the body was due to be moved as soon as MIT had seen it in situ. The victim, subject to official identification, was the landowner Jon Moffat, as notified to them by the person who’d called the crime in from the local pub. Uniformed officers were already there taking a full statement, and thirty additional officers had been mobilised from across the city to secure the scene and set up road blocks out of the area, questioning all those coming and going about their movements.

DS Max Tripp’s sharp intake of breath when he saw the body was all the warning Ava needed before she rounded the corner to see it for herself.

‘Do you want to wait outside?’ Ava asked him.

‘It’s all right, ma’am. I’ve seen plenty of bodies before. I’ll get a grip in a moment,’ Tripp replied, gulping air, not that it was likely to help given the smell of the place.

‘No one should have to see bodies in this state, Sergeant, and the day you get used to it will be the day I start to worry about you. There’ll be more than enough photos later on. Go and see what else they’ve found. I’ve got this.’