A house fire. A suspicious death. A serial killer to catch.

When a body is found in a house fire DS Peter Gayle is called to the scene. It looks like an accidental death, but the evidence just doesn’t add up.

With only one murder victim they can’t make any calls, but it looks like a serial killer is operating in Exeter and it’s up to Pete to track him down.

But with his wife still desperate for news on their missing son and his boss watching his every move, the pressure is on for Pete to bring the murderer to justice before it is too late.

No Place to Hide

Jack Slater

ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Author Bio

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Excerpt

Copyright

JACK SLATER

Raised in a farming family in Northamptonshire, England, the author had a varied career before settling in biomedical science. He has worked in farming, forestry, factories and shops as well as spending five years as a service engineer.

Widowed by cancer at thirty-three, he recently remarried in the Channel Islands, where he worked for several months through the summer of 2012.

He has been writing since childhood, in both fiction and non-fiction. No Place to Hide is his second crime novel and the second in the series of the DS Peter Gayle mysteries.

Acknowledgements

As always, I could not have completed this book without the assistance, in so many ways, of my wife, Prunella. Former Thames Valley Police officer Rick Ell once again gave invaluable advice when it was needed, as did my editor, Victoria Oundjian at Harper Collins. Without them, this would not have been the book that it is. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the in-house artwork team at Harper Collins, who I think have excelled themselves with the cover art for this novel. The location is instantly recognisable, though it has never, to my knowledge, looked quite so dramatic. Thanks also go to all those who provided such wonderful reviews of the first novel in this series. I hope you all enjoy this book as much as its predecessor.

For Christine, who shone a light through the darkest times.

CHAPTER ONE

‘Damn it.’

Jerry’s knife hit the floor with a thump. He reached for it, tempted to ignore the knock on his front door that had caused him to drop it. Who the hell was going to be calling at this time of the evening, anyway? He certainly wasn’t expecting anyone.

Probably Jehovah’s Witnesses or something, he thought, checking the knife and the carpet where it had fallen.

The knock came again, louder, more insistent. They must have seen the light from inside. He sighed and got up, putting his dinner to one side.

In the hallway, he could see the silhouette of a man through the glass front door. He checked the chain and opened it a crack. A young man stood there. Clean cut, with neat dark hair, dressed in chinos and a jacket against the chill of the November evening.

‘Mr Tyler?’

‘Yes.’

‘Perfect.’ He took a step back and Jerry frowned, confused. From nowhere, something slammed into the door. The chain gave way and the door hit Jerry in the face. He staggered. The young guy leapt in, shoving him back so that he stumbled and fell onto the stairs, the treads digging painfully into his back. Another figure crowded in behind, carrying what looked like a heavy metal pipe with handles along two sides and a black sports bag with a dark gold logo. The first one was leering over him now, his face inches away. ‘Now, Jerry. You’re going to show us your computer.’

‘My computer?’ Jerry frowned. ‘Why? What are you . . .?’

‘We know what you are. I’ve seen your record.’

‘That’s—’

The guy’s hand clamped across Jerry’s throat, cutting off his words. ‘It wasn’t a request,’ he said. ‘Where is it? Or do we have to search the place?’

Jerry stared into the young man’s eyes and saw no give at all. No compassion. If anything, a cold enjoyment of what he was doing. Who was he? How had he seen closed records?

‘You want it the hard way? Fine.’ Something hard pressed into Jerry’s solar plexus and agony spasmed through his torso. He gasped. Had he been stabbed? He couldn’t look down for the hand at his throat. ‘Josh, get his trousers.’

The other, larger guy crowded forward. Jerry felt hands at his belt. ‘No, please,’ he gasped. ‘I’ll tell you.’

A smile lit up the face above him. ‘I know.’ The head tilted. The agonising pressure lifted from his torso. ‘So . . . ?’

‘Front bedroom. It’s my office.’

‘Password?’

‘Axminster.’

‘Ironic, in the circumstances. Josh?’

Panic flashed in Jerry’s mind. ‘No. I told you . . .’ He cried out as agony flared in his stomach and chest again, so fierce and intense that he barely felt the fingers unfastening his trousers. His shoes were slipped from his feet and his trousers tugged from the bottoms, down and off in one quick motion, change and keys spilling across the wood floor. Jerry was paralysed by the pain in his torso as he felt his underwear tugged down. Tears were running freely from his eyes as he stared up at the young man holding him. ‘Please, don’t. Don’t do this.’

He felt rubber-clad fingers place something around the base of his genitals. It felt like wire. He gasped, his eyes widened in horror. ‘No. Fuck!’ Panic surged through him, almost overwhelming the pain in his chest and stomach.

The guy shook his head. ‘No, no, Jerry. Not wise. What you can feel is cheese wire. One tug from Josh, and bye-bye bits. Do you understand?’

Jerry nodded, unable to speak.

‘Good.’ The guy’s voice was almost friendly now. He pushed himself up. The pain went from Jerry’s torso, but he was horrifically aware of the tension around his groin. ‘Up you get. But no sudden moves, eh? We wouldn’t want any accidents. Awfully messy on this nice, beige carpet.’

Jerry felt horribly exposed and vulnerable. He sat up carefully and got to his feet.

‘Up you go,’ the first one said. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’ He took the wooden handle on the end of the wire from the bigger guy in the blue surgical gloves and stepped in close, grabbing a handful of Jerry’s shirt with his free hand.

Jerry turned, feeling the wire across the top of his thigh as he took a tentative step up. He led the way cautiously up the stairs and along to the front bedroom, which he had converted into an office.

Keep them calm, do what they want, he thought. It was the only way he could see of getting out of this intact. Any wrong move and that little wooden handle would be snatched back and . . . He didn’t even want to think that far, but an image came unbidden into his mind – blood spurting, a lump of flesh lying at his feet as he collapsed, ruined forever. He would bleed out, here, on the floor.

‘Right. Stand aside, Jerry. Let the dog see the rabbit.’

The big one – Josh – stepped past them and took the seat in front of the computer. He powered it up as if he owned it and a flash of annoyance pierced Jerry’s fear. A hand clamped heavily on his shoulder, almost as if the guy standing beside him knew what he was thinking. Jerry felt suddenly crowded, claustrophobic in his own private space.

The computer screen lit up with a pleasant coastal scene, dotted with icons. Josh clicked on the Documents icon and searched until he found what he was looking for. Jerry felt himself go pale.

‘Oh, Jesus,’ he murmured.

‘He won’t help you now, Jerry,’ the other one said from his side. ‘Or where you’re going, if the preachers are right. Up you get, Josh.’

‘What? What are you going to do?’ Fear formed a lump in his throat that was the only thing stopping him from retching. His legs didn’t work properly as he was pushed forward and into the seat. He sat down hard, the wire digging into the sensitive skin at the top of his thighs. ‘Please. Don’t hurt me. I’m not that guy any more. I don’t use that stuff. I’d forgotten it was even on there.’ Jerry felt the guy’s free hand grab his collar and tug it down, then a sharp prick in the muscle between his neck and shoulder. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Just something to help you relax, Jerry.’ He patted him on the shoulder, where the injection had been.

A weird feeling swooped through Jerry’s body. He tried to shift his feet under the chair, but couldn’t. They wouldn’t respond. My God, what was this stuff they’d given him? Jesus! He could clearly hear the TV from downstairs. He recognised the voice of the BBC News anchor. Fiona. Not his favourite. He liked Julie. What the hell was he thinking?

He stared at the screen in front of him. Went to lift his hand to the mouse, to close the image, but his arm wouldn’t work either. ‘What . . . ?’ His voice was slurred and he couldn’t turn his head to face the men behind him. What was happening? Had they overdosed him? God! He’d never done drugs before, not of any kind – he didn’t even smoke – and he never would again. This lack of control was frightening. ‘Wha—?’

He felt the guy’s presence, close beside him. Felt his breath in his ear when he spoke.

‘Of course, in the dose we’ve given you, it goes a bit further than that. Becomes a paralytic. Stops your muscles from working. You can see, hear, smell, feel, but you can’t move. And soon, you won’t be able to breathe.’ He stood back. ‘Best get on, before we lose him. Wouldn’t want him to miss the fun, eh?’ He laughed and the other one joined in.

Panic filled Jerry’s mind as he felt his hand being placed around the wooden handle of the cheese wire. They were killing him. Slowly, so that he would feel every terrifying, agonising moment of it.

The bigger one placed a couple of big, fat candles on the ends of the wall-to-wall desk and lit them.

‘There,’ the one in charge said. ‘A bit of romance. Appropriate, or what?’

A lighter sounded. The candles were lit. Then a third one.

‘Josh, check the sitting room, would you? And turn the TV off while you’re there. You know what we need.’

Josh left the room.

Jerry tried to look away from the image on the screen in front of him, but even his eye muscles no longer worked. He heard a creak on the landing. ‘Ah, perfect.’

Josh came back into the room and dumped a pile of newspapers and magazines on the back of the desk, under the curtain. The top quarter or so of the stack was slid across a few inches and the third candle placed under it.

Jerry gasped. They were going to burn him alive! ‘Pwu . . . Nu . . . Hu . . .’

A hand clapped him hard on the back. He coughed, tried to get his breath and found it difficult. ‘We’ll be off, then, Jerry. Don’t worry. You probably won’t feel the flames. I dare say the Sux will have stopped your breathing by then.’

Frozen in place, Jerry stared at the stack of papers and magazines as his attackers walked calmly along the landing and down the stairs. The bottom one of the overhanging magazines and papers was already beginning to brown. Desperately, he tried to shift his body in the chair, but nothing happened. He drew a breath to try to shout, but his chest felt tight and restricted. ‘Hel—’ he croaked, then struggled to breathe in again. ‘He—’

CHAPTER TWO

‘Concealing evidence is a serious offence, Sergeant.’

DCI Adam Silverstone’s slim hands were flat on his desk as he stared at the man standing stiffly before him.

‘I haven’t concealed anything . . . sir. Tommy’s connection to Rosie Whitlock wasn’t relevant to the case. How could it have been? He’s been missing for six months, he hadn’t exchanged any messages with her since April and he’s thirteen years old. He wouldn’t have been driving the van. So I made a judgment call. As you know, every minute counts in cases like that. It was a question of either/or. Either I followed protocol or I gave Rosie Whitlock every chance of being recovered alive and well. I chose the latter. Was I wrong, sir?’ With difficulty, Detective Sergeant Pete Gayle kept his eyes on the wall above the station chief’s head.

‘Don’t push me, Sergeant. You’re on thin ice already. In fact, you’re a very small step away from being back on the beat. You’ve deliberately and blatantly flouted the most basic of rules. You cannot work a case involving a direct member of your family. But, knowing that, you hid your son’s connection to the victim and carried on regardless. Did you imagine there’d be no consequences to that?’

‘No, sir. I imagined there would be fatal consequences if I didn’t – for a thirteen-year-old girl whose case was all over the press at the time. And the girl’s own testimony suggests I was correct.’

‘It doesn’t matter whether he was a victim or a suspect, Sergeant. The fact that he was involved at all, and you knew it, is enough that you should have handed the case over instead of carrying on regardless. You are not the only competent officer in this nick.’

‘No, sir. But all the others were fully occupied on other cases and there wasn’t time for one of them to start again from scratch.’

‘That was not your call to make, Sergeant. It was mine or DI Underhill’s. And I distinctly remember telling you at the outset to keep DS Phillips up to speed so that he could take over if necessary.’

‘My understanding at the time was that he’d got to a critical stage in one of his own cases, sir. With all due respect to Simon, he couldn’t deal with that and take on Rosie Whitlock’s case at the same time, as urgent as it was. And any delay in our investigation would have meant the suspect getting away. To attack another victim. He’s already killed at least twice, sir.’

‘Which he blames on your son, Sergeant. With, at least in one case, the support of the pathologist’s report. And where’s he now, eh?’

‘I think that’s a question you should ask Simon Phillips, sir. He’s been trying to answer it for six months now.’

‘Enough!’ Silverstone’s hands slapped his desk as he came up out of his chair, face reddening. His dark eyes locked on Pete’s, jaw clenched as he pulled a deep breath in through his nose. He held it a beat, then slowly let it out. ‘I have been reminded by HR at Middlemoor that, before going back on active duty, you should have had a psych eval. Circumstances prevented it at the time, obviously, but that is no longer the case.’

‘Sir, I don’t . . .’

‘Do not presume on my patience, Peter,’ Silverstone snapped, overriding him. ‘You’ll find it severely lacking. This is not my decision and certainly not yours. You will attend Middlemoor HQ and report to the police psychologist at 0900 hours on Wednesday.’ He slapped a piece of paper down on his desk in front of Pete. ‘There are your orders. See that they’re obeyed.’

*

Silence descended as Pete walked back into the squad room. He ignored it, marching back to his desk, jaw clamped tight with the anger still seething inside him.

Bloody jumped-up clueless twat. How the hell did the brass ever imagine he was going to be any use to the force? Talk about piss-ups and breweries, as a manager he was as much use a chocolate teapot and there was no way he’d ever survive in a political environment. They’d wipe the floor with the arrogant, preening dick.

He sat down heavily, yanked open the bottom drawer of his desk and took out the file that he kept there. He slapped it open and stared at the page without focusing.

‘You all right, boss?’ DC Jane Bennett asked from the desk opposite.

Pete looked up and sighed. ‘I’m still here. For now.’

DC Dave Miles straightened up in his chair, next to Jane’s. ‘Even he’s not stupid enough to sack you while the press is still singing your praises.’

‘No, but you know what the press is like, Dave. News is only news for a day or three. Then they get bored and move on.’

‘Be back for the trial, though, and that won’t be for a few months at least. Bit of luck, FTP’ll have been promoted out of here by then.’

One of these days, Silverstone was going to catch somebody calling him that, Pete thought. It was just a question of whether he would realise it was him they were talking about. Which would probably depend on whether they used the initials, as Dave had, or the full version, Fast-track Phil. If the latter, what he’d just endured would be nothing in comparison . . .

He shook his head. ‘If we get a conviction then he might get his promotion. Not until then.’

‘What do you mean, if?’

‘Nothing’s certain in this life, Dave. Anyway, now’s not the time to be taking the piss out of the chief.’

‘Feeling sensitive, is he?’ Dick Feeney, the oldest member of the team, asked with a grin.

‘Distinctly tetchy would be closer to the mark. So, what have you lot been up to while I was getting my balls chewed off?’

Pete had explained the situation to his crew before he’d reported the email and text links between his still-missing son, Tommy, and Rosie Whitlock, the victim of the abduction they had been investigating. The team had understood and supported him but they’d all known that DCI Silverstone would not.

It was now just over a week since the girl was rescued and Dave arrested the suspect after a brief car chase through the streets of Exeter. When the tech team at Headquarters had found the link between Rosie and Tommy on her computer, Pete had kept it to himself. He knew it was against the rules, but, as he’d said to the DCI, it was a judgment call. There was no way that Tommy could have snatched her and there wasn’t time to waste on following protocol when the girl’s life was at stake. Or, at least, that was what he’d told himself.

Thinking it through afterwards, he’d accepted that DI Colin Underhill could have taken over. He was a bloody good copper – had taught Pete everything he knew – but, having only just stepped back into the fold after five months’ compassionate leave following Tommy’s disappearance, the last thing Pete had wanted was to be pushed straight back out to the sidelines.

And, in the end, he’d been right. They’d nailed the guy. He’d been arrested before he could harm anyone else, including Rosie.

‘You know how it is, boss.’ Dave leaned back in his chair, fingers linking behind his head. ‘While the cat’s away . . .’

‘Well, I’m back now, so let’s get to it, eh? We need every i dotted and every t crossed on this one. No chance of him wriggling out of it for any reason at all.’

Including some smart-arse DS hiding the fact that his son was connected to the victim.

Pete pushed the thought aside as soon as it popped into his mind. As lead investigator, it was up to him what was relevant and therefore what would go to the CPS lawyers. As long as the defence team didn’t get hold of it and, more importantly, of the fact that Pete knew of it . . .

‘There’s no way he’s wriggling out of this, boss,’ Dave said, sitting forward again and tugging his black waistcoat back into place. ‘His van. His barn. The stuff at his house. The girl’s testimony. We’re safe as houses.’

‘Even so. Every i and every t.’ Pete wasn’t going to allow Malcolm Burton to get away with anything, if he could possibly help it – especially laying the blame off on Tommy, as he’d been trying to do since he was arrested. The boy had had his problems. Pete had been aware of some of them, of course, but had found out a lot more since he disappeared, back in May – and more especially since he’d come back to work the week before last. He couldn’t accept that he was a rapist and a killer as Burton and his solicitor were trying to suggest, though. He was only thirteen years old, for God’s sake.

Pete’s phone rang. He blinked, returning to the here and now, and picked it up. ‘DS Gayle.’

‘Peter. It’s Tony Chambers. I’ve got something here that I think you ought to see.’

‘What’s that, Doc?’

‘Fatality in a house fire last night, out to the east of the city. Dental records have just confirmed the identity of the victim as the house owner, Jeremy Tyler, aged forty-two. It looked like an accident during an auto-erotic pursuit, but a couple of things don’t ring true.’

Pete pictured Chambers, small and lean in his green scrubs, his greying hair little more than stubble, sitting at his office desk, his free hand clicking through crime scene photos on his computer while he talked.

‘Such as?’

‘For one, there’s a needle mark in the right trapezoid – which is a strange place to find one – and the fire chaps tell me there was definitely no syringe at the scene. And for another, there was a half-finished plate of food on the side table in the lounge, as if he’d been eating his dinner and got interrupted. Yet, he was found upstairs, seated in front of his computer. I mean, even a sex maniac would finish his dinner first, surely?’

Pete blinked and sat forward in his chair. ‘Hang on. Jeremy Tyler, you said?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are we talking about the registered sex offender Jeremy Tyler?’

‘That’s right. Why?’

‘Name’s familiar, that’s all. Came up in the Rosie Whitlock case, but he had a solid alibi. And no syringe. We sure on that?’

‘That’s what the fire investigator tells me. And the needle would have survived, even if the syringe itself didn’t.’

‘Yeah, that’s right. OK, I’ll come over.’

‘Thanks, Peter.’

‘You got something, boss?’ Jane asked as he put the phone down.

‘Maybe. The doc reckons he might have a murder on his table. House fire, last night.’

‘Ooh.’ She grimaced.

Pete pushed his chair back. ‘I’m off to the mortuary, to have a look-see.’

She flicked her ginger hair back from her face. ‘Sooner you than me. I hate the smell of burners. Put me off barbecue for life.’

*

With no alternative, DI Underhill being in Bristol on a course for the week, Pete reluctantly knocked on DCI Silverstone’s door for the second time that day.

‘Come.’

Silverstone was seated at his desk, reading through a report. He looked up from it as his door opened. ‘Peter. What can I do for you?’

‘I got a call from the pathologist earlier. Been looking into what he said and it seems we may have a serial killer in the city, sir.’

‘In Exeter?’

Pete tilted his head. ‘Can happen anywhere, I suppose.’

Silverstone pursed his lips. ‘Hmm. What have you got?’

‘Registered sex offender Jeremy Tyler was killed in his home around seven-thirty last evening. A house fire was used to cover it up. Clever job, made to look like an accident, but it wasn’t.’

‘One suspicious death doesn’t make a serial killer.’

‘No, but the doc detected a pattern. He’s looking into it more deeply as we speak. I just heard back from him on another death, a few days ago. A bloke collapsed in the street. No obvious cause. Except, again, there was a needle mark found and no needle at the scene.’

Silverstone raised an eyebrow and sat back in his chair, fingers steepled in front of him.

‘The victim hadn’t worked in about fifteen years. So, we’ve got a dole scrounger and a sex offender. And, apparently, there’s been a string of others recently. A druggie, a drunk, a prostitute and so on.’

‘People like that die all the time.’

‘Exactly. Vulnerable. Isolated. Won’t be missed. Perfect targets. All died of plausible causes except the one that hasn’t been determined. Someone’s being very clever about it, but they’re out there – killing off the city’s undesirables. Doc Chambers is rechecking other cases to confirm. His idea, not mine.’

Silverstone stared at him flatly for a long moment, then sat forward. ‘All right. Work the Jeremy Tyler case for now. We’ll see about the serial killer angle if and when Doctor Chambers comes up with something concrete.’

What? Pete struggled to hold his tongue. Who the hell did this jumped-up Hendonite think he was? Pete had no idea whether he’d gone into the police training college at Hendon with the right degree or just the right connections, but the fact that he was on the fast track to the upper echelons didn’t make him an expert on anything, never mind pathology. Just because he’d been able to waltz in over the heads of far more suitable candidates to be in charge of this station for now, he clearly imagined he was qualified to spout forth on all sorts of subjects that he’d have been better keeping out of.

But Pete was in more than enough trouble with the DCI as it was. He didn’t need any more. He drew a long breath. ‘Sir,’ he said and turned to leave.

Back at his desk, he sat down, shaking his head incredulously.

‘What’s up?’ asked Dave.

‘I can’t believe that bloke sometimes. The arrogance of the jumped-up, clueless tit. He’s calling the doc’s judgment into question, now.’

‘Why? What’s Doc Chambers saying?’

‘He’s got a suspicious death on the table. Which is now officially ours, by the way. He reckons it’s one of a series. Except Fast-track, in his infinite wisdom, has just decided that it’s not, until the doc can “come up with something concrete”, as he put it. What the bloody hell’s that about?’

‘Reputation?’ Dave suggested. ‘He wants to be moving onwards and upwards, ASAP. Doesn’t want a serial killer on his watch – unless, of course, we can catch him and he can take the credit.’

‘Whoah.’ Jane looked at him, green eyes wide. ‘I take it all back. You’re not just a pretty face, are you?’

Dave tugged at the collar of his open-necked shirt and straightened his waistcoat. ‘Well, it’s good of you to notice, at last. Women, eh?’ he said to Dick. ‘Nothing but hormones and make-up.’

‘Oi!’

‘Ow,’ he yelped as both Jane and Jill thumped him. ‘Physical violence, boss!’

‘Sexual discrimination,’ Jill shot back. ‘Misogynist pig.’

Dick was shaking his head. ‘And you go on at Ben for not learning.’

‘I learned one thing on the Internet last night,’ Ben said, nodding towards Dave. ‘He’s more Bryan Ferry than Elvis. Only without the looks.’

‘Cheeky sod.’

‘I’m surprised you’ve heard of either,’ Pete said.

‘He hadn’t till yesterday,’ Dick said. ‘Poor uneducated boy.’

‘And he’s got you and Dave to teach him? God help the lad.’ He shook his head. ‘Anyway, we need bodies out to Jerry Tyler’s place, to canvass the area and check on friends, family, colleagues – all the usual stuff. The fire guys have given us permission to go in, but we’ll need wellies, apparently. It’s structurally sound, but a major mess. Dave, I need you to check the records. See what we’ve got for known associates, family and so on. You find anything, let me know and then go and see what they have to say. Take Dick or Jill with you, as appropriate. Ben, you can come with us,’ he said to the spiky-haired young PC as he stood up and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair.

*

‘So, Doc Chambers reckons some sort of drug overdose, then?’ Jane asked as they went briskly down the station stairs.

‘The lack of soot in the lungs and no abnormalities in the brain or heart told him something was up. The guy wasn’t bound, but something stopped him getting out of that chair. Then he found a needle mark in the shoulder, up here.’ Pete tapped the muscle between his neck and shoulder. ‘Unusual place to inject – yourself or someone else. And there were no other needle marks on the body. He’s asked for a rush-job on the analysis, but it’ll be later today, at least, before the results come back.’

They reached the bottom of the stairs and turned right, towards the back of the building.

‘And how does it get to be part of a series?’ she asked. ‘This is the first I’ve heard of it.’

‘First anyone has. It reminded the doc of several others recently. Different MOs, if any at all but, taken together, they add up to a spike in deaths of these types of victims over the past few months. He’s got another one in the mortuary at the moment, so he’s going back and rechecking, see if he can find anything.’

Pete reached the back door, hit the security lock button and pushed through.

‘So, for now, we’ve just got the one,’ Jane said as they crossed the car park behind the station.

‘That’s right. And, whatever we think of the victim, he’s still a victim.’

‘Don’t look at me, boss. I’m with you. We can’t leave a killer out there to do it again, no matter who he’s targeting.’

Pete pressed the remote and his car bleeped, indicators flashing as the locks clunked open. ‘I might have to quote you on that. There’s going to be some who need convincing. Including DCI Silverstone.’

CHAPTER THREE

Driving out onto Heavitree Road, Pete turned left towards the edge of the city. A mile or so up the road, he turned left again into an estate of 1940s and 50s housing, the overall impression one of tidy and neat functionality.

‘So, what’s the aim here, boss?’ Ben asked from the back seat.

Pete glanced in the mirror. The baby-faced PC was sitting forward keenly, leaning on the back of Jane’s seat. ‘Time of death is around six forty-five to seven last night. We need to find out who reported it and if any of the neighbours saw or heard anything out of the ordinary around that time or just before and what they know of our victim. If they saw him coming and going, or anyone else coming and going from his house – friends, family, girlfriend, whatever. Build up a picture that might lead us to who did this to him.’

Pete turned at another junction. Tidy gardens with low brick walls, cars parked on drives rather than on the road, a grass verge between the road and the footpath, dotted here and there with small ornamental cherry trees.

‘Nice area,’ Jane commented.

‘Seems well looked after,’ Pete agreed. ‘Here we are.’ He pulled in outside a house, similar to all the others except for the blackened bricks around and above the broken-out front bedroom window and the damaged roof above it, rafters showing like charred ribs through a large gap in the slates.

‘See you in a bit, then, boss.’

‘Yep.’ Pete went to the boot as the other two headed off down the street. He took out a pair of wellington boots and a set of blue overalls. After pulling them on, he left his shoes in the boot, locked the car and went up the drive to the front door of the house; his nostrils filled with the smell of wet charcoal.

The door was open but there were two strands of safety warning tape across it. Pete ducked under them and stepped inside. The place looked like it had been through a tropical storm with no roof on. The walls and ceilings were soaked. Pictures on the walls were knocked off-kilter. The bannister railing at the top of the stairs was blackened and charred. All the doors were open, upstairs and down. The upstairs appeared to be brighter than expected, but that would be the lack of roof and ceiling, he guessed. He could see through to the kitchen at the rear and into the lounge to his left. It was dark in there, the curtains still closed from last night.

‘Hello,’ he called. ‘DS Gayle, Exeter CID.’

‘With you in a sec,’ a male voice came from upstairs.

Pete waited in the narrow hallway. A moment later, a pair of black rubber boots with yellow rings around the tops appeared at the top of the stairs and started down.

The man wearing them was in his mid-forties, Pete guessed, and the sort he could imagine on one of those firemen calendars aimed at women of a certain age and disposition. He smiled and held out his hand.

‘Pete Gayle.’

They shook hands.

‘Steve Patton. Good to meet you.’

‘So, have you got it all sussed?’

‘Hmph. They used a simple but effective delay method. Enough for the arsonist to be out and away before it flared up.’

‘So, deliberate rather than an accident?’

‘Oh yeah. Nobody’s that careless. It was set up to look like an accident, but . . .’ Patton shook his head. ‘It wasn’t.’

And the victim, if the doc’s right, was left sitting there, watching it, Pete thought with a shudder. ‘Which leaves us with the job of finding out who did it,’ he said. ‘Any damage in here?’ He jerked a thumb at the sitting room door.

‘No. Bit of water might have soaked through the ceiling, but that’s all. All the electricals were off in there.’

Pete nodded. ‘Any idea who called it in?’

Patton shook his head. ‘Anonymous. Just came through on the 999, said, “There’s a house fire at this address,” and hung up. We’ve got it on tape, of course, but . . .’ He shrugged.

‘Have you got the number, though?’

‘Dunno. I’ll have to check. I’ll let you know.’

‘OK, cheers.’ Pete shook his hand again and they both stepped out.

The fire investigator handed him a key. ‘Here. You might as well have this. I’ve finished here.’

‘Thanks.’

Pete took out his phone as the man walked away down the drive. He hit a speed-dial number and waited for the connection.

‘Forensics. How can I help?’

‘DS Gayle, Exeter CID. I’ve got a crime scene here that I need you guys to take a look at. Place has been in a fire, so time is of the essence, before the weather damages any evidence the fire crew left. We’ve got the all-clear for entry. Of particular interest is the sitting room, with a view to foreign fingerprints. The top of the TV and its power-button, a plate of food on a side table and perhaps the light switch. Also, wherever someone might have picked up a stack of magazines from in there.’

‘OK. I’ve got all that. I’ll pass it on to the team and they’ll be there as soon as they can. Are you currently on-site?’

‘Yes, but I won’t necessarily be when they arrive. If not, I’ll have an officer stationed here for security.’

‘OK. And the address?’

Pete gave it, then phoned the station.

‘Andy? Pete Gayle. I need a uniform out here to a crime scene. The fire in Whipton.’

When the duty officer had confirmed he would send someone, Pete went back into the living room where he pulled the curtains carefully back and checked for signs of disturbance. There was nothing obvious. A few magazines remained on the coffee table. He glanced through them then checked the DVD collection. The guy seemed to like comedies and action movies. He glanced around the room again, but saw nothing out of the ordinary, apart from the abandoned plate of food.

Closing the curtains, he headed upstairs.

The upstairs front room was utterly destroyed and open to the elements. Nothing remained in there but charred wreckage that stank of burning. Pete was searching the room next to it when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He drew it out and checked the screen.

Chambers.

He pressed the button to take the call and lifted it to his ear. ‘Hey, Doc. You got something?’

‘I take it you mean apart from backache and sore fingers?’

‘I was hoping.’

‘The answer is, yes, I have. I’ve just finished with the other relevant body that’s still here and found a single needle mark.’

‘Another overdose?’

‘Not in the sense you’re thinking and we certainly won’t get a measurement now, but I did a vitreous glucose analysis. The vitreous humour, the fluid in the eye, is about the only reliable source for biochemical levels in the minutes and hours leading up to death. The blood begins to degrade almost immediately post-mortem, so normal constituent levels in it wouldn’t be reliable. The result was 0.4. The only way to get that low is with an insulin overdose.’

‘And I’m guessing your victim wasn’t a diabetic?’

‘Exactly.’

Pete let go a long sigh. ‘Best send me the particulars, then, Doc. Victim file and your report.’

‘Will do.’

Pete chose not to tell Chambers of Silverstone’s reluctance to accept his theory without further evidence. There was no point now. ‘What about the other cases you mentioned?’

‘All in the ground or cremated by now, I’m afraid. I’ll check which is which, but we’ll need exhumation orders to pursue any of them.’

‘OK. Keep me posted.’

‘Of course.’

Pete returned the phone to his pocket.

Two cases didn’t make a serial killer, but they certainly started to look like one. And that was the last thing he needed to get tied up with right now.

*

‘Andrew Michaels was thirty-four years old, five foot nine and weighed seventeen and a half stones,’ Pete read from Doc Chamber’s report to his assembled team a little over an hour later.

Dick Feeney ran a hand down his cheek, skin rasping on dark stubble. ‘Big lad, then.’

‘You really are going have to reset your body clock, mate,’ Dave told him.

‘Eh?’ Jane frowned.

‘Well, look at him. If that’s not a five o’clock shadow, I don’t know what is. And it’s only . . .’ He made a show of checking his watch. ‘Twenty past one.’

‘Damn, no wonder I was feeling peckish,’ Jane said. ‘It’s feeding time.’

‘Talking of food and getting back to the matter at hand,’ Pete said, ‘Michaels worked for eighteen months in a bakery, ending in 2001. He’d been on the dole since then, living at home with his parents. He collapsed in the High Street; keeled over suddenly from a seat across from the Princesshay Shopping Centre. The attending paramedics said that witnesses reported nothing abnormal leading up to the collapse. He had just been sitting there quietly one minute and slumped on the ground the next.’

‘Presumably not from a heart attack from being a lazy, fat bastard,’ Dave said. ‘Or we wouldn’t be talking about him.’

‘Exactly.’ Pete stuck his photo – taken on the steel mortuary table – on the board alongside Jerry Tyler’s. ‘But you’re right about the intended impression. Victim two in the doc’s theorised series. In this case, the needle mark was in the back of his upper arm, the triceps muscle.’

‘So, what was it?’ asked Jane.

‘Insulin, based on the guy’s glucose level, as determined from the fluid in his eye.’

‘Ouch.’ Jill Evans cringed.

‘Why the eye?’ asked Ben Myers, across from her.

Dave glanced at him. ‘You a poet and didn’t know it?’

‘Because,’ Pete said, ignoring him, ‘it’s the one place in the body where levels of several blood constituents are stable for a time after death. It’s a filtrate of the blood serum, but it’s isolated from the bloodstream after death, so it’s not affected by the early stages of decomposition like the blood is. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help us with the actual insulin because that’s only stable for a few hours.’

‘And there’s nothing else that could cause the glucose level the doc found?’ Dave asked.

‘No. In the blood, it would drop to that kind of level fairly quickly after death, apparently, but not in the eye fluid.’

‘So, insulin jab, staged accident . . .. We’re talking about a fairly sophisticated perp, here.’

‘And one with access to insulin.’ Jane added. ‘Which suggests a diabetic. Or at least one in the family.’

‘Or peer group,’ Ben put in. ‘He could have borrowed or nicked a dose.’

Pete nodded. ‘We should check GP surgeries, the hospital and the ambulance trust – see if any thefts have been reported. It could have come from one of them as well as a friend or family member.’

‘That’s a big old job,’ said Dave.

‘I’ll do it,’ Ben offered. ‘What about vets?’

Pete frowned. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I’ll find out.’

‘Will you never learn, Spike?’ Dave asked.

‘What?’

‘Never volunteer,’ Dick told him.

‘Right.’ Pete grabbed his coat off the back of his chair. ‘Jill can give you a hand if you need it, Ben. Dick, check out the victim and see if he’s got a record of any kind. I doubt it, but you never know. Jane, you and I’ll go see his parents, see what we can get from them. Come on.’ He headed for the door, Jane’s heels clipping on the lino as she hurried to catch up.

*

Michaels had clearly inherited his height from his father and his girth from his mother. Brian and Kathy sat uneasily in the two armchairs in their lounge, leaving Pete and Jane on the sofa, the TV muted but not switched off in the corner.

‘So, why are the police interested in our Andrew all of a sudden?’ the dead man’s father asked, his hands clasped in his lap as he leaned forward in his chair.

‘The pathologist has come to us with some unusual findings,’ Pete told him. ‘Was Andrew diabetic?’

‘Why would you ask that? Because of his size?’ demanded Kathy, whose greying dark hair wafted in a curly halo around her as she moved, hands wringing in her lap. ‘Not all fat people are diabetic, you know. I’m not.’

‘We don’t judge, Mrs Michaels. It’s not our job.’ Pete felt sympathy with her defensiveness. He was still the same way with Tommy, despite all he’d learned about the boy in the last couple of weeks. All parents would be, he guessed.

After a long pause, she sighed and seemed to slump in her chair. ‘No, he wasn’t diabetic. Why?’

‘One of the pathologist’s findings suggested the possibility. You say you’re not, either. Is anyone in the family, or one of his friends, perhaps?’

She shook her head, unruly strands of hair wafting. ‘Why should it matter?’

‘Talking of friends, did you know most of Andrew’s?’

‘He didn’t have many,’ his father said. ‘Quiet lad, kept himself to himself.’

‘He was bullied at school,’ Kathy said, reminding Pete again of his own son, who was small for his age. ‘Never really got over it. We tried to encourage him to get out more, join a club or something, but . . .’ Her hands fluttered briefly then went back to her lap, where the fingers resumed their random pattern of twining together.

Evidence suggested that Tommy had reacted differently to the Michaels boy. According to both his peers and his teachers, he’d turned things around to the extent that many of the other kids were frightened of him. Too small to fight, he’d become devious, cruel and bitter. Instead of the brawn that he lacked, he’d used his brains to get back at the kids who’d previously targeted him. Not that Pete had ever noticed any of this, he had to admit regretfully. He’d always been too busy working.

‘Did he have a computer?’ Jane asked.

‘Up in his room,’ Kathy said.

‘Could I take a look? It helps to build up a picture of him – his associates, his interests and so on.’

‘He wasn’t into anything mucky,’ Kathy said quickly. ‘You won’t find none of that porn stuff on there.’

‘As I said, Mrs Michaels, I’m just interested in who he was connecting with, what his interests were, what he was like as a person. We didn’t know him, you understand.’

She grunted. ‘I suppose. Come on, then.’ She got up and shuffled towards the door.

Pete waited until the door closed behind them, then turned to Brian.

‘I’m sorry, but it’s possible your son was killed, Mr Michaels,’ he said. ‘We need to know as much as we can about him, to find out who might have done it. If anyone in his life might have had the opportunity or the inclination. Do you have any other family?’

‘I’ve got a brother and a sister, live here in the city. His mother’s an only child. Dave’s got no kids, Beck’s got a son, five years younger than our Andrew, but they don’t see each other except birthdays and Christmas. Her husband don’t come round here, either. He works down the industrial estate. Car mechanic.’

‘And your brother? David?’

‘Retired last year. Done his back in. Been troubling him for years but it finally got too much last spring.’

‘And do you see him much?’

‘Nah. He got himself one of those disabled cars, but he don’t drive it much and we don’t drive, me and Kath. Never did. Like she said – keep ourselves to ourselves.’

‘I understand Andrew was in town when it happened. Sitting on a bench up by the Princesshay.’ Pete’s mind conjured an image of the wide, pedestrianised High Street with the glass and concrete entrance to the covered shopping centre off its east side. ‘Did he do that much?’

‘Every fortnight, when he had to go and sign on, he’d spend a few hours round the centre. Got him out of the house, change of scenery, bit of fresh air, you know?’

Pete nodded. An isolated, lonely life, broken by sitting alone among the crowds on the High Street once a fortnight. Christ, talk about sad.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he took it out, checked the screen and saw the ID flashing up: Doc. ‘Sorry,’ he said to Michaels. ‘I need to take this.’ He hit the button and raised the phone to his ear. ‘Hello, Doc. What’s up?’

‘I’ve just heard back from the lab,’ Chambers said. ‘We have the toxicology from Jeremy Tyler. I was right, unfortunately. He had been dosed. With succinylcholine, so he was paralysed but fully aware as the fire took hold around him.’

CHAPTER FOUR

‘So, what did she have to say while you were on your own with her?’ Pete asked as he pulled away from the kerb outside the Michaels’ house.

The sun was low in the sky, hidden behind a mass of heavy black cloud, leaving it near-dark although it was still mid-afternoon. Pete switched his lights on. The beams swept across other parked cars, pavements fronted by stretches of mown grass and low, neat walls protecting tidy gardens in front of suburban houses where situations like this were not meant to arise.

‘She loved her son, boss. Wouldn’t have a word said against him, even hypothetically. My guess – she was the reason he was so withdrawn. Overprotective, you know? Smothering. But essentially, he kept himself to himself. Had interests that most guys grow out of at about twelve. Trains, planes – stuff like that. The only vaguely social thing he seemed to be involved in was the annual model train exhibition at the local school. Has quite a big following, apparently. Draws people in from all over. As far as the West Midlands. And she was right. There was no porn on his computer, or any sign of it in the history log.’

He drove past the school she had just mentioned – the school his own daughter, Annie, attended. The one Tommy had gone to as well until just over a year ago when he switched to the local senior school. Cars lined both sides of the road outside, parents sitting patiently waiting for their offspring to emerge. The bright railings and heavy metal gates made it look like some kind of junior prison. His mind conjured an image of ten-year-old Annie, sitting at her desk, sucking on the end of her pen as she avidly watched the teacher at the front of the class, absorbing every speck of information they could provide.

In a few minutes, the scene would change completely, the ring of a bell releasing a dark tide of noisy humanity onto the quiet streets like a swarm of angry bees.

‘How’s she doing, boss? Annie? She all right?’

Pete blinked. ‘Yes, she’s great. Don’t know what I’d have done without her, the past few months, to be honest.’

‘And Louise?’

Pete glanced across. Saw the genuine concern in her expression. Jane was more than a junior officer. She was a friend. They had been partners for three years before he got the sergeant’s exam. He trusted her like no one else on the force – even their DI, Colin Underhill, who had been both a boss and a mentor through their early years in CID. ‘She’s . . . She seems to have turned a corner. The fact that Tommy was there with Rosie, that he’s still alive . . . It’s given her something to focus on. Some sort of hope. I wouldn’t want to be Simon Phillips if she ran into him, but…’

Jane laughed. ‘Not impressed, eh?’

‘Not really. It’s been almost seven months and the only real evidence he’s got is what we gave him last week, from the Rosie Whitlock case. She’s bad enough with me. Why could I bring Rosie back and not Tommy? Where is he? Why won’t he come home? What are we doing to find him? Not that I can blame her. I just wish I had the answers for her. But, if she got hold of Simon, she’d have his balls for earrings.’ He glanced in the mirror, but the school was gone from sight around a bend in the road.

*

Dave stared up at the castle-like gatehouse of the dark-brick Victorian prison with its huge arch-topped doors of incongruously bright blue.

‘Bugger, that took a can or two of paint, didn’t it?’

‘Just don’t say anything about cheap labour.’ Pete knocked on the man-sized door cut into the big gates.

‘Would I?’

The team had drawn a blank on their search for a source for the suxamethonium and on Tyler’s internet history, so Pete had sought Silverstone’s permission to talk to other people’s arrestees and brought Dave along to lighten the load and speed the job up while the rest of the team continued to search for other clues.

The door in front of them opened and a black-uniformed prison guard asked, ‘Sergeant Gayle?’

Pete nodded and flashed his badge. ‘And DC Miles.’

Dave showed his own ID.

‘Come in, gents.’ He stood back.

‘Yes, you would,’ Pete said to Dave as they stepped through. ‘But if you do, I won’t try to stop them keeping you.’

The door behind them banged shut and a bolt shot across, then another. Despite himself, Pete shivered.

‘This way, gents.’ The guard stepped past them and led them across the wide, blue-brick yard.

They signed in at the reception desk in the main block and Pete was led to an interview room more usually used by inmates and their solicitors.

A table stood in the middle of the room – more of a cell but without the fittings – with a plastic chair at either side of it. In one of them sat the lean, scraggy-looking figure of one of the men who had been arrested in the major anti-drug operation that had brought Pete back to active service two weeks ago. His hands were manacled to a steel ring in the middle of the table, which was bolted to the floor.

‘Afternoon, Stevie. How’s it going?’

‘How do you think?’ Lockwood’s lank blond hair had been cut short, but his attitude hadn’t changed and he still managed to look scruffy, even in prison uniform.

‘Well, it’s not like it’s your first visit here, is it? Should be used to it by now. Anyway, I thought I’d come and brighten your day a bit.’

‘How’s that?’

Pete sat down opposite the drug dealer. ‘Might be able to put in a good word, get a bit shaved off your sentence if you can help me out with something.’

‘I don’t want to get a rep as a bloody snitch, mate. Not while I’m in here.’

Pete shook his head. ‘Where’s your public spirit, eh? I’m not even asking you to snitch on anyone. I just want a bit of info, that’s all. About where I might come upon a certain substance, if I was inclined to.’

Lockwood gave a snort of laughter. ‘What, you getting desperate? I hear you’ve had it a bit rough, lately.’

‘I don’t need drugs when I’ve got the likes of you I can go out and use as punchbags, Stevie. Marvellous release for frustration, that is. But, just for now, I need to know if there’s somewhere in the city a person might get their hands on some sux.’

Lockwood’s eyes widened as he sat back abruptly in his chair. ‘What? I ain’t into weird stuff like that.’

Pete sat forward in his chair. ‘But you probably know who is. Am I right?’

Lockwood frowned. ‘Why would I? I don’t use the stuff and I don’t deal in it.’

‘Like-minded people know about each other, though. It’s a fact of life. Doesn’t matter if you’re into drugs, kiddie porn or model railways, you get to know who else is. The club mentality.’

‘Well, I ain’t the club type. I’m strictly a loner, me.’

‘Oh, well.’ Pete shrugged. ‘You can’t help me, I can’t help you. But the fact that I’ve been here, talking to you, what do you want to bet that’ll stay secret in a place like this, that thrives on gossip? A guard mentions it to another guard, gets overheard by an inmate and soon the whole place knows.’

Lockwood started to look nervous. ‘No, no, no. I’d be dead meat in a week.’

Pete shrugged, pushing his chair back. ‘Nothing I can do about that.’ He waved a hand vaguely at their surroundings. ‘Not my jurisdiction.’

‘Yeah, but . . . That’s setting me up. That’s murder, that is.’

Pete stood up. ‘Nah. It’s just life in prison, that’s all. The way it goes.’

Lockwood peered up at him. ‘You wouldn’t . . .’

Pete chuckled, pushed his chair in under the table and headed for the door.

‘All right, I might have a name I could suggest. But I’d need some sort of guarantee. These buggers don’t piss about. They’d skin me alive, then kill me if they found out I’d talked. Or even suspected it.’

Pete paused, turned back. ‘OK,’ he said slowly. He caught Lockwood’s gaze. Held it. The man looked genuinely nervous. ‘What have you got?’

‘What can you do for me, first?’

Pete grimaced. ‘I can make sure you’re safe, but the charges you’re in for aren’t going away, Stevie. They can’t. It’s not like this is your first time around, is it?’

Lockwood sat back in his chair. ‘You can’t make sure I’m safe in here. No chance.’ He shook his head. ‘I talk to you, I’m a dead man. We’re done here. Guard!’

‘Last chance, Stevie. You tell me or I tell that guard you have done.’

Lockwood’s eyes shot wide. ‘That’d be murder.’

The lock in the door rattled behind Pete as the key was inserted.

‘No skin off my nose. Save the taxpayer thousands in keep.’

‘You wouldn’t. You’re not the type.’

Pete smiled as the door swung open. ‘Try me.’ He turned to the guard. ‘Mr Lockwood and I seem to be done here,’ he said. ‘Very helpful young man, our Stephen.’ He stepped forward. ‘In fact, you know, he might just have—’

‘Gayle!’ Lockwood almost shouted over him. ‘All right, you win. Give us another minute, will you?’

The guard looked at Pete and raised an eyebrow. Pete shrugged and he backed out, closing the door behind him. Pete sat back down, hands flat on the table.

‘You’re an evil bastard, you know that?’

Pete waited silently.

‘OK, there’s a bloke I’d go to if I was asked for stuff like that. He might be able to get it. Only one I know that could. But you really do need to do something for me now. Another jail, another name, the works, or I’m dead. Understand?’

Pete inclined his head. ‘Fair enough.’

‘Fair? That’s the last bloody thing this is. I’ll be looking over my shoulder from now till I peg it. No matter what you do.’

‘What we’ll do, Stevie, is have the bugger if we can get sufficient evidence. Then he won’t be able to come after you.’

Lockwood laughed. ‘You’re joking. Prison won’t stop him, no matter which side of the bars he’s on. Like the bloody Mafia, these blokes are, only worse. The Mafia would do what was needed and leave it at that. These buggers hurt people for the fun of it. They find the worst ways to kill you could imagine, then do it to your family first.’

‘Except you haven’t got any, Stephen.’

Lockwood grunted sourly. ‘Yeah, lucky for them.’

‘So, who is it you’re so scared of, eh? Give me a name. Something to work with.’

‘Petrosyan.’

‘Petrosyan? What’s that? Romanian or something?’

‘They call him the Armenian.’

‘Have you got a first name?’

‘Gagik.’

‘And where will I find him? Or, put it another way, where would you find him?’

‘Dunno. He’d find me if I put the word about that I was looking for him. He’s got ears everywhere.’

‘OK. And he wasn’t caught up in the arrests last week, when you were collared?’

‘Not that I’ve heard. But he’s the main man, isn’t he? You wouldn’t have got him.’

Pete smiled. ‘But we will. I can promise you that.’ He stood up. ‘All right. Thanks, Stevie.’

‘What, that’s it? You’re off? What about me? Come on, man. You made a promise.’ Lockwood’s voice was rising, his fear genuine.

Pete hammered on the door with his fist. ‘Don’t panic,’ he said. ‘It’s bad for you.’

The lock rattled again and Pete stepped aside to allow the door to swing inward.

‘What are you doing, you bastard?’ Lockwood shouted.

Pete turned and winked at him, then stepped out. He waited until the door was locked firmly behind him, Lockwood yelling desperately on the other side of it, before turning to the guard. ‘Keep him in there for now while I have a word with the governor.’

‘Right you are, sir. This way.’

*

Pete scooted his chair around to Jane’s side of the desks.

‘Ben.’

Myers looked up and Pete nodded for him to come around and join the rest of the team on the other side of their desks. When they were all together in a tight bunch, Pete leaned forward, elbows on his knees. ‘Dave, keep half an eye on the rest of them, will you? This is strictly between us for now.’ He glanced around his team. He had their full and serious attention now.

‘What is it?’ Jane asked.

‘Has anyone here heard of the Armenian?’

Blank looks and shaking heads gave Pete all the answer he needed.

‘Gagik Petrosyan?’

More shaking heads.

‘Who’s he?’

‘Good question. I’ve been talking to the bloke who gave us Ian Sanderson. He says that Petrosyan is known as the Armenian, and he’s the likeliest source of the sux used to paralyse Jerry Tyler and possibly the insulin used on Andrew Michaels. Yet, not only was Petrosyan not arrested last week, no Armenians were.’ His gaze went around the team again.

‘None?’ asked Dave.

Pete tilted his head. ‘I checked with the prison governor.’

‘And you believe Lockwood?’ asked Jill.

‘His fear of Petrosyan was genuine. He didn’t want to tell me and, when he had, I let him sweat for a minute or two, to make sure. So, yes. I believe him.’

‘These Eastern Europeans can be some vicious bastards,’ Dave said. ‘Armenians, Albanians, Romanians – the gangs up London and so on, they’re into all sorts. People trafficking, prostitution, drugs, the lot. And you certainly don’t mess with them, that’s for sure.’

‘Yeah, but for none of them to be arrested . . .’ Jane’s voice tailed off as the significance hit home. There was no need to put what she was thinking into words. Deliberately or otherwise, there had been a leak. Someone had fed the gang vital intel on an ongoing operation.

Pete nodded. ‘Hence the need to keep this between us, at least for now. And I’m going to have to go to Silverstone with it. Meanwhile, all of you reach out. Tap up your CIs, see if you can get anything on these Armenians.’ He slapped his knees and sat up straight. ‘We might have had to hand the child-sex case off to London, but this one’s all ours.’

‘Shit or glory,’ said Dave.

‘Up to us to make sure it’s glory, then. Right?’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘Steve Patton here. Fire investigator. Sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you, but I’ve been kind of busy.’

‘Hello,’ Pete replied. ‘No problem. Thanks for calling. What have you got?’

‘Nothing basically. The caller blocked his number.’

‘Oh.’ That sounded suspicious right off the bat.

‘Yeah, so all I can tell you is, it was a youngish-sounding male.’

‘Nothing distinctive in the background?’

‘Nope.’

Pete grimaced. ‘OK. You couldn’t send me over a copy of the tape, could you?’

‘I haven’t got it – the call centre have. But I can get them to do it, yeah.’

‘Great. Thanks, Steve.’

‘You got something, boss?’ Jane asked as he ended the call.

‘Nothing useful, no. Just, whoever called in the fire at Tyler’s didn’t leave their details and blocked their number when they made the call.’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe they just didn’t want to get involved further than doing their civic duty.’

‘Maybe.’ But, how many people would even think of blocking their number for reasons like that? Not many. And the fact that it was a ‘young-sounding male’, made it seem even more suspicious.

Pete put his phone away and headed for the DCI’s office.

*

‘Again?’ Silverstone put down his pen and sat back in his chair. ‘What is it this time, Detective Sergeant?’

‘I’ve got some bad news, sir.’

‘Strangely, I’m not surprised. What is it?’

‘Operation Natterjack, sir.’ The DCI’s pet project had been a huge force-wide synchronised series of raids designed to wipe a large proportion of the two counties’ drug dealers and pushers off the streets in one go. It was the reason that Pete had been recalled two weeks early from compassionate leave, to provide cover here in the station while the raids were carried out.

‘What about it?’

‘There was a comprehensive and glaring omission from it, sir. I’ve been speaking to a CI I developed recently and to the governor of the city jail and it seems that there were no arrests at all amongst the Armenian community, yet there definitely should have been.’

‘Explain.’ Silverstone’s dark eyes turned cold as he sat forward, hands clasped on his desk.

Pete quickly laid out the facts.

‘And, what does Jim have to say about this?’

DS Jim Hancock was the local drugs expert and the man who had originally arrested Steven Lockwood for possession with intent to supply Class A drugs.

‘I haven’t spoken to him, sir. In the circumstances, I thought it best to bring this straight to you, as someone who definitely doesn’t have an axe to grind.’

Silverstone’s eyes widened. ‘You’re suggesting that Jim Hancock might be . . . ?’

‘I’m not suggesting anything, sir. I’m eliminating the possibility. I thought it best, in the circumstances. As I said, not only was the Armenian left out of the frame, so was his entire crew, or family or whatever they are.’

‘So, you immediately suspect your colleague, a man you work with . . .’

‘I don’t suspect anyone, sir. Not without evidence. But there’s only one man in this nick that we can be sure has no local connections that might have jeopardised any part of Operation Natterjack. And that’s you. So, here I am.’

‘Well, thank you for the vote of confidence, Sergeant. I think. But how would you suggest we proceed from that point?’

‘Cautiously, sir. Cards close to the chest. My team weren’t involved in the operation and we developed this conclusion between us, so they’re under strict orders to tell no one else about it. For now, we’re intelligence-gathering. Does the Armenian really exist? If so, what connections does he have? Where is he? We have a name for him, but is it real? Then, we go from there.’

‘Very well. But, if this gets out, Sergeant . . .’

‘I know.’ I’ll have your full support – not.

Silverstone shook his head. ‘You don’t know the half of it. You’ll be a pariah. Your career as a police officer will be over.’

Pete drew a slow breath, fighting down his anger. What the hell had he expected? Silverstone didn’t want his record tarnished, his rise through the ranks jeopardised or even delayed. ‘I don’t want it to be true any more than you do, sir. These are people I’ve worked with for years. Friends, some of them. But if it is true, then it needs dealing with. And, if I can be frank – from your point of view, it’s better dealt with promptly than discovered later, after you’ve moved on, isn’t it? I mean, if someone else came in after you and uncovered it, there’d inevitably be questions asked about why it wasn’t dealt with sooner.’

He saw the change in Silverstone’s expression and wondered if he had taken a step too far. ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ the DCI said with exaggerated calmness, his dark eyes glittering with barely suppressed anger. ‘But be absolutely clear. If it’s true, I want it weeded out, quietly and efficiently. If it’s not, then woe betide the man or woman who lets it out. Even a hint of a suggestion of it.’

‘Sir.’

‘Find what’s to be found, Sergeant, tell absolutely no one and bring it straight to me. Clear?’

‘Yes, sir.’

*

Walking back into the squad room, Pete saw that Dick Feeney was back at his desk from his afternoon’s mandatory training. The other three teams looked and sounded replete with returned bodies, too.

‘Nice nap, Dickie?’ he asked as he took his seat.

‘Well, it comes but once a year. Be rude not to take the opportunity, wouldn’t it?’

‘Have this lot filled you in?’

‘Yes. Bit of a dodgy wicket, isn’t it?’

‘You haven’t heard the half of it, matey. Fast-track is not a happy camper. I thought he was pissed off this morning, but now I’m really off his Christmas card list. We’re on our own on this. No one but us must even get a hint of a breath of a clue about it until we’ve reached a conclusion and taken it to him, in person. He doesn’t want it screwing up his promotional prospects.’

Dick laughed. ‘And there’s the real rub, eh? Never mind any other implications.’

‘Well, at least we know where we stand,’ Jane said from opposite Pete.

‘Yeah, on a cowpat in the middle of a slurry pit,’ Dave agreed.

‘Doc Chambers called while you were in there,’ Jane said. ‘He’s been on to the coroner and got two exhumation orders for other potential victims. He’ll keep us updated, he said.’

‘Any news on the foreign fellow we were talking about earlier?’

‘Nothing yet,’ Dave said.

‘Well, keep on it. If he’s out there, we need to find him before he gets nervous and does a disappearing act. I’ll be back in a minute.’

*

Although there was a staff canteen on the top floor of the station, a small storeroom opposite DCI Silverstone’s office had been converted into a kitchenette. White cupboards and a cheap grey worktop held a microwave, toaster and fridge as well as a hot-water geyser above the sink. Pete got six mugs out of the cupboard and spooned in the makings of four coffees and two teas. Then he took out his phone and tapped the speed-dial for home.

It was picked up on the fourth ring. ‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Button. How was your day?’

‘OK. You’re going to be late, aren’t you?’

Pete swirled the tea bag in the second cup until it looked the right colour. ‘Afraid so, love. We’ve picked up a new case and it’s a complicated one. We need to get the basics done before we call it a night. Fish and chips?’

‘What time?’

‘Half-seven at the latest.’ He hooked out the tea bag and dropped it in the pedal-top bin.

‘OK.’

‘Sorry, Button. I know you miss me. But not as much as I miss you.’

‘So you say.’

‘What does that mean? Are you taking your mum’s side now?’

Louise resented the fact that he’d gone back to work long before she was ready to do the same. It followed on, no doubt, from the arguments they’d been having for some time before their son went missing about the hours he put in, here at the station. He couldn’t understand why, as a nurse, she couldn’t – or wouldn’t – grasp that his job was as much a vocation as hers, the main difference being that, when her shift ended, there was someone there to replace her whereas he didn’t have that luxury.

‘It means actions speak louder than words, Dad. It’s one of the things I learned about at school today.’

‘I’m going to have to have words with that teacher of yours.’

‘She’s right, though, isn’t she?’

‘Who – your mum?’ Pete lifted milk from the fridge and started pouring it into the six mugs.

‘No, silly. Miss Jennings.’

He sighed. ‘Yes, Button. She is. At least, mostly. Me, I’m conflicted. It’s a special case. I’ve got two places I need to be and I can’t be in both at once. Anyway, I love you and I’ll be home as soon as the wicked DCI lets us out, OK? How’s your mum?’

He finished pouring the milk and put it away.

‘She’s OK. She’s watching Countdown.’

Pete’s lips pressed together. Louise had started to improve, recently, from the semi-catatonic state she’d inhabited for months after Tommy’s disappearance. His showing up in the Rosie Whitlock abduction had helped, even if he did vanish again at the first opportunity. But the fact that he clearly wasn’t coming home had knocked her back almost as soon as the fact that he was alive had spurred her on. ‘OK, love. I’ll see you later. Soon as I can, all right? Tell your mum for me. Love you.’

‘Love you too, Dad.’

‘Bye.’ He ended the call, stirred the mugs and put them all on a tray to take back into the squad room for his team. They were going to need caffeine.

*

‘Thanks, boss.’

Jane leaned across to take the last of the mugs from Pete. He atood the tray against the end of his desk and sat down.

‘There’s news,’ she said quietly.

‘What?’ Pete looked up, frowning.

Her green eyes locked onto his with a rarely seen intensity. ‘Tommy.’

Pete froze, tension crackling through him. ‘What about him?’

‘The enhanced CCTV’s back from the Co-op where Burton claimed to have dropped Tommy off on the way back into town. Still nothing probative on the car, but the boy in the shop is definitely Tommy and he looks like he’s been through the mill. I had a word with Alan Westbury. He also said that they’ve finally got hold of the assistant from that night. She said he bought plasters and bandages and stuff. Claimed he fell out of a tree. She had her doubts, but she didn’t know him, so what could she do?’

Pete slumped back in his chair, feeling suddenly weak. His son was alive and out there somewhere, just beyond reach. The confirmation was a huge relief, but at the same time utterly depressing. The boy was hurt and alone, God knew where, and too scared to approach anyone. He looked up at Jane. ‘Hold on. You spoke to Alan about this?’

Alan Westbury was one of Simon Phillips’ DCs.

‘Yes. Why not? I was following up on a legitimate lead. Burton’s our case. He admitted dropping Tommy off there. And, according to Rosie, Tommy’s a potential witness.’

‘OK.’ He nodded slowly. ‘But, don’t push your luck on my account, all right? I don’t want you getting into trouble.’

‘Heard back from one of my CIs,’ Dave said. ‘He knows of an Armenian family that’s not exactly squeaky clean. He doesn’t know them, per se, just of them, but it might be a start. I’m going to see him later.’

‘Nice one, Dave. Anyone else got anything?’ He got no response, so checked his watch. ‘OK. If I hurry, I might just catch one of my blokes. Don’t stay up too late, kids. Long day tomorrow.’ He grabbed his jacket and hurried out.

Traffic was already busy on the Heavitree Road when he stepped outside, but he took the car anyway. Working his way around the one-way system, he reached the city centre in about as long as it would have taken him to walk and turned down onto Fore Street. The high, narrow buildings hemmed the street in on either side, telephone lines criss-crossing between them like a scene from a 1970s San Francisco cop show. The shops on the ground floors were closing up, the bars and restaurants opening. Car roofs gleamed under the street lights. The pedestrians on the narrow pavements were thinning out and getting younger, practical dress giving way to decorative as the evening crowd took over.

Pete found a parking space on the steep hill and pulled in. He walked down past the end of the dark alley that led past a cinema to the scruffy, blue edifice of Mamma Stone’s club. A couple of doors further on was the pool hall he was heading for.

The place was still fairly quiet, most of the guys around the tables. Just three stood at the bar, drinks in front of them. There was no sign of Darren Westley.

Back outside, he leaned on a lamp post just beyond the side street, took out his phone and pretended to play with it. A bus went past, barely fitting between the cars parked down one side and the narrow pavement on the other. A group of girls in short, sparkly dresses stepped past him and turned down towards the cinema and the nightclub beyond.

Pete wondered how on earth they managed to avoid hypothermia with more skin exposed than covered in temperatures that were set to drop near to freezing in the next few hours. Then he saw the distinctive mop of ginger hair weaving through the crowd towards him. He pushed away from the lamp post and put his phone away as he stepped past the girls and headed quickly down the hill.

He met Westley two doors beyond the pool hall. Put out an arm to wrap around the other man’s shoulder and turn him smoothly to one side.

‘Hello, Darren. Fancy meeting you here. Do you want to get a drink somewhere?’

‘That would screw my reputation, wouldn’t it – being seen with you? What do you want?’ Up close, Westley could be seen to be suffering. He looked ill. His always-pale skin was sallow and rough. There were dark rings under his blue eyes and his mop of hair hadn’t been washed in a few days. His jeans looked stained, too, as did the T-shirt Pete could see under his brown denim jacket.

‘Just a quick word. And I was thinking about somewhere you wouldn’t be recognised. Somewhere nice, for example. Like that little place along Cathedral Passage. Plenty of noise, so you won’t be overheard if you say something impolite.’ Pete pulled him around, arm still around his shoulders, and headed back up the hill. ‘Look on the bright side. You look like you could do with a little something. Booze is better than bugger all, right?’

‘Yeah, well . . . That’s down to your lot, innit – the bugger all.’

‘What, the supply’s dried up, has it?’

‘Almost. And the price has nearly doubled.’

‘Supply and demand. The beauty of capitalism. So, it has started up again, then?’ Pete guided them across the road and up past the bus stop.

‘Yeah, just two or three days ago. It was dead for a week or so before that.’

‘So, who’s out there now? Anyone I might know?’

Westley shot him a sour look.

‘I’m not interested in shutting off your supply, Darren. I just need some information, that’s all. And they’re the likeliest source.’

‘You’ll be lucky. Bloody foreigners, ain’t they. Barely speak the bloody language, never mind having a conversation with the likes of you.’

Pete turned him into the end of an alleyway that led through to Cathedral Square. ‘You let me worry about that. All I need to know is where to find them.’

‘I only know one,’ Westley said dubiously. His sullen expression reminded Pete of his son, Tommy. The last few months before he disappeared, he’d often worn an expression just like that. Pete’s gut twisted. If only he’d spent more time with the boy, taken him out, played with him, even just watched him doing his own thing – the swimming, for instance – maybe things would have been different. He wouldn’t be gone. He wouldn’t have got tangled up with Malcolm Burton. He’d be . . . at home. Happy. Safe.

They reached their destination and Pete stopped, held out a hand. ‘Here we go.’ He nodded at the door to the small bar near the far end of the alley.

Darren frowned at him. ‘Seriously?’

Pete shrugged and held the door open, nodding for him to enter. One day, hopefully, he’d get to do the same for Tommy. If he could find him. If he could get him to come home.

When he found him, he corrected himself, as the noise hit them like a train. There was no if about it. There couldn’t be. He was going to bring his son home. Somehow.

The cacophony of raised voices, all trying to be heard over each other, was almost solid, a physical force pushing them back as they as they pressed into the small, crowded room, heading for the bar along the right side.

Pete kept one hand on Westley’s shoulder, letting him lead the way. There was no way they were getting through this lot side by side. At the bar, they squeezed in and he raised an eyebrow and jerked his head at the shelves behind.

Darren leaned in close to be heard. ‘Vodka,’ he shouted. ‘Straight.’

Pete nodded and waited to catch the eye of one of the three young guys in black shirts and trousers behind the bar. Raising one hand to cup Darren’s ear, he shouted into it. ‘Don’t worry. Like I said, I don’t want to arrest the bloke. Just ask him some questions. He’ll be back on the street in a couple of hours, tops.’

He caught the eye of the nearest barman and waved him over. ‘Vodka and a Murphy’s red,’ he called.

Westley was still looking at him sceptically. He leaned close again. ‘I need information and I’m pretty sure you can’t give it me,’ Pete told him. ‘Unless you’ve heard of somebody bumping off the undesirables of the city?’

‘What?’

‘Pimps, pushers, prostitutes. Druggies.’

‘Getting killed? Are you . . . ?’

‘Serious? Yeah. And I’m looking for a lead on who’s doing it. Your guy might know someone who’s supplied them with certain items. That’s what I’m after. A link in the chain.’

The barman put their drinks on the bar and Pete slapped a note down beside them. Nodded for the guy to keep the change, not that he guessed there would be much. Then he turned back to Darren, nodded to the drink and picked up his own.

Darren looked from Pete down to the shot glass and back again. Pete could see the decision being made in his eyes. ‘OK.’ He picked up the glass and downed the contents in one. Slapped it down on the bar. ‘The Firkin Angel. Big bloke. Shaved head, chin like an anvil and a nose like a bloody toucan. Same sort of colouring at the moment, too, especially round the eyes. Don’t fancy meeting the bloke that did it to him. Must be some kind of bad bastard. Or dead.’

CHAPTER SIX

Ten minutes later, Darren Westley was on his way back to the pool hall and Pete was enjoying the cool and the quiet of Cathedral Square, his phone to his ear.

‘Dick?’ he said. ‘I need you and Ben down the Firkin Angel ASAP. A Zivan Millic hangs out there, who I need a word with. Apparently, he’s big and he’s hard but he’s recently come up against someone harder. Anyway, I don’t want him running off when I approach him, so I need the exits covered, OK?’

‘You sure, boss? Sounds a bit dodgy.’

‘It’ll be fine. It’s not like I’m going to arrest him, is it?’

‘Yeah, but, he don’t know that, does he?’

‘Just bring your truncheons and keep your eyes open and your reflexes sharp.’

‘OK. Twenty minutes?’

‘Don’t be late.’

‘You are going to wait for us, right?’

Pete imagined the frown that would be creasing Dick’s brow as he asked the question. He laughed. ‘Just get there as soon as you can, Gramps.’

‘Will do.’ Feeney broke the connection and Pete put his phone away and sauntered back through to Fore Street, turning downhill.

The Firkin Angel was on a side street just up from the bottom of the hill, where Fore Street met the inner ring road. Pete leaned on the wall of the old ruins opposite while he waited. There were fewer people coming and going at this end of the street but he concentrated on his smartphone, hoping to blend in. Using the time to look up Zivan Millic on the Police National Database, he quickly found a picture of the guy and his arrest record. It did not make pleasant reading, especially as he was about to confront him. At six foot five, he looked like something out of a horror movie and his record did nothing to assuage the impression. A Polish national, he had been arrested several times over the seven years since he arrived in the UK, on a number of charges including possession with intent, GBH, assault with a deadly weapon and carrying a concealed weapon. His tool of choice appeared to be a knife and Pete was acutely aware that he was not wearing a stab-vest.

Still, if the opportunity to talk to the guy was going to present itself, he didn’t want to waste it, then have him get wind that the police were looking for him and do a disappearing act. They didn’t have time to play hide-and-seek with a possible secondary witness. They needed results – and fast.

Dick Feeney and Ben Myers arrived in a little over ten minutes. They were the opposite extremes of Pete’s team – the Grey Man and the spike-haired boy. The oldest and the youngest, experienced and keen, dour and bright. When they pulled up in an unmarked Volvo, it appeared that Dick had been looking Millic up on the PND too. He was carrying a stab-vest and an overcoat.

‘You’ll need these.’

‘Thanks, Mum,’ Pete said with a grin. But he accepted them. He strapped on the stab-vest and slipped the oversized coat over it. ‘So, Ben, I need you to go round the back. Dick, you cover the front here, in case he does a runner. I’m going to make it plain that I just want to talk to him, but you never know and we don’t want to lose him.’

‘Right, boss.’

‘I’ll give you a couple of minutes to get into position, Ben, then I’ll go in. You’ve both got your radios on, right?’

‘Yep,’ said Dick. ‘On and checked.’

‘Right, off you go, Ben.’

Pete took out his own radio and keyed it to make sure it was working before transferring it to a pocket of the coat he was now wearing. ‘OK. We’re all set. I want this to go nice and smooth, if possible. No fuss, no trouble. But, we’ll have to see how Zivan reacts, won’t we? He’s not known for his subtlety.’

Dick lifted his collapsible baton from his pocket. ‘It’s a shame we’re not allowed the old side-bar truncheons any more. But, if he comes my way, I’ll be ready.’

‘Remember, he’s a possible witness, not a perp tonight.’

‘Right, boss.’

Pete held his gaze for a moment.

‘What?’

‘You cause extra paperwork, you do it.’

‘You want me to stop him, don’t you?’

‘Yes. But not at the expense of a hospital visit, if at all possible. All right?’

‘Anybody would think I was slap-happy,’ Feeney complained.

Their radios crackled and Ben’s voice came through faintly. ‘In position.’

Pete lifted his radio from his coat pocket and keyed the mike. ‘OK. Stand by. Going in.’ He returned the radio to his pocket and fisted his badge. ‘See you in a bit.’

Pete ambled the thirty yards along to the pub. While he waited, he had seen several groups of people enter and only a few leave, but he was still surprised at how packed the place was. The noise hit him before he even opened the door, swelling out through the closed windows. The place was rammed. It was worse than the bar up by the cathedral. There was no music, just the sound of raised voices. He could barely push his way in. He eased between two young men with pint glasses in their hands who were chatting across the doorway and moved slowly through the crowd to the bar, barely able to hear himself think. How anyone could carry on a conversation in here, he had no idea – apart from yelling like a parade-ground sergeant major.

And he’d thought the other place was noisy!

Finally reaching the bar, he found that it was a Theakston’s pub – rare, this far south. He managed to get the attention of one of the barmen and signalled for a half of Old Peculiar. Glass in hand, he turned to survey the heaving throng around him. Taller than most, it did not take long to see a still spot near the far end of the bar. Then the man at it centre straightened up.

‘Damn, you are a big bugger, aren’t you,’ Pete muttered as the top half of Millic’s head went from view between the dark beams of the ceiling. He took a swig of his drink – cool and smooth – and stepped away from the bar to make his way towards his target. After some careful navigation, he eased in beside the big man, who was now leaning his elbows on the bar, a pint glass two-thirds full in front of him, his ugly face set in a scowl.

‘Zivan,’ Pete yelled, slapping him on the back with one hand as he set his glass on the bar with the other. ‘How you doing, buddy?’

Zivan turned to look at him from under large brows. ‘I know you?’ His voice was deep and heavily accented.

‘No, but I’ve heard of you.’ Pete eased in closer to the big man’s right side – too close for him to be able to draw his knife – and surreptitiously showed him his badge. ‘I’m not here to cause you any trouble. I’m told you might know a bloke I’m looking for – again, just for information on another party.’

Zivan’s face had closed down at the sight of Pete’s badge. ‘Why the fuck should I help you?’

‘Call it customer relations. The bloke I’m after is killing off your customer base. And that of the man I’m told you can point me towards. So I’m doing you a favour and you’d be doing him one.’

Pete could see the cogs turning in the big man’s brain. It was almost painful to watch, but he reached his conclusion in the end. He picked up his glass and drained it in one long swallow, then locked his dark eyes on Pete’s. ‘Fuck you, pig,’ he said flatly and swung the empty glass at Pete’s head. Pete ducked. The glass went over his shoulder. He heard it smash behind him and someone yelled out.

Pete stamped hard on Zivan’s left foot, ducking his head in close to the bigger man’s chest. Zivan howled, hunching over in pain, his chin coming down on the top of Pete’s head. Pete pushed back against the tightly packed crowd to make room and swung his foot around to heel Zivan in the back of the leg, aiming to drop him to one knee, but he didn’t have the space to make the move count. Zivan’s huge hand clamped around his throat and lifted him bodily off the ground, slamming the top of his head against one of the dark-painted ceiling beams.

Pain lanced through Pete’s skull, lights sparking in his vision. Then Zivan released him. His feet hit the floor, knees sagging under him as Zivan swung a punch. It caught Pete in the shoulder, knocking him back into the press of people behind him. Zivan turned, pushing through the press of people towards the back door as Pete shook his head, trying to clear it. Pete was pushed forcibly from behind. He saw Zivan wading through the crowd like a bear up to his chest in water, leaving a seething mass of angered patrons in his wake. There was no way Pete was going to get through there after him. He turned the other way. He lifted his radio from his pocket and keyed the mike, hoping the others could hear him over the noise. ‘Ben, he’s coming your way,’ he yelled. ‘Dick, go and help him.’

Pete wove his way as quickly as he could through the tightly packed patrons and out into the cool and the sudden, blissful quiet. But he didn’t have time to pause and enjoy the contrast. He turned fast to the alley at the side of the pub and ran down it, hearing Dick’s footsteps ahead of him. Rounding the far corner, he saw Feeney helping Ben Myers up off the ground. Ben looked up sheepishly.

‘Sorry, boss. I nearly had him, but Christ! I’ve never come across a bloke as big as that. He legged it off up the alley, there.’ He nodded towards the narrow path that led through the small residential area and up towards the churchyard.

Pete cursed inside, but waved the confession away. ‘You OK?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, just . . . ego, more than anything, I suppose.’

‘OK. Too late to go after him now. I’ll go back in and have a word with the landlord. Maybe he can help. You two get off home.’

‘You sure?’ Dick asked.

Pete nodded and Dick shrugged. ‘OK. ’Night, boss.’

‘Sorry,’ Ben said again.

Pete pushed through the back door of the pub and went quickly up the short corridor past the toilets and the door to what he guessed was the upstairs accommodation. Back in the heaving bar, he eased his way through the tightly packed crowd. This time, he took more notice of the three men behind the bar. He quickly spotted the one he needed. He was older than the others by a good twenty years. Could probably give Pete ten, he guessed. His black T-shirt was stretched over a considerable beer gut, his thinning dark hair long and tied back in a ponytail.

Pete reached the bar right in front of him, pushing through between a guy in his mid-twenties, in a shirt and tie, and a young lad in denims. He slapped his fist down on the bar, wrapped around his police badge, and leaned in to shout. ‘I need a word, mate. Now.’

The man’s too-small eyes rose to meet Pete’s. He shrugged, waving at the crowded room around them.

‘Here or Heavitree Road.’

The man frowned sharply. ‘Upstairs.’ He turned towards the far end of the bar. Pete followed as best he could. As he eased through the tightly packed crowd, he thought, I bet the Health and Safety bods would have a field day in here with access points and so on.

The landlord waited for him near the rear door, then led the way wordlessly into the corridor and through the black-painted door marked ‘Private’.

The narrow, uneven wooden stairs led up to a corridor with several doors, only one of which was open, right at the top of the stairs. Pete saw a kitchen with a small table in the middle. The fat man led the way in and pulled out a chair.

‘So, what’s this about?’

Pete sat across from him. ‘Zivan Millic.’

The man frowned.

‘Big bugger I chased out of here a few minutes ago. Looks like a cross between a Neanderthal and a brown bear.’

The man grunted. ‘Didn’t know his name. What about him?’

‘I’ve got a witness telling me he deals drugs in here. Not that I’m interested in that, particularly. I’m also told he could tell me about a man I’m looking for as a witness in a murder case. Bloke known as the Armenian.’

The landlord went very still. His bulbous bottom lip disappeared briefly into his mouth and bounced back out again. ‘Never heard of him. The other one, I see in here sometimes, but that’s all.’

‘I never suggested you had heard of him,’ Pete said evenly. ‘I just want to know how to find Millic. And don’t tell me you only know him by sight. You wouldn’t put your licence at risk for someone you don’t know, even if he is as big as a bloody Portaloo.’

‘Look, I’m just trying to stay out of trouble. These old places, they’re like tinderboxes. I don’t want no so-called accidents like the Dolphin last year.’

Pete remembered the old pub, up near the cathedral, which had been burned out in a massive fire one night, several months ago. ‘What do you know about that?’

‘Only what the landlord told me. Somebody like Millic – not him, somebody else – was dealing in there. He threw ’em out. Few nights later, up it goes. Coincidence? He don’t think so, and nor do I. So, yes – I know what he’s up to. And, no, I haven’t reported it.’

‘Well, the only way to stop people like him is to help us put them away.’

‘Yeah, right. There’s no way you’d catch all of them. And as soon as they found out who shopped their mates, what do you think would happen?’

‘Look, I told you. All I want Millic for, for now, is a link in a chain that could lead to a killer who might be one of their customers. How can that do any harm? You tell me what you know, I can go talk to him, job done.’

‘Yeah, and where do you think he’ll imagine you got the information, eh? After you just tried to take him in here?’ The landlord shook his head. ‘No way.’

‘Well, where else does he go then? He’s not in here every night, is he?’

‘I’ve heard you can find him in the Blue Boar sometimes, up by the library.’

‘OK then. Any idea which nights?’

‘He’s not usually in here on Saturdays or Mondays.’

‘Right.’ Pete stood up, clapped the man on the back. ‘Thank you. Oh, by the way, do you get any coppers in here that you know of?’

‘Eh?’ He shook his head. ‘That’d be a bloody good mix, wouldn’t it?’

Pete shrugged. ‘Stranger things have happened.’

‘I suppose. But, no, not that I’m aware of. Why?’

‘If you did, I could ask them instead of you, couldn’t I?’ And, more to the point, if there was a link between the Armenian and anyone on the force, it had to have started somewhere. Here was as good a place as any to start looking for it.

*

Pete was struggling to eat his fish and chips. His mouth felt dry, the food curdling in his stomach. The TV was on at the far end of the room – some mindless rubbish, the volume turned down so that they could talk, though nothing was being said. Finally, the heavy silence was too much. He looked up from his plate. Annie was concentrating on her food, hoovering it up with relish. Louise’s head was down. She had eaten some, but her heart was no more in it than his.

‘I got some news about Tommy today,’ he said.

Annie’s head snapped up. ‘Where is he? Is he OK?’

‘I don’t know where he is, love. What I do know is, he’s alive. One of Simon’s team spoke to a shop assistant who served him in the Co-op on the Dunsford Road. She said he bought plasters and bandages. Claimed he’d fallen out of a tree or something.’

‘So, why hasn’t he come home?’

‘He must have been with Burton all that time. Maybe he thinks he’ll be accused along with him.’

‘But, he won’t, will he? He’s only a kid himself. He couldn’t do all those things they’re saying were done to those girls.’

Pete frowned. ‘What are they saying?’ Annie was ten years old. He didn’t want her introduced to the subject of sex at all yet, never mind in this way. She was a bright kid, of course. She was aware of what went on in the world, but he didn’t want it brought to her doorstep, especially in this way. He wanted to leave it on the news – at a distance – for as long as possible.

‘They’re saying he killed two girls and raped that one you found. Rosie. But, Tommy’s only a kid. It’s crazy.’

‘Of course it is, love.’ Pete was not going to tell her about the evidence they had to the contrary and he hoped that Louise would not mention it either. He glanced across at her. She had stopped eating and was watching him, a strange light in her eyes. They had had a massive row about the forensic evidence against Tommy when it came to light. ‘But if Tommy was with Burton all that time – and Burton was a teacher, remember – there’s no telling what he could have convinced him of.’

‘So, you’ve got to un-convince him. Make him see that nobody believes he’s guilty, so he can come home,’ Annie insisted.

A swell of emotion swept over him, its intensity almost overpowering. He dropped his knife and fork, got up and stepped around the table. Taking Annie in his arms, he hugged her like he’d never let go. He felt her slender arms around his waist, smelt the shampoo in her hair as she laid her head against his chest. His grip tightened even further, eyes closing as emotion trembled in his chest. Then he felt her squirm in his grip. He opened his eyes. She was staring up at him. ‘God, I love you,’ he murmured.

Looking up at Louise, who was watching them now, he opened his arms and reached out to her, too. She hesitated.

Come on, he thought. Don’t just sit there. Please.

Finally, she left her seat and joined them on the other side of Annie. He drew her in, one arm around her waist, and sighed deeply. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without the pair of you.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Pete switched off the engine and checked the dashboard clock: 6.28 a.m. It was still fully dark, the street lights casting a yellow glow over the houses and parked cars on either side of the steep road. All was quiet. Peaceful.

He felt emotionally drained after last night. He didn’t know why. Was he not as ready as he’d thought to come back to work? The intensity of the Rosie Whitlock case had been difficult to deal with on top of everything else. And now this one, just days later . . . It was a lot to handle with the lack of anything concrete on Tommy’s situation, the difficulties that Louise was still facing and the guilt he couldn’t help feeling over how much he had come to rely on Annie over the past few months and especially since he’d come back to work.

Much as he knew that the police shrink at Middlemoor was going to try to find one, he was aware there was no easy answer.

He shook his head.

Two cars up, on the far side, its nose pointing downhill, he could see Jane’s little green Vauxhall. Pete climbed out of his car and pressed the remote as he crossed the road towards Jane’s Corsa. The remote locking system clunked behind him.

Dave had called him at home last night, interrupting a discussion of exactly how they could let Tommy know that it was safe for him to come home, to say that he’d found out where Petrosyan was currently living.

The address he’d got was a few doors along from the next junction up the hill.

Jane’s window buzzed down as Pete approached. ‘Morning, boss.’

‘Any sign of Dave?’

Further down the hill, a car turned a corner towards them, headlights bright and dazzling in the crisp, frosty morning.

‘Not yet. Maybe this is him.’

Pete went around the little car and climbed into the passenger seat. Jane left the window down as the other car approached slowly up the hill, eventually resolving into a silver Ford Mondeo just like the one Pete was driving. As it drew level with them, its window slid down and it stopped.

‘Morning all,’ Dave said brightly from the passenger seat, beyond Dick Feeney. ‘What’s the plan then? No dark alleys round here, are there?’

‘If there are, they’re all yours,’ Pete told him. ‘Meantime, you two take the next street across. Park where you can, facing downhill like Jane has. I’ll go up onto his street and keep an eye on his doorway. When he comes out, I’ll let you know, then we’ll leapfrog him with the three cars so that one of us has got him in sight all the time. If he’s as paranoid as they reckon, that should save him spotting us until he gets where he’s going and we can take him there.’

‘Sounds like a plan.’

‘Right, let’s get into position.’

Pete climbed out of Jane’s car and crossed back to his own while Dick drove on up the street, turning right at the junction. As they went from sight, he started his engine and followed them up the hill. Their target lived three doors along to the right. Pete turned left, found a space a few cars along and backed into it, lining his side-mirror up along the pavement. Then he switched off the engine and settled in to wait.

With two of the car’s side-windows wound slightly down to avoid misting up, it did not take long for the inside of the car to get as bitterly cold as the outside. Pete was glad of the heavy police-issue coat he was wearing. His hands were clad in thick gloves, but still the cold seeped into him as he sat there, waiting for Petrosyan to emerge, not even certain that he would.

He remembered Annie, the previous morning, running from the car to meet her friends, bundled up in a thick coat, black gloves and a black wool hat with a pale, furry bobble on top, winter tights under a skirt that, even at ten years old, she was starting to wear too damn short for his liking. But at least she was warm.

He grunted. At this moment, she’d still be tucked up in bed, fast asleep.

What about her brother?

Where was he, and what was he doing? What was he wearing on this icy morning? Was he indoors somewhere? God, I hope so, Pete thought. The idea of him hunched, shivering, in some freezing corner of the city, probably with no winter coat, never mind a hat or gloves or enough to eat, no shelter except perhaps from the rain – And thank God it’s not doing that – made his stomach twist and his teeth clamp together in anguish.

Wherever the boy was, Pete hoped he was at least warm enough. Cold like this could kill a person, especially if they were undernourished and vulnerable. He sucked air in through a throat clogged by emotion.

He shook his head, refusing to allow the thought to go any further. Come on, Pete. Focus. But there was still no activity to be seen in his side-mirror. The street was quiet and still.

He caught a flicker of movement, but it was just a dark cat jumping up onto the wall of the house beyond where the Armenian – if he even was one – was living. As he watched, it jumped down onto the footpath and disappeared under a car. Pete was briefly tempted to switch his gaze to the other mirror, to see it emerge on the road, but resisted. He had to stay alert. This whole operation depended on his spotting Petrosyan as soon as he came out.

He waited a while longer, then checked his watch again. Almost seven. He shivered. Maybe he should start the car and close the windows, just for five minutes, warm himself up a bit . . .

It was incredibly tempting. But, if Petrosyan came out, heard the engine running and saw no one . . . People around here wouldn’t leave a car running unattended to defrost the windscreen. It was dodgy enough where Pete lived but here, on the rougher side of the river . . . No way.

He rubbed his gloved hands together briskly and wriggled his shoulders inside his coat.

Movement.

He stared at the side-mirror. A door swung open. A man stepped out, breath pluming, closed the door behind him and headed for the pavement. Stocky and bald, his head gleaming under the street lights. His distinctive, thick leather jacket matched the description Dave had provided to a T.

Petrosyan.

He lifted his radio. ‘Heads up, people. Engines off. Our man’s on the move.’

The target started towards him along the narrow pavement.

‘Coming this way,’ Pete said quietly into the radio. ‘Jane, be alert. Dave, come on round. Gently does it. No rush.’ He paused, waiting. Watching from low in the seat, hidden by the headrest.

Petrosyan turned at the junction.

‘Jane, target approaching you.’

‘Got him, boss.’

‘Dave, you’re up.’

‘Roger that.’

The man in the leather jacket had now gone from Pete’s view. He knew that Jane would have eyes on him until he turned another corner or, if not, for a good two hundred yards, so there was no rush for Dave to take up the pursuit.

Behind him, headlights showed, coming up around the junction beyond the target house as Dick Feeney drove slowly up into view.

‘Steady, Dick. Jane’s got him for a minute or two unless she says different.’

‘He’s in sight,’ she confirmed. Then, ‘Hang on. He’s gone behind a van.’ A pause. ‘There. He’s crossing over. Continuing down the street.’

They waited.

Then the radio hissed again. ‘He’s turned. Right, right, right. Gone from view.’

‘OK, Dick. Drive straight down the hill. Try and spot him on the way past the road he’s turned into, but don’t slow down. I’ll go down the next one along and come in from the far end so he can’t suspect anything.’

‘Affirmative.’

Pete saw the headlights of Feeney’s car moving towards him in his mirror as he switched on the ignition. ‘Which cross-street, Jane?’

‘Third one down from here. That’s the third one.’

‘Roger that.’ He pulled out as Dick turned down towards Jane’s position, heading further along the road to take the next left. He was approaching the second cross-street down the hill when the radio crackled again.

‘Target sighted,’ said Dave. ‘Right side of the street, still walking.’

Pete relaxed slightly. As he’d suspected, the Armenian was heading for the small group of shops along there. A newsagent’s cum post office, a fish and chip shop and a small independent pet shop were set back slightly from the 1950s houses to either side so that three or four cars could park in front of them.

‘OK, Dick,’ he said into the radio. ‘Turn around where you can. He’ll be going to the newsagent’s. Jane, you can come on down, too.’

He made the turn and spotted Petrosyan walking towards him, about a hundred and fifty yards away. Like the other streets around here, the houses had no drives or garages. It was parallel parking on the street, wherever you could find a space. Pete spotted one and stopped to reverse into it. Ahead of him, Petrosyan turned into the newsagent’s, as expected. Pete keyed the radio mike again. ‘Heads up. He’s in the shop. Move in, move in.’

He finished parking and switched off the engine as two cars turned into the junction ahead of him, one from the left, one from the right. Taking the radio with him, he stepped out of the car.

‘Jane, leave your car back a bit. Dick, come in and stop outside the shops,’ he ordered, then tucked the radio into his pocket as he headed in on foot. He was just turning into the narrow forecourt of the shops when the door of the newsagent’s opened, bell tinkling, and the Armenian stepped out, a newspaper folded under his arm, hands deep in the pockets of his leather jacket.

‘Morning,’ Pete said with a nod.

Petrosyan glanced at him. His small eyes narrowed.

A car pulled up to Pete’s right. ‘Good thing I bumped into you, Gagik,’ he said. ‘I need a word.’

Petrosyan’s frown turned instantly to a snarl. ‘You’re a cop.’

Pete held his calm expression. ‘I am, but you’re not under arrest.’ He heard the door of the car to his right open and close. Jane’s footsteps were echoing along the pavement behind Petrosyan. ‘Somebody in Exeter is going around killing people. His latest victim, he used what I’m told is very likely your product in the process, so you might be able to help me identify him.’

‘Why should I help you?’

‘I’ve got two officers to your right and another one behind you.’

Despite himself, Petrosyan glanced over his shoulder.

‘If we wanted you in custody, you would be by now,’ Pete went on. ‘We just need to talk. The guy we’re after is busy reducing your alleged customer base as we speak, so it would be good for business for you to help us.’

‘What business?’

‘We know exactly what business you’re in, Gagik. But, like I said, we don’t care. Not this morning. All we need is to find out who’s been buying suxamethonium recently.’

Petrosyan stepped in close to Pete. Although he was a good five inches shorter, his bulk and his attitude were enough to intimidate most people and he relied on them now as he tried to stare Pete out. ‘Why would I tell you, even if I knew? What would it do to my reputation if I did that?’

‘Depends if anyone knew about it, doesn’t it?’ Pete said, unfazed. ‘The way I see it, we’ve got two choices here. You talk to me or I put out an appeal to the public for information on whoever might have supplied our man with the sux he used on his latest victim. What do you think he’s going to do then, eh? If I were him, I’d be coming after the supplier straight away. One, to shut him up and, two, because he fits the profile of the victims we’re looking at. So, two for the price of one.’

Petrosyan’s thick lip curled. ‘You think I’m scared of some college punk? I could have him for dinner and spit out the bones.’

‘Oh, I doubt you’re scared much of anybody, Gagik. But, looking at his previous victims, I think maybe you should be. He’s clever as well as vicious. The last one, he burned alive. That’s what the sux was for. To keep him conscious while he burned.’

The sneer had died on Petrosyan’s face. Now it twitched in what could have been disgust. ‘I don’t know who this guy is that you’re talking about.’

‘But you know he’s a college punk.’

‘Aren’t they all?’

Pete shook his head slowly. ‘Not serial killers like this one.’

Petrosyan grunted.

‘So, what do you know, if not his name?’

‘What, you think I’m some sort of street dealer? I don’t know him. I never seen him.’

‘But you know who does know him, who has seen him.’

‘You want me to give you a dealer?’

‘We both know they’re ten a penny. You’d just replace him with another. Allegedly.’

‘I am not the man you think I am,’ Petrosyan said stubbornly.

‘OK. I’ll just go back to the station and get onto that press release then. Let our killer help us clean up the streets a bit more before we take him off them. Have a good day, Mr Petrosyan.’ He saw the doubt flash in the Armenian’s eyes as he nodded to the others to back off, let him go. But Petrosyan had face to save. Scowling, he walked doggedly away.

Pete and his crew came together on the narrow forecourt behind the retreating figure.

‘He knows,’ Dave said.

‘Of course he does,’ Pete agreed. ‘But he can’t be seen to back down to us, can he? His reputation could get ruined. And then his hold on his organisation would be gone.’

‘You reckon we’ll hear from him, though?’ asked Jane.

‘One way or another. Might be worth getting a tap on his phone, though.’

‘With the protection he’s got?’ Dave snorted. ‘Fat chance.’

‘So, we’re just going to leave him out here as bait?’ asked Dick.

‘Why? You feeling sorry for him?’ Dave countered.

‘No, but it does seem a bit . . .’

The low sun flashed on Jane’s ginger hair as she swept it back with one hand. ‘Harsh? Unethical? What do you think about what he does for a living, then? Pushing poison to our kids.’

‘I know, but . . . They have a choice, whether to get into it or not.’

‘So did he. And he had a choice of whether to talk to us or not,’ Pete said firmly.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Pete waited until they were all back in their cars, then took out his mobile and dialled.

‘Jane. We might not be able to put a tap on his phone, but I want surveillance on that bloke, from now on. I want to know who visits him or where he goes if he leaves the house. Get hold of Jill and Sophie Clewes. I’ll clear it with the uniform squad. And don’t let either of them tell anyone what they’re up to.’

‘You seriously think he’s got a source on the force?’

‘He’s still walking the streets, isn’t he? I don’t know what he’s got, but I’m not prepared to risk losing him at this stage so, bearing in mind his paranoia, be careful setting this up, right?’

‘Right, boss.’

He ended the call and dialled the station. ‘Bill, who’s the duty sergeant today?’

‘Andy Fairweather.’

‘Patch me through to him, would you?’

‘OK.’ There was a click, a pause, then a dialling tone. A phone was picked up. ‘Sergeant Fairweather, Exeter Police.’

‘Andy. Pete Gayle. Sorry for the short notice, mate, but I need to borrow Constable Clewes again.’

‘How long for?’

‘Not sure yet. Probably just today. Assistance with a surveillance op.’

‘All right. I’ll adjust the rota and get hold of her. Where should I send her?’

‘That’s OK. My DC will give her a call.’

‘Fair enough.’ Fairweather didn’t sound too happy at being kept out of whatever was going on, but Pete couldn’t afford to be oversensitive now.

‘Thanks, Andy. I owe you one.’

‘Another one.’

Pete nodded. ‘Yeah, I know. I’ll return the favour one day, if only by sending Fast-track on his way to an early grave with stress.’

‘You won’t stress that bugger. Cast iron, he’s made of.’

‘Damn brittle, that stuff, though.’

Andy laughed. ‘Good luck then.’

‘See you.’

Pete started his car and headed back to the station.

He pulled into the car park just moments behind Dick Feeney and Dave Miles. They were heading for the back door as he stepped out of his car. ‘Oi,’ he called.

Both men turned and Pete beckoned them across with a tilt of his head. They gathered beside Pete’s car.

‘Before we go inside,’ he said, ‘you realise that what we’ve done this morning could flush out Petrosyan’s contact here?’

‘Yeah,’ Dave said. ‘Or it could just make him run like a scared rabbit.’

‘Jane’s setting up covert observation on Petrosyan. Nobody outside of us and those directly involved is to know about it. I just told Andy Fairweather I needed someone for a surveillance op.’

‘OK.’ Dave nodded.

‘I don’t like this,’ said Dick. ‘Looking into our own oppos. It feels wrong.’

‘If you’re not comfortable with it, Dick . . .’

Feeney grimaced. ‘It just seems creepy, that’s all – that one of the guys is . . . well, bent.’

‘It is,’ Dave said. ‘But, there’s no point having a force that can’t be trusted. Unless you’re Robert Mugabe or Bashar al-Assad, I suppose.’

Dick grunted. ‘Which Fast-track isn’t, is he?’

Dave laughed. ‘I reckon he’d like to be though. Only way he’s going to get the respect he thinks he deserves.’

‘Also while we’re out here,’ Pete said, bringing the conversation back on track, ‘I want someone in the Blue Boar tonight, to see if Millic turns up there. If so, I want him followed. I want an address for him. But there’s a lot else to do before that. We’ve got a killer to catch.’

*

Pete draped his jacket over the back of his chair, sat down and switched on his computer. As he reached for the mouse, his phone beeped. He checked the screen. One missed call. Recognising the number, he called back.

‘Morning, Doc. You rang?’

‘I did. I have two exhumed bodies on the tables in the mortuary. And I think you ought to get here as soon as you can, Peter.’

Pete felt something swoop in his chest. ‘Any particular reason, Doc?’

‘Initial examinations suggest that our theory is probably correct.’

‘Ooh. OK, I’m on my way.’ He ended the call, switched off his computer and stood up again. ‘Going to the mortuary. The doc’s got something to show me.’

‘Careful, boss. Statements like that are what rumours get started on.’

‘Well, you concentrate on the other rumour we were talking about earlier and see if you can come up with something useful.’ He hooked his jacket off his chair and headed for the door.

*

Doc Chambers looked up from the steel cart he was working at, the overhead lights glittering on his short stubble of grey hair. He set down the large forceps he was using and stepped forward, stripping off his gloves to shake hands.

‘Peter. Good to see you.’

‘How’s it going?’

Two of the four steel autopsy tables were occupied. The bodies had been cleaned and laid out ready for examination. The pathologist had been in the process of laying out his tools to begin the first of them.

‘Interestingly,’ he said. ‘Basically, we were right. We have a serial killer in our midst, here in Exeter.’

Pete grimaced. ‘Show me.’

Chambers extended a hand to the body on his left. ‘First, we have the remains of one Donald Tennyson. He was found two months ago. Cause of death was recorded as acute cardiac failure – which, ultimately, is what kills us all, of course – with no clear cause. He had no record of cardiac issues, despite his obvious size, and shows no needle marks, unlike our previous victims. There are a couple of ways that can be achieved nefariously. One of them can still be tested for at this stage. The other can’t, I’m afraid, though it is recorded that he had a substantial amount of clear, colourless, non-alcoholic liquid in his digestive tract. He’d taken a large drink, possibly of water, though we’ll never know now. I’ll take samples in due course.

‘The other case . . .’ He nodded at the body on the second table. ‘A female, twenty-two to twenty-five years of age, identity unknown. Her body shows all the signs of addiction to Class A drugs and the kind of lifestyle often associated with that. In short, she was a prostitute. Tests showed that she was not high when she died. In fact, there were only traces remaining in her system. She was trying to kick the habit. Physical findings are intriguing though. Faint, generalised bruising was noted around her abdomen along with a red mark across her shoulders.’

He crossed towards the body, which was greyish and emaciated by the early signs of decomposition, took a pair of disposable gloves from a box on the side and pulled them on.

‘She was found just over a month ago, down on the Marsh Barton industrial estate. Cause of death was recorded as exposure. You can see the bruising around her stomach – probably more clearly than you would have when she was brought in. One of the advantages of a delayed examination.’

Pete looked down at her. No matter what condition a body was in, he always thought of it as a person, not a corpse. A person who was not conscious, but, nevertheless, a human being. A victim. Someone who had had a life, hopes, dreams and all the rest. Someone who needed him to speak for them, and whose friends and loved ones needed him to find justice for the wrong that had been done to them. And it seemed like this girl had suffered several wrongs in her short life, only the last of which had left her lying on this steel table today, her death unexplained, her killer still out there on the streets, walking free.

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