I'm thrilled to be involved in the blog tour for Retribution by Christina O'Reilly with an exclusive extract
A young woman has been murdered on Ripton Beach.
DSS ‘Archie’ Baldrick and DC Ben Travers eventually identify the body as that of Lucy Martin, who has been renting a bach in the area. Her husband, Oliver, seems to know very little about his wife or her background.
What was Lucy hiding? Why has she no family or friends?
As the number of suspects mounts up, Archie begins to conclude that the real answer lies in Lucy’s dark and mysterious past, and that the murderer may be just a little too close for comfort …
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EXTRACT
Notes: This scene takes place in the mortuary where Archie and Travers are awaiting confirmation of the young woman’s cause of death and any other personal details that may help them discover her killer.
Archie stood surreptitiously leaning against the wall of the mortuary. The old mattress on the motel bed had been soft and lumpy and now his back ached without mercy. Or is it really because you hate mortuaries? The gentle but persistent voice of Dr Rach echoed at the back of his mind.
‘I was right,’ Vincent Sharpe said with jolly satisfaction. ‘She was indeed drowned, by person or persons unknown. But that’s your job.’ He grinned ghoulishly at Archie. ‘There was seawater in the lungs and fresh bruising to the back of the neck and the tip of her nose.’ He stood over the slender form of Lucy Martin, laid out beneath a pale green sheet on the slab. ‘No obvious distinguishing marks like tattoos. But her hair was dyed blonde − quite a feat as her natural colour was quite dark. It would have to have been stripped of its colour first and then dyed. She’s also had some pretty expensive dentistry: there are crowns on most of her front teeth. No defence wounds,’ he added, uncovering the body to the waist, ‘but that’s hardly surprising.’
Archie levered himself away from the wall to take a closer look at the corpse, and it struck him again what a lack of colour there was in death. Travers was already leaning hunched over the table, his arms crossed in front of him. He looked up at Vincent, a puzzled expression on his face.
‘What are we looking at?’
Dr Sharpe lifted one of Lucy’s arms. ‘See this? Fine hairs on the forearms, except around the wrist area. Odd, don’t you think?’
Christina is a writer and professional proofreader living in the Waikato region of New Zealand. Four of her short stories have been published, one in a magazine and the others in anthologies produced by Page and Blackmore, Rangitawa Publishing and most recently in Fresh Ink: Voices from Aotearoa, produced by Cloud Ink Press.
As well as being a finalist in the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards, Christina’s first crime novel Into the Void was longlisted for the 2019 Michael Gifkins Memorial Prize for an unpublished novel.
Social Media Links – https://www.facebook.com/Christina-OReilly-Author-102419694721372/
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