by Iona Whishaw
Lane reluctantly pulled her eyes away from the man’s face. “Angela, get a warm blanket from Betty right now. And find out if she’s contacted any kind of doctor,” she called out, past the large body of the distressed friend. He was still standing helplessly outside the cubicle, and seemed to be blocking the whole of the narrow passageway. The “warm” blanket was nonsense, she knew, but she felt part of her mind lagging behind, to some moment when he was still alive. She wished now she’d said something to him after all, as if that delay would have kept him from this meeting with fate.
“He was like this when you found him?” she asked.
“Yes, just like this. He didn’t move. I tried to wake him.” He sounded close to tears now, and looked nervously behind him, as if expecting that whoever had done this to his friend might pop through the door at any moment.
“Sir, go and get dressed. You will become sick in this cold. I have sent for help.”
The man shuffled nervously backward, then turned, and Lane heard the door of a cubicle shut, further down the passage. She swore at the darkness. This back cubicle was far from the bulb that hung halfway along the passage. She turned back to the figure, and, craning forward, looked closely at him, thinking perhaps he’d had a stroke and banged his head. When she saw the wound, she frowned, glancing upward to see if a protruding nail could have caused it, but knowing already it was impossible—no nail was that big. Near the top of the back of his head was a dark spot. She reached out and touched it gently, feeling her finger dip sickeningly into the damp wound in his skull. She brought her finger away, shuddering at the dark stain on it. Blood. At that moment, Angela was coming along the passage with a thick grey blanket.
“What’s the matter with him? Has he passed out?”
Taking the blanket, and spreading it over him, in some unconscious and superfluous bid to keep him warm until help arrived, she said, “I’m afraid he’s dead.”
Copyright © 2016 by Iona Whishaw
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover illustration by Margaret Hanson
Design by Pete Kohut
Edited by Cat London
Proofread by Claire Philipson
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Whishaw, Iona, 1948–, author
A killer in King’s Cove / Iona Whishaw.
(A Lane Winslow mystery)
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77151-198-8
Title.
PS8595.H414K54 2016 C813'.54 C2016-903371-6
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
