Read Page One of DI Andy Horton mystery, THE FARLINGTON MARSH MURDERS

But it’s a perplexing case. Prior to his death, Woodley was assaulted and spent three days in hospital before discharging himself. His body was found on Farlington marshes, three miles from the hospital. How did he get there?
The funeral surveillance appears to be a bust. But the next morning Horton is called out when a woman’s body is found on a yacht wreck, stabbed in the back. She was at Woodley’s funeral.
Are the cases linked?
Here's a taster of THE FARLINGTON MARSH MURDERS
Tuesday 7 June 3.20pm
‘Anything?’ Detective Superintendent Uckfield asked hopefully.
Inspector Andy Horton shook his head and pulled at his black tie. Loosening his collar, he stepped into the shade of a tree in the crematorium gardens hoping to find some relief from the burning sun and wondering what Uckfield, head of the Major Crime Team, and Detective Chief Superintendent Sawyer of the Intelligence Directorate had expected they’d gain by a police presence – a weeping confession from the killer of Daryl Woodley over his coffin? That would have been nice but Horton knew that Woodley’s handful of mourners would sooner have their private parts tattooed with a blunt and dirty instrument than confess to a crime. And grassing to the police was only one step below being a paedophile in their code. They’d got nothing out of them during the investigation into Woodley’s death and they’d get nothing now. And neither would the crime reporter from the local newspaper, Leanne Payne, he thought watching her slim figure move amongst the mourners as they stood blinking in the bright sunshine like miners released from deep underground.
She addressed a shaven-headed, skinny man with tattoos up his hairy arms. Reggie Thomas, like Daryl Woodley, had been released from Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight in March. When questioned, Reggie claimed to have no knowledge of why his former fellow inmate had been assaulted just off the Portsmouth waterfront eighteen days ago, or why, after three days in hospital, Woodley had risen from his bed and somehow ended up dead at the marshes to the north of the city three miles from the hospital. No one claimed to have driven him there, it was inaccessible by public transport and he could hardly have walked that distance.
MAY 30TH, 2022 @ 6:22:00 BST
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