Chapter 2
The body was hanging from a dark blue rope, attached to one of the gum trees lining the dirt path across the Park Lands on the southern edge of the city, when Stella and Brian arrived at the scene. The shoes on the young man's feet were about thirty centimetres above the ground, dangling next to a small wooden crate. His arms hung at his sides.
Stella looked at the overturned crate and read the advertisement for vine-grown tomatoes plastered across its slats.
'Looks like a suicide,' said Brian.
'I'll wait for the pathologist's opinion on that, Brian.' Stella pushed her hands deeper into the pockets of her overcoat. 'I've seen a few too many apparent suicides turn out to be something else.'
Stella surveyed the early morning scene. Apart from the team of crime scene investigat
