He stood up abruptly. “Come on, Arch. You’re never gonna believe this.” Archie followed at a brisk pace, wrapping his half-eaten corned beef sandwich back in its tin foil and dropping it in a garbage can as they made their way to their unmarked police car. Burgess was in full flow. “Mrs. Flood and Clarissa Lightbourne are leaving the island together. All this finger pointing at each other was a complete scam. They have been toying with us the entire time; looks like they colluded in killing Flood. I bet one held his arm while the other stuck in the needle.” He paused for a moment. “That’s it, Archie. There were two murderers. This explains everything. I bet the wife drugged his whisky then, when he was asleep, Lightbourne helped her inject him… Only, it must have gone wrong. He must have woken up, struggled with them and they panicked. That’s why Jacintha found the bruise and needle mark at a strange angle towards the outer part of his right arm. It should have been on the inside of his left arm to look like a suicide. We need to get those two back into the interview room and beat the truth out of them once and for all.”
Archie had never seen Burgess so angry. “No kidding. Who would have thought it?”
“I reckon they both became friends when they found out about Flood’s extracurricular activities. They probably had a look at the DVDs and saw the blackmail letter and decided to get rid of him once and for all. The friendship… or relationship, if that’s what it is, must have developed from there.”
Archie turned to Burgess as he buckled his seatbelt. He was grinning from ear to ear. “Remember,bro’…”
“What?”
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the following people for their assistance and support during the writing of this book:
Mike and Gill Brock, Lt. Col. William Smith (Ret.), Liz Mitchell MA, Dip Psych, PhD, Bob and Sue Watts, Marina Khitarova, Kathleen Sharpe Keane, Susan Stirling, Alan Taylor and Austin Camacho.
Never to Dead to Talk (Detective Inspector Burgess Series) Page 22
