VAL McDERMID
THE MERMAIDS SINGING

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers in 1995

Copyright © Val McDermid 1995

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Cover design © MavroDesign.com

Cover photographs © Michael Trevillion/Trevillion images(house); Jonathan D. GoForth/Getty Images (red gate); Patrick Chambers (grass); Shutterstock.com (wire)

Val McDermid asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008134761

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2015 ISBN: 9780007327560

Version: 2017-03-20

Praise for The Mermaids Singing:

‘Gripping, intelligent stuff’

Guardian

‘A superb psychological thriller’

Cosmopolitan

‘Compelling and shocking’

Minette Walters

‘A deliciously gruesome serial killer thriller. Ms McDermid finds new ways to shock us’

New York Times

An Introduction by Lee Child

This is a twentieth-anniversary edition, which means a third of my life has been shared with Val McDermid, first on the page, and then from time to time in person. More than a third, actually, because The Mermaids Singing wasn’t her first book, and anyway I’m pretty sure I read her before she wrote any books at all – once she was a journalist covering the north of England for several newspapers, and at the time part of my job at Granada Television in Manchester was to study the local press in order to keep current with the local mood and feeling. Which was lucky for me – back then there was no internet, obviously, and no organized recommendation network for readers, so to get my fiction fix I used to walk up to Waterstones on Deansgate and browse the then-chaotic but richly packed crime section, where I suppose I must have recognized her name from a newspaper byline. Local girl makes good, I suppose I thought, which was enough of a nudge to make me give her a try.

And I’m glad I did. I caught up with what I had missed, and eagerly awaited each new title thereafter. This edition rightly celebrates her first major award-winning book, but she’s far from a one-hit wonder. In fact any or all of her books could or should have won awards, because she’s remarkably consistent. As a reader I remember vaguely trying to work out how and why, and then later as a writer myself I revisited the question with greater professional urgency. I lacked the academic vocabulary and habit of mind to get deeply into it, which frustrated me, because something was happening I needed to know about: over and over again, she was making me extremely annoyed whenever I had to put her book down, to eat or talk or go to the toilet or go to work. That’s a rare and subtle art, perhaps beyond academic vocabulary anyway, but beyond precious to a reader like me.

Eventually I met her in person, and started to figure it out. She’s extremely intelligent – practically a prodigy as a youngster – but, gloriously, she feels absolutely no need to prove it all the time. Which means everything in the books serves the books, not the author. No look at me! No I did lots of research! I know things you don’t! Which gives the books a rare and self-sufficient integrity. For instance, occasionally she’s accused of being ‘bloodthirsty’, to which I say, no, she isn’t. She’s honest. Crimes are usually sordid and disgusting, and to present them otherwise is disingenuous. Everything in the books is there because it needs to be. No other reason, either good or bad. No inhibition, no pandering, no caution.

And, I learned, her upbringing was a little isolated and a little provincial, in much the same way as mine, at much the same time. As a kid I used books as a lifeline. I remember the simple ecstasy of losing myself in stories, living them, being them, and I’m absolutely certain she did the same. I’m certain she remembers the feeling. And I think her deep intellectual self-confidence now allows her to induce that same feeling in her readers. Nothing extraneous gets in the way. An academic analysis of plot or character or setting would miss the point – this is a writer still in love with reading, still in love with story, still in love with the elemental rush of immersion in a different world, and now smart enough and honest enough as an adult to keep making it all happen for others. For which I’m extremely grateful as a reader, and extremely admiring as a colleague.

Lee Child

New York 2015

Dedication

For Tookie Flystock, my beloved serial insect killer.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’

T. S. Eliot

The soul of torture is male

Comment on exhibit card

The Museum of Criminology and Torture,

San Gimignano, Italy.

All chapter epigraphs are taken from

‘On Murder considered as one of the fine arts’

by Thomas De Quincey (1827)

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for The Mermaids Singing

An Introduction by Lee Child

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Praise for Val McDermid

About the Author

By Val McDermid

About the Publisher

FROM 3½″ DISK LABELLED: BACKUP.007; FILE LOVE.001

You always remember the first time. Isn’t that what they say about sex? How much more true it is of murder. I will never forget a single delicious moment of that strange and exotic drama. Even though now, with the benefit of experience and hindsight, I can see it was an amateurish performance, it still has the power to thrill, though not any longer to satisfy.

Although I didn’t realize it before the decision to act was forced upon me, I had been paving the way for murder well in advance. Picture an August day in Tuscany. An air-conditioned coach whisking us from city to city. A bus-load of Northern culture vultures, desperate to fill every moment of our precious fortnight’s package with something memorable to set against Castle Howard and Chatsworth.

I’d enjoyed Florence, the churches and art galleries filled with strangely contradictory images of martyrdom and Madonnas. I had scaled the dizzy heights of Brunelleschi’s dome surmounting the immense cathedral, entranced by the winding stairway that leads up from the gallery to the tiny cupola, the worn stone steps tightly sandwiched between the ceiling of the dome and the roof itself. It was like being inside my computer, a real role-playing adventure, working my way through the maze to daylight. All it lacked were monsters to slay on the way. And then, to emerge into bright day and amazement that up here, at the end of this cramped ascent, there was a postcard and souvenir seller, a small, dark, smiling man stooped from years of lugging his wares aloft. If it had really been a game, I would have been able to purchase some magic from him. As it was, I bought more postcards than I had people to send them to.

After Florence, San Gimignano. The town rose up from the green Tuscan plain, its ruined towers thrusting into the sky like fingers clawing upwards from a grave. The guide burbled on about ‘a medieval Manhattan’, another crass comparison to add to the list we’d been force-fed since Calais.

As we neared the town, my excitement grew. All over Florence, I’d seen the advertisements for the one tourist attraction I really wanted to see. Hanging splendidly from lampposts, gorgeous in rich red and gold, the banners insisted that I visit the Museo Criminologico di San Gimignano. Consulting my phrasebook, I’d confirmed what I’d thought the small print said. A museum of criminology and torture. Needless to say, it wasn’t on our cultural itinerary.

I didn’t have to search for my target; a leaflet about the museum, complete with street plan, was thrust upon me less than a dozen yards inside the massive stone gateway set in the medieval walls. Savouring the pleasure of anticipation, I wandered around for a while, marvelling at the monuments to civic disharmony that the towers represented. Each powerful family had had its own fortified tower which they defended against their neighbours with everything from boiling lead to cannons. At the peak of the city’s prosperity, there were supposedly a couple of hundred towers. Compared to medieval San Gimignano, Saturday night down the docks after closing time seems like kindergarten, the seamen mere amateurs in mayhem.

When I could no longer resist the pull of the museum, I crossed the central piazza, tossing a bicoloured 200-lire coin in the well for luck, and walked a few yards down a side street, where the now familiar red and gold hangings adorned ancient stone walls. Excitement buzzing in me like a blood-crazed mosquito, I walked into the cool foyer and calmly bought my entrance ticket and a copy of the glossy, illustrated museum guide.

How can I begin to describe the experience? The physical reality was so much more overwhelming than photographs or videos or books had ever prepared me for. The first exhibit was a ladder rack, the accompanying card describing its function in loving detail in Italian and English. Shoulders would pop out of their sockets, hips and knees separate to the sound of rending cartilage and ligament, spines stretch out of alignment till vertebrae fell apart like beads from a broken string. ‘Victims,’ the card said laconically, ‘often measured between six and nine inches taller after the rack.’ Extraordinary minds the inquisitors had. Not satisfied with interrogating their heretics while they were alive and suffering, they had to seek further answers from their violated bodies.

The exhibition was a monument to the ingenuity of man. How could anyone not admire the minds that examined the human body so intimately that they could engineer such exquisite and finely calibrated suffering? With their relatively unsophisticated technology, those medieval brains devised systems of torture so refined that they are still in use today. It seems that the only improvement our modern post-industrial society has been able to come up with is the additional frisson provided by the application of electricity.

I moved through the rooms, savouring each and every toy, from the gross spikes of the Iron Maiden to the more subtle and elegant machinery of pears, those slender, segmented ovoids which were inserted into vagina or anus. Then, when the ratchet was turned, the segments separated and extended till the pear had metamorphosed into a strange flower, petals fringed with razor-sharp metal teeth. Then it was removed. Sometimes the victims survived, which was probably a crueller fate.

I noticed unease and horror on the faces and in the voices of some of my fellow visitors, but recognized it for the hypocrisy it was. Secretly, they were loving every minute of their pilgrimage, but respectability forbade any public display of their excitement. Only the children were honest in their ardent fascination. I would have happily bet that I was far from the only person in those cool, pastel rooms who felt the surge of sexual desire between their legs as we drank in the exhibits. I have often wondered how many holiday sexual encounters have been spiced and salted by the secret recollection of the torture museum.

Outside, in a sun-drenched courtyard, a skeleton crouched in a cage, bones clean as if stripped by vultures. Back in the days when the towers stood tall, these cages would have hung on the outer walls of San Gimignano, a message to inhabitants and strangers alike that this was a city where the law exacted a harsh penalty if it was not respected. I felt a strange kinship with those burghers. I too respect the need for punishment after betrayal.

Near the skeleton, an enormous metal-shod spoked wheel leaned against the wall. It would have looked perfectly at home in an agricultural museum. But the card fixed to the wall behind it explained a more imaginative function. Criminals were bound to the wheel. First, they were flayed w ith scourges that ripped the flesh from their bones, exposing their entrails to the eager crowd. Then, with iron bars, their bones were broken on the wheel. I found myself thinking of the tarot card, the wheel of fortune.

When I realized I was going to have to become a killer, the memory of the torture museum rose before me like a muse. I’ve always been good with my hands.

After that first time, part of me hoped I wouldn’t be forced to do it again. But I knew that if I had to, the next time it would be better. We learn from our mistakes the imperfections of our actions. And luckily, practice makes perfect.

1

Gentlemen, I have had the honour to be appointed by your committee to the trying task of reading the Williams’ Lecture on Murder, considered as one of the Fine Arts; a task which might be easy enough three or four centuries ago, when the art was little understood, and few great models had been exhibited; but in this age, when masterpieces of excellence have been executed by professional men, it must be evident, that in the style of criticism applied to them, the public will look for something of a corresponding improvement.

Tony Hill tucked his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. There was a fine web of cracks around the elaborate plaster rose which surrounded the light fitting, but he was oblivious to it. The faint light of dawn tinged with the orange of sodium streetlamps filtered in through a triangular gap at the top of his curtains, but he had no interest in that either. Subconsciously, he registered the central-heating boiler kicking in, readying itself to take the edge off the damp winter chill that seeped in round door and window frames. His nose was cold, his eyes gritty. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a straight night’s sleep. His concern about what he had to get through that day was part of the reason for the night’s interrupted dreams, but there was more than that. Much more.

As if today wasn’t more than enough to worry about. He knew what was expected of him, but delivering it was another story. Other people managed these things with nothing more than a short-lived flutter in the stomach, but not Tony. It required all his resources to maintain the façade he’d need to get through the day. In circumstances like these, he understood how much it took out of method actors to produce the fraught, driven performances that captivated their audiences. By tonight, he’d be good for nothing except another vain attempt at eight hours’ sleep.

He shifted in bed, pulling one hand out and running it through his short dark hair. He scratched the stubble on his chin and sighed. He knew what he wanted to do today, but equally, he was well aware it would be professional suicide if he did. It didn’t matter that he knew there was a serial killer loose in Bradfield. He couldn’t afford to be the one to say it first. His stomach clenched on emptiness and he winced. With a sigh, he pushed the duvet back and got out of bed, shaking his legs to unfurl the concertina folds of his baggy pyjamas.

Tony trudged off to the bathroom and snapped on the light. As he emptied his bladder, he reached out with his free hand and switched on the radio. Bradfield Sound’s traffic announcer was revealing the morning’s projected bottlenecks with a cheerfulness that no motorist could have equalled without large doses of Prozac. Thankful that he wouldn’t be driving that morning, Tony turned to the sink.

He gazed into his deep-set blue eyes, still bleary with sleep. Whoever said the eyes were mirrors of the soul was a true bullshit merchant, he thought ironically. Probably just as well, or he wouldn’t have an intact mirror in the house. He undid the top button of his pyjama jacket and opened the bathroom cabinet, reaching out for the shaving foam. The tremor he spotted in his hand stopped him short. Angrily, he slid the door shut with a loud crack and reached up for his electric razor. He hated the shave it produced, never leaving him with the fresh, clean feeling that came from a wet shave. But better to feel vaguely scruffy than to turn up looking like a walking illustration of the death of a thousand cuts.

The other disadvantage of the electric razor was that he didn’t have to concentrate so hard on what he was doing, leaving his mind free to range over the day ahead. Sometimes it was tempting to imagine that everybody was like him, getting up each morning and selecting a persona for the day. But he had learned over years of exploring other people’s minds that it wasn’t so. For most people, the available selection was severely limited. Some people would doubtless be grateful for the choices that knowledge, skill and necessity had brought Tony. He wasn’t one of them.

As he switched off the razor, he heard the frantic chords that preceded every news summary on Bradfield Sound. With a sense of foreboding, he turned to face the radio, tense and alert as a middle-distance runner waiting for the starting pistol. At the end of the five-minute bulletin, he sighed with relief and pushed open the shower curtain. He’d expected a revelation that would have been impossible for him to ignore. But so far, the body count was still three.

On the other side of the city, John Brandon, Bradfield Metropolitan Police’s Assistant Chief Constable (Crime) stooped over the washbasin and stared glumly into the bathroom mirror. Not even the shaving soap covering his face like a Santa Claus beard could give him an air of benevolence. If he hadn’t chosen the police, he’d have been an ideal candidate for a career as a funeral director. He was two inches over six feet, slim to the point of skinny, with deep-set dark eyes and prematurely steel-grey hair. Even when he smiled, his long face managed to sustain an air of melancholy. Today, he thought, he looked like a bloodhound with a head cold. At least there was good reason for his misery. He was about to pursue a course of action that would be as popular with his Chief Constable as a priest in an Orange Lodge.

Brandon sighed deeply, spattering the mirror with foam. Derek Armthwaite, his Chief, had the burning blue eyes of a visionary, but there was nothing revolutionary in what they saw. He was a man who thought the Old Testament a more appropriate handbook for police officers than the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. He believed most modern police methods were not only ineffective but also heretical. In Derek Armthwaite’s frequently aired opinion, bringing back the birch and the cat-o’-nine-tails would be far more effective in reducing crime figures than any number of social workers, sociologists and psychologists. If he’d had any idea of what Brandon had planned for that morning, he’d have had him transferred to Traffic, the present-day equivalent of Jonah being swallowed by a whale.

Before his depression could overwhelm his resolve, Brandon was startled by a banging on the bathroom door. ‘Dad?’ his elder daughter shouted. ‘You going to be much longer?’

Brandon snatched up his razor, dunked it in the basin and scraped it down one cheek before replying. ‘Five minutes, Karen,’ he called. ‘Sorry, love.’ In a house with three teenagers and only one bathroom, there was seldom much opportunity for brooding.

Carol Jordan dumped her half-drunk coffee on the side of the washbasin and stumbled into the shower, nearly tripping headlong over the black cat that wound himself round her ankles. ‘In a minute, Nelson,’ she muttered as she closed the door on his interrogative miaow. ‘And don’t waken Michael.’

Carol had imagined that promotion to detective inspector and the concomitant departure from the shift rota would have granted her the regular eight hours’ sleep a night that had been her constant craving since the first week she joined the force. Just her luck that the promotion had coincided with what her team were privately calling the Queer Killings. However much Superintendent Tom Cross might bluster to the press and in the squad room that there were no forensic connections between the killings, and nothing to suggest the presence of a serial killer in Bradfield, the murder teams thought differently.

As the hot water cascaded over Carol, turning her blonde hair mouse, she thought, not for the first time, that Cross’s attitude, like that of the Chief Constable, served his prejudices rather than the community. The longer he denied that there was a serial killer attacking men whose respectable façade hid a secret gay life, the more gay men would die. If you couldn’t get them off the streets any longer by arresting them, let a killer remove them. It didn’t much matter whether he did it by murder or by fear.

It was a policy that made a nonsense of all the hours she and her colleagues were putting in on the investigation. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money that these enquiries were costing, particularly since Cross insisted each killing be treated as an entirely separate entity. Every time one of the three teams came up with some detail that seemed to link the killings, Tom Cross dismissed it with five points of dissimilarity. It didn’t matter that each time the links were different and the dissimilarities the same tired quintet. Cross was the boss. And the DCI had opted out of the strife completely, taking sick leave with his opportunistic bad back.

Carol rubbed the shampoo to a rich lather and felt herself gradually wake under the warm spray. Well, her corner of the investigation wasn’t going to run aground on the rock of Popeye Cross’s bigoted prejudice. Even if some of her junior officers were inclined to grasp at the boss’s tunnel vision as an excuse for their own uninspired investigations, she wasn’t going to stand for anything less than one hundred per cent committed action, and in the right direction. She’d worked her socks off for the best part of nine years, first to get a good degree and then to justify her place on the promotion fast track. She didn’t intend her career to hit the buffers just because she’d made the mistake of opting for a force run by Neanderthals.

Her mind made up, Carol stepped out of the shower, shoulders straight, a defiant glint in her green eyes. ‘Come on, Nelson,’ she said, shrugging into her dressing gown and scooping up the muscular bundle of black fur. ‘Let’s hit the red meat, boy.’

Tony studied the overhead projection on the screen behind him for a final five seconds. Since the majority of his audience had expressed their lack of commitment to his lecture by pointedly not taking notes, he wanted at least to give their subconscious minds the maximum opportunity to absorb his flow chart of the criminal profile generating process.

He turned back to his audience. ‘I don’t have to tell you what you already know. Profilers don’t catch criminals. It’s bobbies that do that.’ He smiled at his audience of senior police officers and Home Office officials, inviting them to share his self-deprecation. A few did, though most remained stony faced, heads on one side.

However he dressed it up, Tony knew he couldn’t convince the bulk of the senior police officers that he wasn’t some out-of-touch university boffin there to tell them how to do their jobs. Stifling a sigh, he glanced at his notes and continued, aiming for as much eye contact as he could achieve, copying the casual body language of the successful stand-up comics he’d studied working the northern clubs. ‘But sometimes we profilers see things differently,’ he said. ‘And that fresh perspective can make all the difference. Dead men do tell tales, and the ones they tell profilers are not the same as the ones they tell police officers.

‘An example. A body is found in bushes ten feet away from the road. A police officer will note that fact. He’ll check the ground all around for clues. Are there footprints? Has anything been discarded by the killer? Have any fibres been snagged on the bushes? But for me, that single fact is only the starting point for speculations that, taken in conjunction with all the other information at my disposal, may well lead me to useful conclusions about the killer. I’ll ask myself, was the body deliberately placed there? Or was the killer too knackered to carry it further? Was he hiding it or dumping it? Did he want it to be found? How long did he expect or want it to stay hidden? What is the significance of this site for him?’ Tony lifted his shoulders and held out his hands in an open, questioning gesture. The audience looked on, unmoved. God, how many tricks of the trade was he going to have to pull out of the hat before he got a response? The prickle of sweat along the back of his neck was becoming a trickle, sliding down between his skin and his shirt collar. It was an uncomfortable sensation that reminded him of who he really was behind the mask he’d assumed for his public appearance.

Tony cleared his throat, focused on what he was projecting rather than what he was feeling, and continued. ‘Profiling is just another tool that can help investigating officers to narrow the focus of their investigation. Our job is to make sense of the bizarre. We can’t give you an offender’s name, address and phone number. But what we can do is point you in the direction of the kind of person who has committed a crime with particular characteristics. Sometimes we can indicate the area where he might live, the kind of work we’d expect him to do.

‘I know that some of you have questioned the necessity for setting up a National Criminal Profiling Task Force. You’re not alone. The civil libertarians are screaming about it too.’ At last, Tony thought with profound relief. Smiles and nods from the audience. It had taken him forty minutes to get there, but he’d finally cracked their composure. It didn’t mean he could relax, but it eased his discomfort. ‘After all,’ he went on, ‘we’re not like the Americans. We don’t have serial killers lurking round every corner. We still have a society where more than ninety per cent of murders are committed by family members or people known to the victims.’ He was really taking them with him now. Several pairs of legs and arms uncrossed, neat as a practised drill-hall routine.

‘But profiling isn’t just about nailing the next Hannibal the Cannibal. It can be used in a wide variety of crimes. We’ve already had notable success in airport anti-hijacking measures, in catching drug couriers, poison-pen writers, blackmailers, serial rapists and arsonists. And just as importantly, profiling has been used very effectively to advise police officers on interview techniques for dealing with suspects in major crime enquiries. It’s not that your officers lack interviewing skills; it’s just that our clinical background means we have developed different approaches that can often be more productive than familiar techniques.’

Tony took a deep breath and leaned forward, gripping the edge of the lectern. His final paragraph had sounded good in front of the bathroom mirror. He prayed it would hit the right spot rather than stamp on people’s corns. ‘My team and I are now one year into a two-year feasibility study on setting up the National Criminal Profiling Task Force. I’ve already delivered an interim report to the Home Office, who confirmed to me yesterday that they are committed to forming this task force as soon as my final report is delivered. Ladies and gentlemen, this revolution in crime fighting is going to happen. You’ve got a year to make sure it happens in a form that you feel comfortable with. My team and I have all got open minds. We’re all on the same side. We want to know what you think, because we want it to work. We want violent, serial offenders behind bars, just like you do. I believe you could use our help. I know we can use yours.’

Tony took a step backwards and savoured the applause, not because it was particularly enthusiastic, but because it signalled the end of the forty-five minutes he’d been dreading for weeks. Public speaking had always been firmly outside the boundaries of his comfort zone, so much so that he’d turned his back on an academic career after achieving his doctorate because he couldn’t face the constant spectre of the lecture theatre. The ability to perform was not a reason in itself for doing so. Somehow, spending his days poking around in the distorted recesses of the minds of the criminally insane was far less threatening.

As the short-lived clapping died away, Tony’s Home Office minder bounced to his feet from his front-row chair. While Tony provoked a wary distrust in the police section of his audience, George Rasmussen generated more universal irritation than a flea bite. His eager smile revealed too many teeth and a disturbing resemblance to George Formby that was at odds with the seniority of his Civil Service post, the elegant cut of his grey pinstripe suit and the yammering bray of a public-school accent so exaggerated that Tony was convinced Rasmussen had really been educated in some inner-city comprehensive. Tony half listened as he shuffled his notes together and replaced his acetates in their folder. Grateful for fascinating insight, blah, blah … coffee and those absolutely delicious biscuits, blah, blah … opportunity for informal questions, blah, blah … remind you all submissions to Dr Hill due by …

The sound of shuffling feet drowned out the rest of Rasmussen’s spiel. When it came to a choice between a civil servant’s vote of thanks and a cup of coffee, it was no contest. Not even for the civil servants. Tony took a deep breath. Time to abandon the lecturer. Now he had to be the charming, well-informed colleague, eager to listen, to assimilate and to make his new contacts feel he was really on their side.

John Brandon stood up and stepped aside to allow the other people in his row to move out of their seats. Watching Tony Hill’s performance hadn’t been as informative as he’d hoped. It had told him a lot about psychological profiling, but almost nothing about the man, except that he seemed self-assured without being arrogant. The last three quarters of an hour hadn’t made him any more certain that what he was planning was the right course of action. But he couldn’t see any alternative. Staying close to the wall, Brandon moved forward against the flow until he was level with Rasmussen. Seeing his audience vote with its feet, the civil servant had sharply wound up his speech and switched off his smile. As Rasmussen gathered up the papers he’d dumped on his seat, Brandon slipped past him and crossed the floor towards Tony, who was fastening the clasps on his battered Gladstone bag.

Brandon cleared his throat and said, ‘Dr Hill?’ Tony looked up, polite enquiry on his face. Brandon swallowed his qualms and continued. ‘We haven’t met before, but you’ve been working on my patch. I’m John Brandon …’

‘The ACC Crime?’ Tony interrupted, a smile reaching his eyes. He’d heard enough about John Brandon to know he was a man he wanted on his side. ‘I’m delighted to meet you, Mr Brandon,’ he said, injecting warmth into his voice.

‘John. It’s John,’ Brandon said, more abruptly than he’d intended. He realized with a spurt of surprise that he was nervous. There was something about Tony Hill’s calm assurance that unsettled him. ‘I wonder if we can have a word?’

Before Tony could reply, Rasmussen was between them. ‘If you’d excuse me,’ he interjected without any note of humility, the smile back in place. ‘Tony, if you’d just come through now to the coffee lounge, I know our friends in the police will be eager to chat to you on a more intimate basis. Mr Brandon, if you’d like to follow us.’

Brandon could feel his hackles rising. He felt awkward enough about the situation without having to fight to keep their conversation confidential in a room full of coffee-swilling coppers and nosy Home Office mandarins. ‘If I could just have a word with Dr Hill in private?’

Tony glanced at Rasmussen, noting the slight deepening of the parallel lines between his eyebrows. Normally, it would have tickled him to wind up Rasmussen by continuing his conversation with Brandon. He always enjoyed pricking pomposity, reducing the self-important to impotent. But too much hung on the success of his encounters with other police officers today, so he decided to forego the pleasure. Instead, he turned pointedly away from Rasmussen and said, ‘John, are you driving back to Bradfield after lunch?’

Brandon nodded.

‘Perhaps you could give me a lift, then? I came on the train, but if you don’t mind, I’d rather not wrestle with British Rail on the way back. You can always drop me at the city limits if you don’t want to be seen fraternizing with the Trendy Wendies.’

Brandon smiled, his long face creasing into simian wrinkles. ‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I’ll be just as happy to drop you at force headquarters.’ He stood back and watched Rasmussen steer Tony to the doors, fussing all the way. He couldn’t shake off the slightly disconcerted feeling that the psychologist had given him. Maybe it was simply that he’d grown so accustomed to being in control of everything in his world that asking for help had become an alien experience that automatically made him feel uncomfortable. There was no other obvious explanation. Shrugging, Brandon followed the crowd through to the coffee lounge.

Tony snapped the seat belt closed and savoured the comfort of the unmarked Range Rover. He said nothing as Brandon manoeuvred out of the Manchester force headquarters’ car park and headed for the motorway network, unwilling to interfere with the concentration necessary to avoid missing the way in an unfamiliar city. As they cruised down the slip road and joined the fast-flowing traffic, Tony broke the silence. ‘If it helps, I think I already know what it is you wanted to talk to me about.’

Brandon’s hands tensed on the wheel. ‘I thought you were a psychologist, not a psychic,’ he joked. He surprised himself. Humour wasn’t his natural mode; he normally resorted to it only under pressure. Brandon couldn’t get used to how nervous he felt asking this favour.

‘Some of your colleagues would take more notice of me if I was,’ Tony said wryly. ‘So, do you want me to have a guess and run the risk of making a complete fool of myself?’

Brandon snatched a quick look at Tony. The psychologist looked relaxed, hands palm down on his thighs, feet crossed at the ankles. He looked as though he’d be more at home in jeans and a sweater than in the suit which even Brandon recognized as well past its fashionable sell-by date. He could relate to that, remembering the scathing comments his daughters routinely passed on his own plain clothes. Brandon said abruptly, ‘I think we’ve got a serial killer operating in Bradfield.’

Tony released a small, satisfied sigh. ‘I was beginning to wonder if you’d noticed,’ he said ironically.

‘It’s by no means a unanimous opinion,’ Brandon said, feeling the need to warn Tony before he’d even asked for his help.

‘I’d gathered as much from the press coverage,’ Tony said. ‘If it’s any comfort to you, I’m as certain as I can be from what I’ve read that your analysis is right.’

‘That’s not entirely the impression you gave in those quotes of yours I saw in the Sentinel Times after the last one,’ Brandon said.

‘It’s my job to cooperate with the police, not to undermine them. I assumed you had your own operational reasons for not going public with the serial-killer angle. I did stress to them that what I was saying was no more than an informed guess based on the information that was in the public domain,’ Tony added, his genial tone contradicting the sudden tensing of his fingers that ruched the material of his trousers into loose pleats.

Brandon smiled, aware only of the voice. ‘Touché. So, are you interested in giving us a hand?’

Tony felt a warm rush of satisfaction. This was what he had craved for weeks now. ‘There’s a service area a few miles down the road. D’you fancy a cup of tea?’

Detective Inspector Carol Jordan stared at the broken chaos of flesh that had once been a man, determinedly forcing her eyes to remain out of focus. She wished she hadn’t bothered to snatch that stale cheese sandwich from the canteen. Somehow, it was acceptable for young male officers to throw up when they were confronted with victims of violent death. They even got sympathy. But in spite of the fact that women were supposed to lack bottle anyway, when female officers chucked up on the margins of crime scenes they instantly lost any respect they’d ever won and became objects of contempt, the butts of locker-room jokes from the canteen cowboys. Pick the logic out of that, Carol thought bitterly as she clamped her jaws tighter together. She thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her trench coat and clenched her fists, the nails pressing into her palms.

Carol felt a hand on her arm, just above the elbow. Grateful for the chance to look away, she turned to find her sergeant looming above her. Don Merrick towered a good eight inches over his boss, and had developed a strange hunchbacked stoop when he spoke to her. At first, she’d found it amusing enough to regale friends with over drinks or the occasional dinner party when she managed to squeeze a night off. Now, she didn’t even notice. ‘Area’s all cordoned off now, ma’am,’ he said in his soft Geordie accent. ‘Pathologist’s on his way. What d’you think? Are we looking at number four?’

‘Don’t let the Super hear you say that, Don,’ she said, only half joking. ‘I’d say so, though.’ Carol looked around. They were in the Temple Fields district, in the rear yard of a pub which catered primarily to the gay trade, with an upstairs bar that was lesbian three nights a week. Contrary to the jibes of the macho men she’d overtaken in the promotion stakes, it wasn’t a bar Carol had ever had reason to enter. ‘What about the gate?’

‘Crowbar,’ Merrick said laconically. ‘It’s not wired into the alarm system.’

Carol surveyed the tall rubbish dumpsters and the stacked crates of empties. ‘No reason why it should be,’ she said. ‘What’s the landlord got to say?’

‘Whalley’s talking to him now, ma’am. Seems he locked up last night about half past eleven. They’ve got bins on wheels behind the bars for the empties, and at closing time they just wheel them into the yard back there.’ Merrick waved over towards the back door of the pub, where three blue plastic bins stood, each the size of a supermarket trolley. ‘They don’t sort them out till the afternoon.’

‘And that’s when they found this?’ Carol asked, gesturing over her shoulder with her thumb.

‘Just lying there. Open to the elements, you might say.’

Carol nodded. A shudder ran through her that was nothing to do with the sharp north-eastern wind. She took a step towards the gate. ‘OK. Let’s leave this to the SOCOs for now. We’re only in the way here.’ Merrick followed her into the narrow alley behind the pub. It was barely wide enough for a single vehicle to squeeze down. Carol looked up and down the alley, now closed off by police tapes and guarded at either end by a pair of uniformed constables. ‘He knows his turf,’ she mused softly. She walked backwards along the alley, keeping the gate of the pub in constant view. Merrick followed her, waiting for the next set of orders.

At the end of the alley, Carol stopped and swung round to check out the street. Opposite the alley was a tall building, a former warehouse that had been converted into craft workshops. At night, it would be deserted, but in midafternoon, almost every window framed eager faces, staring out from the warmth within at the drama below. ‘Not much chance of anyone looking out of a window at the crucial time, I suppose,’ she remarked.

‘Even if they had, they wouldn’t have taken any notice,’ Merrick said cynically. ‘After closing time, the streets round here are jumping. Every doorway, every alley, half the parked cars have got a pair of poofs in them, shagging the arse off each other. It’s no wonder the Chief calls Temple Fields Sodom and Gomorrah.’

‘You know, I’ve often wondered. It’s pretty clear what they were up to in Sodom, but what do you suppose the sin of Gomorrah was?’ Carol asked.

Merrick looked bewildered. It increased his resemblance to a sad-eyed Labrador to a disturbing degree. ‘I’m not with you, ma’am,’ he said.

‘Never mind. I’m surprised Mr Armthwaite hasn’t got Vice pulling them all in on indecency charges,’ Carol said.

‘He did try it a few years back,’ Merrick confided. ‘But the police committee had his bollocks barbecued for it. He fought them, but they threatened him with the Home Office. And after the Holmwood Three business, he knew he was already on thin ice with the politicians, so he backed down. Doesn’t stop him slagging them off every chance he gets, though.’

‘Yeah, well, I hope this time our friendly neighbourhood killer has left us a bit more to go on, or our beloved leader might just pick another target for his next slagging off.’ Carol straightened her shoulders. ‘Right, Don. I want a door-to-door of the businesses, now. And tonight, we’re all going to be out on the streets, talking to the trade.’

Before Carol could complete her instructions, a voice from beyond the tapes interrupted. ‘Inspector Jordan? Penny Burgess, Sentinel Times. Inspector? What have you got?’

Carol closed her eyes for a brief moment. Dealing with the recalcitrant bigots in the chain of command was one thing. Dealing with the press was infinitely worse. Wishing she’d stayed in the yard with the grisly corpse, Carol took a deep breath and walked towards the cordon.

‘Let me get this straight. You want me to come on board for the duration of this murder enquiry, but you don’t want me to tell anyone?’ The look of amusement in Tony’s eyes masked his anger at the reluctance of influential policemen to accept the value of what he could do.

Brandon sighed. Tony wasn’t making it easy for him, but then, why should he? ‘I want to avoid any suggestions in the press that you are helping us. The only chance I have of getting you formally involved with the investigation is to persuade the Chief Constable that you’re not going to be stealing the limelight from him and his coppers.’

‘And that it won’t become public knowledge that Derek Armthwaite, the Hand Of God, is turning to the mumbo-jumbo men for help,’ Tony said, an edge in his voice betraying more than he wanted to.

Brandon’s face twisted in a cynical smile. It was good to see that it was possible to ruffle that smooth surface. ‘If you say so, Tony. Technically, it’s an operational matter, and he’s not really supposed to interfere unless I’m doing something that’s counter to force and Home Office policy. And it is the policy of BMP to use expert assistance whenever it is appropriate.’

Tony snorted with laughter. ‘And you think he’ll accept me as “appropriate”?’

‘I think he doesn’t want another confrontation with the Home Office or the police committee. He’s due to retire in eighteen months, and he’s desperate for the knighthood.’ Brandon couldn’t believe what he was saying. He didn’t even voice this kind of disloyalty to his wife, never mind to a virtual stranger. What was it about Tony Hill that had made him open up so swiftly? There must be something in this psychology lark after all. Brandon comforted himself that at least he had harnessed that something in the service of justice. ‘So what do you say?’

‘When do I start?’

FROM 3½″ DISK LABELLED: BACKUP.007; FILE LOVE.002

Even that first time, I planned the event more carefully than a theatre director plans the first production of a new play. In my mind, I crafted the experience, till it was like a bright and shining dream, there every time I closed my eyes. I checked and rechecked every choreographed move, making sure I hadn’t missed some vital detail that would endanger my freedom. Looking back on it now, the mental movie I created was almost as pleasurable as the act itself.

The first step was to find a place where I could safely take him, a place we could be private together. I immediately dismissed my home. I can hear my neighbours’ squalid arguments, the barking of their hysterical German shepherd and the irritating thud of their stereo’s bass; I had no desire to share my apotheosis with them. Besides, in my terraced street, there are too many curtain twitchers. I wanted no witnesses to Adam’s arrival or his departure.

I considered renting a lock up garage, but rejected that for the same reasons. Besides, it seemed too seedy, too much of a cliché from the world of television and film. I wanted something in keeping with what was going to happen. Then I remembered my mother’s Auntie Doris. Doris and her husband Henry used to farm sheep on the moors high above Bradfield. Then, about four years ago, Henry died. Doris tried to keep things going for a while, but when her son Ken invited her out last year for an extended holiday with his family in New Zealand, she sold the sheep and packed her bags. Ken had written to me at Christmas, saying his mother had suffered a mild heart attack and wouldn’t be coming back for the foreseeable future.

That night, I took advantage of a lull in work to call Ken. At first, he sounded surprised to hear from me, then muttered, ‘I suppose you’re using the phones at work.’

‘I’ve been meaning to ring for ages,’ I said. ‘I wanted to know how Auntie Doris was doing.’ It’s much easier to appear solicitous via satellite. I made the appropriate noises while Ken bored on about his mother’s health, his wife, their three kids and their sheep.

After ten minutes, I decided I’d had enough. ‘The other thing is, Ken, I was worried about the house,’ I lied. ‘It’s so isolated up there, someone should keep an eye on the place.’

‘You’re not wrong,’ he said. ‘Her solicitor’s supposed to be doing that, but I don’t reckon he’s been near it.’

‘Do you want me to pop out and check it over? Now I’m back living in Bradfield, it would be no bother.’

‘Would you? That’d be a hell of a load off, I don’t mind telling you. Between ourselves, I’m not sure Mum’s ever going to be well enough to go back home again, but I’d hate to think of anything happening to the family home,’ Ken said eagerly.

Hate to think of anything happening to his inheritance, more like. I knew Ken. Ten days later, I had the keys. On my next day off, I drove out there to check the accuracy of my recollection. The rutted track leading to Start Hill Farm was much more overgrown than the last time I’d been there, and my four-wheel-drive jeep struggled to climb the three miles from the nearest single-track lane. I cut the engine a dozen yards from the grim little cottage and sat listening for five minutes. The biting wind from the high moors rustled the overgrown hedges, occasional birds sang. But there were no human sounds. Not even the distant thrum of traffic.

I got out of the jeep and had a look round. One end of the sheep shed had collapsed into a random pile of millstone grit, but what pleased me was that there was no sign of casual human visitations; no picnic remains, no corroding beer cans, no crumpled newspapers, no cigarette butts, no used condoms. I walked back to the house and let myself in.

It was little more than a two-up, two-down. Inside, it was very different from the cosy farmhouse I remembered. All the personal touches – photographs, ornaments, horse brasses, antiques – were gone, packed up in crates in storage, a very Yorkshire precaution. In a way, I was relieved; there was nothing here that could trigger off memories that would interfere with what I had to do. It was a blank tablet, with all humiliations, embarrassments and pain erased. Nothing of my past lurked to surprise me. The person I had been was absent.

I walked through the kitchen towards the pantry. The shelves were empty. God knows what Doris had done with her serried ranks of jams, pickles and home-made wines. Maybe she’d shipped them to New Zealand as a hedge against being fed alien food. I stood in the doorway, and stared at the floor. I could feel a foolish grin of relief spread across my face. My memory hadn’t let me down. There was a trapdoor in the floor. I squatted down and pulled the rusty iron ring. After a few seconds, the door swung back on creaking hinges. As I sniffed the air from the cellar, I grew more convinced that the gods were with me. I had feared it would be damp, fetid and stale. But instead, it was cool and fresh, slightly sweet.

I lit my camping gas lamp and carefully descended the flight of stone stairs. The lamp revealed a sizeable room, about twenty feet by thirty. The floor was flagged with stone slabs, and a broad stone bench ran the length of one wall. I held the lamp high and saw the solid beams of the roof. The lath and plaster ceiling was the only part of the cellar that showed any signs of disrepair. I could easily fix that with plasterboard, which would serve the double purpose of preventing any light escaping through the bare floorboards above. At right angles to the stone bench was a slop sink. I remembered the farm was served by its own spring. The tap was stiff, but when I finally managed to turn it, the water ran out pure and clear.

Near the stairs stood a scarred wooden workbench, complete with vices and G-clamps, Henry’s tools hanging in neat rows above. I sat on the stone bench and hugged myself. A few hours’ work was all that was needed to turn this into a dungeon far superior to anything the games programmers had ever come up with. For a start, I didn’t have to think about creating an in-built weakness so my adventurers could escape.

By the end of the week, coming out to the farm in my time off, I had completed the job. Nothing sophisticated; I’d fixed padlock and internal bolts to the trapdoor, I’d repaired the ceiling, and covered the walls in a couple of coats of whitewash. I wanted the place as light as possible to improve the quality of the video. I’d even run a spur off the ring main to provide me with electricity.

I’d thought long and hard before I’d decided how to punish Adam. Finally, I’d fixed on what the French call the chevalet, the Spanish escalero, the Germans the ladder, the Italians veglia and the poetic English ‘The Duke of Exeter’s Daughter’. The rack got its euphemistic name from the resourceful John Holland, Duke of Exeter and Earl of Huntingdon. After a successful career as a soldier, the duke became Constable of the Tower of London and somewhere around 1420 he introduced that splendid instrument of persuasion to these shores.

The earliest version consisted of an open rectangular frame raised on legs. The prisoner was laid underneath it, fastened by ropes round his wrists and ankles. At each corner, the ropes were attached to a windlass operated by a warder pulling on levers. This inelegant and labour-intensive device became more sophisticated over the years, ending up more like a table or a horizontal ladder, often incorporating a spiked roller in the middle so that, as the prisoner’s body moved, his back was shredded on the spikes. Pulley systems had also been designed which linked all four ropes together, making it possible for the machine to be used by one person alone.

Fortunately, those who have applied punishment through the ages have been thorough in their descriptions and drawing. I also had the photographs in the museum handbook to refer to, and with the assistance of a CAD program, I’d designed my very own rack. For the mechanism, I’d cannibalized an old-fashioned clothes wringer that I picked up in an antique shop. I’d also bought an old mahogany dining table in an auction. I took it straight up to the farm and dismembered it in the kitchen, admiring the craftsmanship that had gone into the solid timber. It took a couple of days to build the rack. All that remained was to test it.

2

Let the reader then figure to himself the pure frenzy of horror when in this hush of expectation, looking, and indeed, waiting for the unknown arm to strike once more, but not believing that any audacity could be equal to such an attempt as yet, whilst all eyes were watching … a second case of the same mysterious nature, a murder on the same exterminating plan, was perpetrated in the very same neighbourhood.

As soon as Brandon started the engine, the mobile phone mounted on the dashboard trilled. He grabbed the handset and barked, ‘Brandon.’ Tony could hear the computerized voice say, ‘You have messages. Please call 121. You have messages …’

Brandon took the phone from his ear, hit the keys and jammed it back again. This time, Tony couldn’t hear what was said. After a moment, Brandon dialled another number. ‘My secretary,’ he explained briefly. ‘Sorry about this … Hello, Martina? John. You were looking for me?’

A few seconds into the answer, Brandon squeezed his eyes shut, as if in pain. ‘Where?’ he asked, his voice dull. ‘OK, got it. I’ll be there within the half-hour. Who’s dealing? … Fine, thanks, Martina.’ Brandon opened his eyes and ended the call. He carefully replaced the handset and twisted in his seat to face Tony. ‘You wanted to know when you could start? How about now?’

‘Another body?’ Tony asked.

‘Another body,’ Brandon agreed grimly, turning back and slamming the car into gear. ‘How do you feel about scenes of crime?’

Tony shrugged. ‘I’ll probably lose my lunch, but it’s a bonus for me if I get to see them in a fairly pristine state.’

‘There’s nothing pristine about the way this sick bastard leaves them,’ Brandon growled as he shot on to the motorway and made straight for the outside lane. The speedo read ninety-five before he eased back on the accelerator.

‘Has he gone back to Temple Fields?’ Tony asked.

Taken aback, Brandon shot him a quick look. Tony was staring straight ahead, his dark eyebrows corrugated in a frown. ‘How did you know?’

That was a question Tony wasn’t prepared to answer. ‘Call it a hunch,’ he stalled. ‘I think last time out he was scared that Temple Fields might be getting a bit too hot. Dumping the third body in Carlton Park shifted the focus, maybe stopped the police concentrating on one area, probably relaxed people’s vigilance a bit. But he likes Temple Fields. Either because he knows the patch really well, or else it’s important to his fantasy. Or maybe it makes some kind of statement for him,’ Tony mused aloud.

‘Do you always come up with half a dozen different hypotheses every time someone tosses you a fact?’ Brandon asked, flashing his lights at a BMW that was reluctant to give up possession of the fast lane. ‘Shift, you bastard, before I get Traffic out to you,’ he snarled.

‘I try,’ Tony said. ‘That’s how I do the job. Gradually, the evidence makes me eliminate some of my initial thoughts. Eventually, some sort of pattern begins to form.’ He fell silent, already fantasizing about what he would find at the scene of the crime. His stomach felt hollow, muscles fluttering like a musician before a concert. Normally, all he ever got to see were the second-hand, sanitized versions of crime scenes. No matter how good the photographer and the other forensic officers, it was always someone else’s vision he had to translate. This time, he was going to be as close to a killer as he’d ever been. For a man who lived his life behind the shield of learned behaviours, penetrating a killer’s façade was the only game in town.

Carol said, ‘No comment,’ for the eleventh time. Penny Burgess’s mouth tightened and her eyes flicked round the scene, desperate for someone who would be less of a stone wall than Carol. Popeye Cross might be a male chauvinist pig, but in between the patronizing comments he always salted a few memorable quotes. Drawing a blank, she focused on Carol again.

‘What happened to sisterhood, Carol?’ she complained. ‘Come on, give us a break. Surely there must be something you can tell me apart from “No comment”.’

‘I’m sorry, Ms Burgess. The last thing your readers need to hear is ill-informed off-the-cuff speculation. As soon as I’ve got anything concrete to say, I promise you’ll be the first to know.’ Carol softened her words with a smile.

She turned to walk away, but Penny grabbed the sleeve of her mac. ‘Off the record?’ she pleaded. ‘Just for my guidance? So I don’t end up writing something that makes me look a pillock? Carol, I don’t have to tell you what it’s like. I work in an office full of guys that are running a book on when I’ll make my next cock-up.’

Carol sighed. It was hard to resist. Only the thought of what Tom Cross would make of it in the squad room kept her mouth closed. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, you’ve been doing just fine so far.’ As she spoke, a familiar Range Rover turned the corner. ‘Oh shit,’ she muttered, pulling her arm away from the reporter. All she needed was John Brandon deciding she was the police source behind the Sentinel Times’s serial-killer hysteria. Briskly, Carol walked towards Brandon’s car as it jerked to a halt, waiting for someone to shift the tapes keeping the crowd at bay. She stopped and waited while the constables rushed to impress the ACC with their efficiency. The Range Rover nosed forward, giving Carol the opportunity to spot the stranger in Brandon’s passenger seat. As the two men climbed down, she scanned Tony, committing the details to the memory bank she’d trained herself to develop. You never knew when you’d need to come up with a photofit. Around five-eight, slim, good shoulders, narrow hips, legs and trunk in proportion, short dark hair, side parting, dark eyes, probably blue, shadows under the eyes, fair skin, average nose, wide mouth, lower lip fuller than upper. Shame about the dress sense, though. The suit was even more out of fashion than Brandon’s. It didn’t look worn, however. Deduction: this was a man who didn’t spend his working life in a suit. Equally, he didn’t like throwing money away, so the suit was going to be worn till it fell to bits. Second deduction: he probably wasn’t married or in a permanent relationship. Any woman whose partner needed a suit occasionally would have pitched him into buying a timelessly classic style that wouldn’t look so absurd five years after its purchase.

By the time she’d reached this conclusion, Brandon was by her side, gesturing to his companion to join them. ‘Carol,’ he said.

‘Mr Brandon,’ she acknowledged.

‘Tony, I’d like you to meet Detective Inspector Carol Jordan. Carol, this is Dr Tony Hill from the Home Office.’

Tony smiled and held out his hand. Attractive smile, Carol added to her list of particulars as she shook the hand. Good handshake, too. Dry, firm without the macho need to crush the bones that so many senior officers exhibited. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said.

A surprisingly deep voice, faintly northern. Carol kept her own smile tight. You never knew with the Home Office. ‘Likewise,’ she said.

‘Carol’s heading up one of the murder teams we’ve got on these killings. Number two, is it, Carol?’ Brandon asked, already knowing the answer.

‘That’s right, sir. Paul Gibbs.’

‘Tony’s in charge of the Home Office National Crime Profiling Task Force feasibility study. I’ve asked him to take a look at these murders, to see if his experience can give us any pointers.’ Brandon’s eyes bored into Carol’s, making sure she realized there were lines to be read between.

‘I’d appreciate any help Dr Hill can give us, sir. From the brief look I’ve had at the scene of the crime, I don’t think we’ve got any more to go on than in the previous similar cases.’ Carol signalled that she understood what Brandon was saying. They were both walking the same tightrope, but from different ends. Brandon could not be seen to undermine Tom Cross’s operational authority, and if Carol wanted a tolerable existence in the Bradfield force, she couldn’t openly contradict her immediate superior, even if the ACC agreed with her. ‘Would Dr Hill like to see the crime scene?’

‘We’ll all have a look,’ Brandon said. ‘You can fill me in as we go. What have we got here?’

Carol led the way. ‘It’s in the back yard of the pub here. The scene of crime is obviously not the scene of death. No blood at all. We have a white male, late twenties, naked. ID unknown. He appears to have been tortured before death. Both shoulders seem to have been dislocated, and possibly his hips and knees. Some tufts of hair are missing from the scalp. He’s lying on his front, so we’ve not had a chance to see the full extent of his injuries. I’d guess the cause of death is a deep wound to the throat. It also looks like the body had been washed before it was dumped.’ Carol ended her flat recitation at the yard gate. She glanced back at Tony. The only difference her words had made was a tightening of his lips. ‘Ready?’ she asked him.

He nodded and took a deep breath. ‘As I’ll ever be,’ he said.

‘Stay outside the tapes please, Tony,’ Brandon said. ‘The SOCOs will still have a lot to do, and they don’t need us dumping forensic traces all over their murder scene.’

Carol opened the gate and waved the two of them through. If Tony had thought her words had prepared him for the sight inside, one look told him otherwise. It was grotesque, made all the more so by the unnatural absence of blood. Logic screamed that a body so broken should be an island in a lake of gore, like an ice cube in a Bloody Mary. He had never seen a corpse so clean outside a funeral parlour. But instead of being laid out calm as a marble statue, this body was twisted into a loose-limbed parody of the human frame, a disjointed puppet left lying where it fell when the strings were cut.

When the two men entered the yard, the police photographer stopped snapping and gave John Brandon a nod of recognition. ‘All right, Harry,’ Brandon said, seemingly undaunted by the sight before him. No one could see the hands clenched into tight fists in the pockets of his waxed jacket.

‘I’ve done all the longand medium-range stuff, Mr Brandon. I’ve just got the close-ups to go,’ the photographer said. ‘There’s a lot of wounds and bruising; I want to make sure I’ve got it all.’

‘Good lad,’ Brandon said.

From behind them, Carol added, ‘Harry, when you’ve done that, can you snap all the cars parked up in the immediate area?’

The photographer raised his eyebrows. ‘The lot?’

‘The lot,’ Carol confirmed.

‘Good thinking, Carol,’ Brandon chipped in before the scowling photographer could say anything more. ‘There’s always the outside chance that me laddo left the scene on foot or in the victim’s car. He might have left his here to collect later. And photographs are that much harder for the defence brief to argue with than a bobby’s notebook.’

With a sharp snort of breath, the photographer turned back to the corpse. The brief exchange had given Tony time to get a grip on his churning stomach. He took a step closer to the body, trying to glean some primitive understanding of the mind that had reduced a man to this. ‘What’s your game?’ he said inside his head. ‘What does this mean to you? What translations are going on between this broken flesh and your desire? I thought I was the expert in keeping things battened down, but you’re something else, aren’t you? You are truly special. You’re the control freak’s control freak. You are going to be one of the ones they write books about. Welcome to the big time.’

Recognizing that he was dangerously close to admiration for a mind so disturbingly complex, Tony forced himself to focus on the realities of what lay before him. The deep slash to the throat had virtually decapitated the man, leaving the head tilted as if hinged at the back of the neck. Tony took a deep breath and said, ‘The Sentinel Times said they all died from having their throats cut. Is that right?’

‘Yes,’ Carol said. ‘They were all tortured while they were still alive, but it’s the throat wounds that have been fatal in each case.’

‘And have they all been as deep as this?’

Carol shook her head dubiously. ‘I’m only completely familiar with the second case, and that was nowhere near as violent a gash as this. But I have seen the photographs of the other two, and the last one was nearly this bad.’

Thank God for something recognizably textbook, Tony thought. He took a couple of steps back and scanned the area. The body aside, there was nothing to distinguish it from the back yard of any other pub. Crates of empties were stacked against the walls, the lids on the big industrial wheelie bins were firmly closed. Nothing obvious taken away, nothing obvious left behind except for the corpse itself.

Brandon cleared his throat. ‘Well, everything seems to be under control here, Carol. I’d better go and have a word with the press. I saw Penny Burgess trying to rip the sleeve out of your coat when I got here. No doubt the rest of the pack are baying at her heels by now. I’ll see you back at HQ later. Drop by my office. I want to have a chat with you about Dr Hill’s involvement. Tony, I’ll leave you in Carol’s capable hands. When you’re finished here, maybe you can arrange a session with Carol so she can go through the case files.’

Tony nodded. ‘Sounds good. Thanks, John.’

‘I’ll be in touch. And thanks again.’ With that, Brandon was gone, closing the gate behind him.

‘You do profiling, then,’ Carol said.

‘I try,’ he said cautiously.

‘Thank God the powers that be have finally seen sense,’ she said drily. ‘I was beginning to think they’d never get round to admitting we’ve got a serial killer on our hands.’

‘You and me both,’ Tony said. ‘I was worried after the first one, but I’ve been convinced since the second one.’

‘And I suppose it’s not your place to tell them that,’ Carol said wearily. ‘Bloody bureaucracy.’

‘It’s a sensitive point. Even when we have a national task force set up, I suspect we’re still going to have to wait for the individual police forces to come to us.’

Carol’s reply was cut off by the banging of the yard gate as it was thrown open. They both swung round. Framed in the doorway was one of the biggest men Tony had ever seen. He had the solid brawn of a prop forward run to seed, his beer gut preceding his massive shoulders by a good half-dozen inches. His eyes protruded like boiled gooseberries from a fleshy face, the source of Detective Superintendent Tom Cross’s nickname. His mouth, like that of his cartoon namesake, was an incongruously small cupid’s bow. Mousey hair fringed a bald spot like a monk’s tonsure. ‘Sir,’ Carol greeted the apparition.

Pale eyebrows furled in a discontented scowl. Judging by the deep lines between his brows, it was a familiar expression. ‘Who the bloody hell are you?’ he demanded, waving a stubby finger at Tony. Automatically, Tony noted the bitten nail. Before he could respond, Carol spoke smartly. ‘Sir, this is Dr Tony Hill from the Home Office. He’s responsible for the National Crime Profiling Task Force feasibility study. Dr Hill, this is Detective Superintendent Tom Cross. He’s in overall charge of our murder enquiries.’

The second half of Carol’s introduction was drowned out by Cross’s booming response. ‘What the hell are you up to, woman? This is a murder scene. You don’t let any old Tom, Dick or Home Office penpusher walk all over it.’

Carol closed her eyes fractionally longer than a blink. Then she said in a voice whose cheerful tone astonished Tony, ‘Sir, Mr Brandon brought Dr Hill with him. The ACC thinks Dr Hill can help us profile our killer.’

‘What d’you mean, killer? How many times do I have to tell you? We’ve not got a serial killer loose in Bradfield. We’ve just got a nasty bunch of copycat queers. You know what the trouble is with you fast-track graduates?’ Cross demanded, aggressively leaning towards Carol.

‘I’m sure you’ll tell me, sir,’ Carol said sweetly.

Cross stopped momentarily, with the slightly baffled air of a dog who can hear the fly but can’t see it. Then he said, ‘You’re all desperate for glory. You want glamour and headlines. You don’t want the bother of proper coppering. You can’t be arsed grafting on three murder enquiries so you try to knock ’em all into one to minimize the effort and maximize the press coverage. And you,’ he added, wheeling round towards Tony. ‘You can remove yourself from my crime scene right now. The last thing we need is bleeding-heart liberals telling us we’re looking for some poor sod who wasn’t allowed to have a teddy bear when he were a lad. It’s not mumbo jumbo that catches villains, it’s police work.’

Tony smiled. ‘I couldn’t agree more, Superintendent. But your Assistant Chief Constable seems to think that I can help you target your police work more effectively.’

Cross was too old a hand to fall for civility. ‘I run the most effective team in this force,’ he retorted. ‘And I don’t need some bloody doctor telling me how to catch a bunch of homicidal poofters.’ He turned back to Carol. ‘Escort Doctor Hill off the premises, Inspector.’ He managed to make her rank sound like an insult. ‘And when you’ve done that, you can come back here and fill me in on what you’ve managed to find out about our last killer.’

‘Very good, sir. Oh, by the way, you might like to join the ACC. He’s giving an impromptu press conference round the front.’ This time, the sweetness was tinged with acerbity.

Cross gave a perfunctory glance at the body lying exposed in the yard. ‘Well, he’s not going any place, is he?’ he remarked. ‘Right, Inspector, I’ll expect a report just as soon as I’ve finished with the ACC and the press.’ He turned on his heel and stormed out as noisily as he’d arrived.

Carol put a hand on Tony’s elbow and steered him out of the gate. ‘This is going to be worth seeing,’ she muttered in his ear as she ushered him down the alley in Cross’s wake.

Half a dozen reporters had joined Penny Burgess behind the yellow plastic tapes. John Brandon faced them. As they grew closer, they could hear the cacophony of questions the press were hurling at the ACC. Carol and Tony hung back as Cross pushed past a constable standing at Brandon’s shoulder and shouted, ‘One at a time, ladies and gentlemen. You’ll all get heard.’

Brandon half turned towards Cross, his face expressionless. ‘Thank you, Superintendent Cross.’

‘Have we got a serial killer loose in Bradfield?’ Penny Burgess demanded, her voice cutting through the momentary quiet like the cry of some bird of ill omen.

‘There’s no reason to suppose …’ Cross started.

Brandon cut across him icily. ‘Leave this to me, Tom,’ he said. ‘As I said a moment ago, this afternoon we have found the body of a white male in his late twenties or early thirties. It’s too soon to be one hundred per cent certain, but there are indications that this killing may be connected to three previous homicides that have taken place in Bradfield over the last nine months.’

‘Does that mean you’re treating these murders as the work of one serial killer?’ asked a young man with a tape recorder thrust forward like a cattle prod.

‘We are examining the possibility that one perpetrator is responsible for all four crimes, yes.’

Cross looked as if he wanted to hit someone. His hands were bunched into fists at his sides, his brows so low they must have cut his vision to a slit. ‘Though it’s only a possibility at this stage,’ he said mutinously.

Penny chipped in ahead of the opposition again. ‘How will this affect your approach to the investigation, Mr Brandon?’

‘As of today, we will be amalgamating the three previous murder enquiries with this latest one into a single major incident task force. We will be making full use of the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System computer to analyse the available data, and we are confident that this will enable us to develop new leads,’ Brandon said, his lugubrious face belying the optimism in his voice.

‘Yo, go for it,’ Carol muttered under her breath.

‘Haven’t you left it a bit late? Hasn’t the murderer had a head start because you wouldn’t acknowledge he was a serial killer?’ a voice from the rear of the pack shouted angrily.

Brandon squared his shoulders and looked stern. ‘We’re policemen, not clairvoyants. We don’t theorize ahead of the evidence. Rest assured, we will be doing everything within our power to bring this killer to justice as swiftly as is humanly possible.’

‘Will you be using a psychological profiler?’ It was Penny Burgess again. Tom Cross shot Tony a look of pure hatred.

Brandon smiled. ‘That’s all for now, ladies and gentlemen. There will be a statement later from the force press office. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got a lot of work to do.’ He nodded benevolently towards the press, then he turned away, taking Cross firmly by the elbow. They walked back towards the alley, Cross’s back rigid with fury. Carol and Tony followed a few paces behind. As they went, Penny Burgess’s voice rang out behind them. ‘Inspector Jordan? Who’s the new boy?’

‘God, that woman doesn’t miss a trick,’ Carol muttered.

‘I’d better keep out of her way, then,’ Tony remarked. ‘Me ending up front-page news could be a serious health hazard.’

Carol stopped in her tracks. ‘You mean the killer could target you?’

Tony grinned. ‘No. I mean your Chief Constable would have an apoplexy.’

The irresistible urge to mirror his smile hit Carol. This man was unlike any Home Office Jobsworth she’d ever encountered. Not only did he have a sense of humour, he didn’t mind being indiscreet. And close up, he definitely fell into the category her friend Lucy described as ‘a bit chewy’. He was showing signs of being the first interesting man she’d met in the Job for a very long time. ‘You could be right,’ was all she said, managing to sound noncommittal enough for her words not to be held against her.

They reached the corner of the alley in time to see Tom Cross round on Brandon. ‘With respect, sir, you just contradicted everything I’ve been telling them buggers since this sideshow started.’

‘It’s time for a different approach, Tom,’ Brandon said coolly.

‘So why not discuss it with me instead of making me look a dickhead in front of that mob? Not to mention my own men.’ Cross leaned forward belligerently. His hand strayed upwards, index finger pointed, as if he were going to stab Brandon in the chest with it. But common sense careerism prevailed, and the hand dropped back by his side.

‘You think if I’d had you in my office and suggested a different approach I’d have got one?’ There was steel beneath the mildness in Brandon’s voice, and Cross recognized it.

His lower jaw jutted. ‘At the end of the day, operational decisions are down to me,’ he said. Beneath the belligerence, Tony pictured a small boy, an aggressive bully resenting the adults who still had the power to sort him out.

‘But I’m the ACC Crime and the buck stops with me. I make the policy decisions, and I’ve just made one that happens to impact on your sphere of operations. From now on, this is one single major incident enquiry. Is that clear, Tom? Or do you want to take it further?’ For the first time, Carol saw for herself how John Brandon had climbed so far up the greasy pole. The threat in his voice was no empty posturing. He was clearly prepared to do whatever it took to achieve his ends, and he acted with all the assurance of a man used to winning. There was nowhere left for Tom Cross to go.

Cross rounded on Carol. ‘Have you got nothing better to do, Inspector?’

‘I’m waiting to make my report, sir,’ she said. ‘You told me to wait for you after the press conference.’

‘Before you get into that … Tom, let me introduce you to Dr Tony Hill,’ Brandon said, motioning Tony to come forward.

‘We’ve met,’ Cross said, sullen as a schoolboy.

‘Dr Hill has agreed to work closely with us in this investigation. He’s got more experience in profiling serial offenders than just about anybody else in the country. He’s also agreed to keep his involvement under wraps.’

Tony gave a self-deprecating, diplomatic smile. ‘That’s right. The last thing I want is to turn your enquiry into a sideshow. If there’s any credit going when we nail this bastard, I want it to go to your team. They’ll be the ones doing the work, after all.’

‘You’re not wrong there,’ Cross muttered. ‘I don’t want you under our feet, getting in the road.’

‘None of us want that, Tom,’ Brandon said. ‘That’s why I’ve asked Carol to act as liaison officer between Tony and us.’

‘I can’t afford to lose a senior officer at a time like this,’ Cross protested.

‘You’re not losing her,’ Brandon said. ‘You’re gaining an officer with a unique overview of all the cases. Could prove invaluable, Tom.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I better be off. The Chief’s going to want a briefing on this one. Keep me posted, Tom.’ Brandon sketched a wave and stepped back into the street and out of sight.

Cross pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit up. ‘You know your trouble, Inspector?’ he said. ‘You’re not as smart as you like to think you are. One step out of line, lady, and I’ll have your guts for a jock strap.’ He took a deep drag of his cigarette and leaned forward to blow smoke in Carol’s direction. The gesture was ruined by the gust of wind that snatched the smoke away before it reached her. Looking disgusted, Cross turned on his heel and marched back to the scene of the crime.

‘You meet a nice class of person in this job,’ Carol said.

‘At least I know now which way the wind blows,’ Tony replied. As he spoke, he felt a drop of rain on his face.

‘Oh shit,’ Carol said. ‘That’s all we need. Look, can we meet tomorrow? I can grab the files tonight and skim them beforehand. Then you can get stuck in.’

‘Fine. My office, ten o’clock?’

‘Perfect. How do I find you?’

Tony gave Carol directions, then watched as she hurried back down the alley. An interesting woman. And attractive too, most men would agree to that. There were times when he almost wished he could find an uncomplicated response in himself. But he’d long since gone beyond the point where he would allow himself to be attracted to a woman like Carol Jordan.

It was after seven when Carol finally made it back to headquarters. When she rang John Brandon’s extension, she was pleasantly surprised to find him still at his desk. ‘Come on up,’ he told her.

She was even more surprised when she walked through his secretary’s door and found him pouring two steaming mugs from the coffee maker. ‘Milk and sugar?’ he asked her.

‘Neither,’ she said. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure.’

‘I gave up smoking five years ago,’ Brandon confided. ‘Now it’s only the caffeine that holds me together. Come through.’

Carol walked into his office, fired with curiosity. She’d never been across the threshold before. The decor was regulation cream paint, the furniture identical to Cross’s office, except that here the wood was gleaming, free from scuffs, scratches, cigarette burns and the telltale rings left by hot cups. Unlike most senior officers, Brandon hadn’t decorated his walls with police photographs and his framed commendations. Instead, he’d chosen half a dozen reproductions of turn-of-the-century paintings of Bradfield street scenes. Colourful yet moody, often rain-soaked, they mirrored the spectacular view from the seventhfloor window. The only item in the room that ran true to expectation was the photograph of his wife and children on the desk. Even that was no posed, studio shot, but an enlargement of a holiday snap on board a sailboat. Deduction: in spite of the impression Brandon strove to give as a bluff, straightforward, conventional copper, he was actually far more complex and thoughtful under the surface.

He waved Carol to a pair of chairs in front of his desk, then sat down in the other one. ‘One thing I want to be clear about,’ Brandon said without preliminary. ‘You report to Superintendent Cross. He’s in charge of this operation. However, I want to see copies of your reports and Dr Hill’s, and I want to know any theories the pair of you come up with that you’re not ready to commit to paper. Think you can handle that balancing act?’

Carol’s eyebrows rose. ‘There’s only one way to find out, sir,’ she said.

Brandon’s lips twitched in a half smile. He’d always preferred honesty to bullshit. ‘OK. I want you to make sure you are given access to everybody’s files. Any problems with that, any sense that anyone’s trying to stall you and Dr Hill, and I want to know about it, no matter who’s responsible. I’ll talk to the squad myself in the morning, make sure nobody’s in any doubt about what the new rules of the game are. Anything you need from me?’

Another twelve hours in the day would be a start, Carol thought wearily. Loving a challenge was all very well. But this time, it looked like love was going to be an uphill struggle.

Tony closed his front door behind him. He dropped his briefcase where he stood and leaned against the wall. He’d got what he wanted. It was a battle of wits now, his insight against the killer’s stockade. Somewhere in the pattern of these crimes there lay a labyrinthine path straight to a murderer’s heart. Somehow, Tony had to tread that path, wary of misleading shadows, careful to avoid straying into treacherous undergrowth.

He shrugged away from the wall, feeling suddenly exhausted, and headed for the kitchen, pulling off his tie and unbuttoning his shirt on the way. A cold beer, and then he could go through his scanty collection of press clippings on the three previous murders. He had just opened the fridge to grab a can of Boddingtons when the phone rang. He slammed the door shut and snatched up the extension, juggling with the cold can. ‘Hello?’ he said.

‘Anthony,’ the voice said.

Tony swallowed hard. ‘This isn’t a good time,’ he said, cutting coldly across the husky contralto coming down the line. He dumped the can on the worktop and popped the ring pull with one hand.

‘Playing hard to get? Oh, well, that’s part of the fun, isn’t it? I thought I’d cured you of trying to avoid me. I thought we’d left all that behind us. Don’t say you’re going to regress and hang up on me again, that’s all I ask.’ The voice was teasing, laughter bubbling just beneath the surface.

‘I’m not playing hard to get,’ he said. ‘It really isn’t a good time.’ He could feel the slow burn of anger rising from the pit of his stomach.

‘That’s up to you. You’re the man. You’re the boss. Unless, of course, you want things different for a change. If you catch my drift.’ The voice was almost a sigh, teasing him with its elusive quality. ‘After all, this is strictly between you and me. Consenting adults, as they say.’

‘So don’t I have the right to say no, not right now? Or is it only women who have that right?’ he said, hearing the tension in his voice as the anger rose like bile in his throat.

‘God, Anthony, your voice gets so sexy when you’re angry,’ the voice purred.

Nonplussed, Tony held the phone away from his ear, staring at it as if it were an artefact from another planet. Sometimes he wondered if what came out of his mouth were the same words that arrived in his listeners’ ears. With a clinical detachment he couldn’t bring to his caller, he noted that his grip on the phone was so tight his fingers were white. After a moment, he put the receiver back to his ear. ‘Just listening to your voice makes me wet, Anthony,’ she was saying. ‘Don’t you want to know what I’m wearing, what I’m doing right now?’ The voice was seductive, the breathing more audible than it had been at first.

‘Look, I’ve had a hard day, I’ve got a load of work to do and much as I enjoy our little games, I’m not in the mood tonight.’ Agitated, Tony looked desperately round his kitchen as if searching for the nearest exit.

‘You sound so tense, my darling. Let me soothe all that pressure away. Let’s play. Think of me as a relaxation technique. You know you’ll work better afterwards. You know I give you the best time you’ve ever had. With a stud like you and a sex queen like me, there’s nothing we can’t do. And for starters, I’m going to give you the dirtiest, sexiest, horniest phone call we’ve ever shared.’

Suddenly, his anger found a weakness in the dam and burst free. ‘Not tonight!’ Tony yelled, slamming the phone down so hard the can of beer jumped. Creamy froth swelled up through the triangular hole in the top. Tony stared at it in disgust. He picked up the can and threw it in the sink. The can clattered against the stainless steel, then rolled from side to side. Beer and foam spurted out in brown and cream gouts as Tony dropped into a crouch, head down, hands over his face. Tonight, faced with staring into the depths of someone else’s nightmares, he absolutely did not want the inevitable confrontation with his own deficiencies that the phone calls always brought in their wake. The phone rang again, but he remained motionless, eyes squeezed shut. When the answering machine picked up, the caller disconnected the line. ‘Bitch,’ he said viciously. ‘Bitch.’

FROM 3½″ DISK LABELLED: BACKUP.007; FILE LOVE.003

When my neighbours go out to work in the morning, they leave their German shepherd loose in the back yard. All day long, he lopes restlessly up and down the yard, quartering the poured concrete with the diligence of a prison officer who really loves the work. He’s heavy-set, black and brindle, with a shaggy coat. Whenever anyone enters the yards on either side of his, he barks, a long, deep-throated cacophony that lasts far longer than any intrusion. When the bin men come down the back alley to trundle our wheelie bins to their truck, the dog becomes hysterical, standing on his hind legs, forepaws scrabbling uselessly against the heavy wooden gate. I’ve watched him from the vantage point of my back-bedroom window. He’s nearly as tall as the gate itself. Perfect, really.

Next Monday morning, I bought a couple of pounds of steak and cut it into one-inch cubes, like all the best recipes say. Then I made a small incision in each cube and inserted one of the tranquillizers my doctor insists on prescribing for me. I never wanted them, and certainly never use them, but I’d had the feeling they might come in useful one day.

I came out of my back door and listened cheerfully to the dog’s salvo of barks. I could afford to be cheerful; it would be the last time I’d have to endure it. I plunged my hand into the bowl of moist meat, enjoying its cool, slippery feel. Then I tossed it over the wall in handfuls. I returned indoors, washed up and went upstairs to my vantage point by the computer. I chose the atmospheric world of Darkseed, calming my excitement with the gothic and macabre underworld I had come to know so well. In spite of my absorption in the game, though, I couldn’t help glancing out of the window every few minutes. After a while, he slumped to the ground, tongue lolling out of his mouth. I exited from my game and picked up my binoculars. He seemed to be breathing, but wasn’t moving.

I ran downstairs, picking up the holdall I’d prepared earlier, and got into the jeep. I reversed it down the alley till the tailgate was level with next-door’s yard gate. I turned off the engine. Silence. I couldn’t resist a certain smug satisfaction as I picked up my crowbar and jumped down. It took moments to force next-door’s gate. As it swung open, I could see the dog hadn’t stirred. I opened the holdall and crouched down beside him. I shoved his tongue back into his mouth and taped his muzzle shut with a roll of surgical tape. I bound his legs together, front and back, and dragged him to the jeep. He was heavy, but I keep myself in shape, and it wasn’t too hard to manhandle him into the back.

His breath was coming in soft snores when we got to the farmhouse, but there was no flicker of consciousness, even when I thumbed back his eyelids. I tipped him into the wheelbarrow I’d left out there, wheeled him through the cottage and emptied him down the flight of steps. I switched on the lights and hauled the dog on to the rack like a sack of potatoes, then turned to study my knives. I’d fitted a magnetic strip to the wall, and there they hung suspended, each sharpened to a professional edge; cleaver, filleting knife, carving knife, paring knife and craft knife. I chose the craft knife, cut away the tape from the dog’s legs and spread him out on his stomach. I fastened the strap round his middle to hold him tightly against the rack. That’s when I realized I had a problem.

Sometime in the past few minutes, the dog had stopped breathing. I thrust my head against the rough hairs of his chest, searching for a heartbeat, but it was too late. I’d obviously miscalculated the drug dosage, and given him too much. I was furious, I have to admit. The dog’s death wouldn’t affect the practicalities of scientifically testing my apparatus, but I had been looking forward to his suffering; a small revenge for the dozens of times his demented barking had woken me up, especially when I’d come off a hard night shift. But he’d died without a moment’s suffering. The last thing he’d known was a couple of pounds of steak. It didn’t please me that he’d died happy.

That wasn’t all; I soon discovered a second problem. The straps I’d fitted were fine for human ankles and wrists. But the dog didn’t have hands or feet to stop his limbs slipping free.

I didn’t puzzle for long. It was a far from elegant solution, but it served my purpose. I still had some six-inch nails left over from the repairs and modifications I’d made to the cellar. I carefully placed his left front paw so it straddled a gap in the timbers. I felt for the space between the bones and, with one blow of my club hammer, I drove the nail through at right angles to the paw, just above the last joint. I fixed the strap below the nail, and tugged at it. I reckoned it would hold for long enough.

I’d fixed the other legs within five minutes. Once he was securely strapped down, I was finally able to get started on the business of the day. Even with the bare prospect of a purely scientific experiment, I could feel the excitement rising in me till it was like a hard lump in my throat. Almost, it seemed, without conscious thought, my hand strayed to the handle of the rack. I watched it, detached, as if it were the hand of a stranger. It caressed the cogs, ran lightly over the wheel, and finally came to rest on the handle. The aroma of lubricating oil still hung lightly on the air, melding with the faint smell of paint and the stale, doggy smell of my assistant in the experiment. I took a deep breath, shivered in anticipation, and slowly began to turn the handle.

3

I do not stick to assert, that any man who deals in murder must have very incorrect ways of thinking, and truly inaccurate principles.

Don Merrick unzipped his flies. With a sigh of relief, he relaxed his muscles and let his bursting bladder empty. Behind him, the cubicle door opened. His pleasure was abruptly shattered when a heavy hand descended on his shoulder. ‘Sergeant Merrick. Just the man I wanted to see,’ Tom Cross boomed. Inexplicably, Merrick discovered he couldn’t finish what he’d started.

‘’Morning, sir,’ he said cautiously, shaking himself and quickly tucking his manhood out of Cross’s sight.

‘Told you about her new assignment, has she, your guv’nor?’ Cross asked, all lads-together bonhomie.

‘She mentioned it, yes, sir.’ Merrick looked longingly at the door. But there was no escape. Not with Cross’s hand still clamped on his shoulder.

‘I hear you’re planning on taking your inspector’s exams,’ Cross remarked.

Merrick’s stomach clenched. ‘That’s right, sir.’

‘So you’ll be needing all the friends in high places you can find, eh, lad?’

Merrick forced his lips apart in what he hoped was a smile to match Cross’s. ‘If you say so, sir.’

‘You’ve got the makings of a good officer, Merrick. As long as you remember where your loyalties lie. I know Inspector Jordan’s going to be a very busy lady over the next few weeks. She might not always have time to keep me fully abreast of things.’ Cross leered suggestively. ‘I’ll be relying on you to keep me informed of all developments. You understand, lad?’

Merrick nodded. ‘Aye, sir.’

Cross dropped his hand and made for the door. Opening it, he turned back to Merrick and said, ‘Especially if she starts shagging our doctor friend.’

The door sighed shut behind Cross. ‘Fuck and bollocks,’ Merrick said softly to himself as he moved to the washbasin and started scrubbing his hands vigorously under the hot tap.

Tony had been at his desk since eight. So far, all he’d done was make some photocopies of the Crime Analysis Report form he’d devised for the projected task force. Heavily based on the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program questionnaire, it aimed to produce a standard classification of every aspect of the crime, from the victim through to the forensic evidence. He shuffled the forms absently, then rearranged his newspaper cuttings into a neat pile. He justified his lack of activity by telling himself that until Carol arrived with the police files, there was little he could do. But that was merely an excuse.

The truth was, there was good reason why concentration was eluding him. She was in his head again. The mystery woman. At the start, he’d felt vulnerable, unwilling to take part in her games. Just like his patients, he thought ironically. How many times had he uttered the maxim that everybody was reluctant to cooperate with therapy at some level? He’d lost count of the number of times he’d slammed the phone down in the early days. But she had persisted, patiently continuing to administer her soothing persuasions till he had started to relax, even to join in.

She had completely thrown him off balance. She had seemed from the first to have an instinct for his Achilles heel, yet she never attacked it. She was everything anyone could desire in a fantasy lover, from gentle to raunchy. The key question for Tony was whether he was pathetic because he managed to relate to pornographic phone calls from a stranger, or whether he should congratulate himself on being so well adjusted that he understood what he needed and what worked for him. But he could not escape the fear that, if not yet dependent on the phone calls, he was at risk of succumbing to that danger. Already incapable of sustaining a normal sexual relationship, was he colluding in the worsening of his condition, or was he moving towards recovery? The only way to test which was correct was to attempt the shift from fantasy to reality. But he was still too wary of fresh humiliation for that. For now, it seemed he’d have to settle for the mysterious stranger who managed to make him feel like a man for long enough to drive the demons underground.

Tony sighed and picked up his mug. The coffee was cold, but he drank it anyway. In spite of himself, he began replaying past conversations in his mind. As if he hadn’t run through it enough during the early hours of the morning when sleep had been as elusive as the Bradfield serial killer. The woman’s voice buzzed in his ears, inescapable as someone else’s Walkman in a train carriage. He tried to close off his emotions and treat the calls with the intellectual objectivity he brought to his work. All he had to do was shut himself off, the way he did when he was examining the perverse fantasies of his patients. He’d certainly had enough experience of refusing to recognize echoes in himself.

Stop the voice. Analyse. Who was she? What drove her? Maybe, like him, she simply enjoyed digging around in messy heads. That at least would explain how she’d wormed her way through his barricades. She was certainly a different animal from the women who worked for the sleazy telephone sex chatlines. Before he’d started this study for the Home Office, he’d been engaged in a piece of research into those chatlines. A significant number of the recently convicted offenders he had dealt with had admitted they were regular callers to the premium-rate phone lines where they could pour their sexual fantasies, however bizarre, obscene or perverse, into the ears of dismally paid women who were encouraged by their bosses to indulge the callers for as long as they were prepared to pay. He’d actually phoned some of the lines himself, just to sample what was on offer, and to discover, using the transcripts of some of his interviews, just how far it was possible to go before disgust overcame the profit motive or the desperate need to earn a living.

Finally, he’d interviewed a selection of the women who worked the phones. The one thing they all held in common was a sense of being violated and degraded, however some of them dressed it up in the contempt they voiced for their clients. He’d come to several conclusions, but the paper he’d subsequently written hadn’t included all of them. Some he’d left out because they were too off the wall, others because he feared they might reveal too much about his own psyche. That included his conviction that the response of a man who had previously called a chatline to a dirty phone call from a member of the opposite sex would be radically different to that of a woman in the same situation. Instead of slamming down the receiver, or reporting it to Telecom, most of these men would be either amused or aroused. Either way, they’d want to hear more.

All he had to work out now was why, unlike the chatline workers, this woman found telephone sex with a stranger so appealing. What he needed was to satisfy the intellectual curiosity that was at least as strong as his urge to explore the sexual playground she had opened up for him. Maybe he should consider suggesting a meeting. Before he could go any further, the phone rang. Tony started, his hand stopping halfway in its automatic journey to the receiver. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he muttered impatiently, shaking his head like a high-diver surfacing. He picked up the phone and said, ‘Tony Hill.’

‘Dr Hill, it’s Carol Jordan here.’

Tony said nothing, relieved that his thoughts had failed to conjure up the mystery woman.

‘Inspector Jordan? Bradfield Police?’ Carol continued into the silence.

‘Hello, yes, sorry, I was just trying to … clear a space on my desk,’ Tony stumbled, his left leg starting to jitter like a cup of tea on a train.

‘I’m really sorry about this, but I’m not going to be able to make it for ten. Mr Brandon’s called all the squad together for a briefing, and I don’t think it would be politic to miss it.’

‘No, I can see that,’ Tony said, his free hand picking up a pen and unconsciously doodling a daffodil. ‘It’s going to be hard enough for you to act as go-between without making it look like you’re not part of the team. Don’t worry about it.’

‘Thanks. Look, I don’t think this briefing is going to last that long. I’ll be with you as soon as I can. Probably around eleven, if that doesn’t interfere with your schedule.’

‘That’s fine,’ he said, relieved he wouldn’t have too long to brood before they could get down to work. ‘I’ve no meetings in the diary for today, so take your time. You’re not putting me out.’

‘OK. See you then.’

Carol replaced the phone. So far, so good. At least Tony Hill didn’t seem a prisoner of his professional ego, unlike several of the experts she’d had dealings with. And, unlike most men, he’d perceived her potential difficulty, sympathized without patronizing her, and had happily gone along with a course of action that would minimize her problems. Impatiently, she pushed away the memory of the attraction she’d felt for him. These days, she had neither the time nor the inclination for emotional involvement. Sharing a flat with her brother and finding the time to sustain a few close friendships took as much of her energy as she could spare. Besides, the ending of her last relationship had dealt her self-esteem too serious a blow for her to enter on another one lightly.

The affair with a casualty surgeon in London hadn’t survived her move from the Met to Bradfield three years before. As far as Rob was concerned, it was Carol’s decision to move to the frozen north. So travelling up and down motorways to spend time together was down to her. He had no intention of wasting any of his valuable off-duty time putting unnecessary mileage on his BMW just to go to a city whose only redeeming feature was Carol. Besides, nurses were a lot less stroppy and critical, and they understood long hours and shift work just as well as a copper, if not better. His brutal self-interest had shaken Carol, who felt cheated of the emotion and energy she’d invested in loving Rob. Tony Hill might be attractive, charming, and, if his reputation was correct, intelligent and intuitive, but Carol wasn’t about to risk her heart again. Especially not with a professional colleague. If she was finding it hard to get him out of her mind, it was because she was fascinated by what she could learn from him about the case, not because she fancied him.

Carol ran a hand through her hair and yawned. She’d been home for precisely fifty-seven minutes in the previous twenty-four hours. Twenty of those had been spent in the shower in a futile attempt to inoculate herself against the effects of no sleep. She’d spent a large chunk of the evening out on the knocker with her CID team, pursuing fruitless enquiries among the nervous inhabitants, workers and regular customers of Temple Fields and its gay businesses. The men’s reactions had ranged from total noncooperation to abuse. Carol felt no surprise. The area was seething with a mass of contradictory feelings.

On the one hand, the gay businesses didn’t want the area swarming with police because it was bad for cash flow. On the other hand, the gay activists were angrily demanding proper protection now the police had belatedly decided that there was a gay serial killer on the loose. One group of customers were horrified to be questioned, since their gay life was a deep secret from wives, friends, colleagues and parents. Another group were happily playing macho men, boasting that they’d never get into a situation where they were slaughtered by some glassy-eyed maniac. Yet another group were eager for details, obscurely and, in Carol’s eyes, obscenely excited by what could happen when one man went out of control. And there was a handful of hardline lesbian separatists who made no secret of their glee that this time, men were the targets. ‘Maybe now they’ll understand why we were so outraged during the Yorkshire Ripper hunt when men suggested single women should have a curfew,’ one had sneered at Carol.

Exhausted by the turmoil, Carol had driven back to headquarters to begin her trawl of the files of the existing enquiries. The murder room was strangely quiet, since most of the detectives were out in Temple Fields, pursuing different lines of enquiry or taking advantage of a few hours off to catch up on their drinking, their sex lives or their sleep. She’d already had a quick word with her opposite numbers on the other two murder investigations, and they had reluctantly agreed to give her access to their files provided she had the material back on their desks first thing in the morning. It was exactly the response she’d expected: superficially cooperative, but, in real terms, calculated to cause her even more problems.

When she’d walked through her office door, she’d been appalled by the sheer volume of paper. Stacks of interview statements, forensic and pathology reports, files of photographs virtually buried her office. Why, in God’s name, hadn’t Tom Cross decided to use the HOLMES computer system for the earlier murders? At least then all the material would be accessible in the computer, indexed and cross-referenced. All she’d have had to do then was to persuade one of the HOLMES indexers to print out the relevant stuff for Tony. With a groan, she closed her door on the mess and walked through the empty corridors to the uniform sergeant’s office. The time had come to test the ACC’s instruction to all ranks to cooperate with her. Without another pair of hands, she’d never get through the night’s work.

Even with the grudgingly granted help of a PC, it had been a struggle to get through the material. Carol had skimmed the investigation reports, extracting everything that seemed to hold the possibility of significance and passing it on to the constable for copying. Even so, there was a daunting pile of material for Tony and her to work through. When her assistant knocked off at six, Carol wearily loaded the photocopies into a couple of cardboard cartons and staggered down to her car with them. She helped herself to full sets of photographs of all the victims and scenes of crime, filling in a form to requisition fresh copies for the investigating teams to replace the ones she’d taken.

Only then had she headed home. Even there, she had no respite. Nelson waited behind the door, miaowing crossly as he wove his sinuous body round her ankles, forcing her to head straight for the kitchen and the tin opener. When she dumped the bowl of food in front of him, he stared suspiciously at it, frowning. Then hunger overcame his desire to punish her and he wolfed down the whole bowl without pause. ‘Nice to see you missed me,’ Carol said drily as she made for the shower. By the time she emerged, Nelson had clearly decided to forgive her. He followed her around, purring like a dialling tone, sitting down on every garment she selected from the wardrobe and placed on the bed.

‘You really are the pits,’ Carol grumbled, pulling her black jeans out from under him. Nelson carried on adoring her, his purr not disrupted in the slightest. She pulled on the jeans, admiring the cut in her wardrobe mirror. They were Katharine Hammett, but she’d only paid £20 for them in a seconds shop in Kensington Church Street, where she went on a twice-annual trawl for the designer clothes she loved but couldn’t afford, even on an inspector’s wages. The cream linen shirt was French Connection, the ribbed grey cardigan from a chain store men’s department. Carol picked a few black cat hairs from the cardigan and caught Nelson’s reproachful stare. ‘You know I love you. I just don’t need to wear you,’ she said.

‘You’d get a shock if he answered you,’ a man’s voice said from the doorway.

Carol turned to face her brother, who leaned against the doorjamb in his boxer shorts, blond hair tousled, eyes bleary with sleep. His face had a strange congruence with Carol’s, as if someone had scanned her photograph into a computer and subtly altered the features away from the feminine and towards the masculine. ‘I didn’t wake you, did I?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Nope. I’ve got to go to London today. The money man cometh.’ He yawned.

‘The Americans?’ Carol asked, crouching down and scratching the cat behind the ears. Nelson promptly rolled over on to his back, displaying his full stomach to be stroked.

‘Correct. They want a full demo of what we’ve done so far. I’ve been telling Carl that nothing looks very impressive right now, but he says they want some reassurance that they’re not just pouring their development money into a black hole.’

‘The joys of software development,’ Carol said, rumpling Nelson’s fur.

‘Leading-edge software development, please,’ Michael said, self-mockingly. ‘How about you? What’s happening down the murder factory? I heard on the news last night that you’d copped for another one.’

‘Looks like it. At least the powers that be have finally admitted that we’ve got a serial killer on the loose. And they’ve brought in a psychological profiler to work with us.’

Michael whistled. ‘Fuck me, Bradfield police enter the twentieth century. How’s Popeye taking it?’

Carol pulled a face. ‘He likes it about as much as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. He thinks it’s a total waste of bloody time,’ Carol said, dropping her voice and affecting Tom Cross’s Bradfield accent. ‘Then when I was appointed liaison officer with the profiler, he perked up.’

Michael nodded, a cynical expression on his face. ‘Two birds with one stone.’

Carol grinned. ‘Yeah, well, it’ll need to be over my dead body.’ She stood up. Nelson gave a small miaow of protest. Carol sighed and headed for the door. ‘Back to work, Nelson. Thanks for taking my mind off the bodies,’ she said.

Michael swung out of the doorway to let her pass and gave her a hug. ‘Take no prisoners, sis,’ he said.

Carol snorted. ‘I don’t think you’ve quite grasped the principle of policing, bro.’

By the time she was behind the wheel, the cat and Michael were forgotten. She was back with the killer.

Now, a couple of hours and a stack of overnight murder team reports later, home seemed a memory as distant as her summer holiday in Ithaca. Carol forced herself out of her chair, picked up the paperwork and walked into the main CID office.

It was standing room only by the time she arrived, detectives normally based in other stations jockeying for position in the crowd. A couple of her detective constables shifted to make room for her, one offering his chair. ‘Fucking brown nose,’ a voice said audibly from the other side of the room. Carol couldn’t see who had spoken, but recognized it wasn’t one of her own team. She smiled and shook her head at her junior officer, choosing instead to perch on the edge of his desk beside Don Merrick, who nodded a morose greeting. The clock read nine-twenty-nine. The room smelled of cheap cigars, coffee and damp coats.

One of the other inspectors caught Carol’s eye and started to move towards her. But before they could speak, the door opened and Tom Cross barrelled in, followed by John Brandon. The superintendent looked disturbingly benign as he marched in. The troops parted automatically before him, leaving a clear path for him and Brandon to walk to the whiteboard at the far end of the room.

‘’Morning, lads,’ Cross said genially. ‘And lasses,’ he added as an obvious afterthought. ‘There’s nobody here that doesn’t know we’ve got four unsolved murders on our hands. We’ve got IDs for the first three bodies – Adam Scott, Paul Gibbs and Gareth Finnegan. So far, we’ve not made any progress on the fourth victim. The lads down the path lab are working on him now, trying to come up with a face that won’t frighten the horses when we release the picture to the press.’

Cross took a deep breath. If anything, his expression became even more benevolent. ‘As you all know, I’m not a man given to theorizing ahead of the evidence. And I’ve been reluctant officially to connect these killings because of the media hysteria that would bring down about us. Judging by this morning’s papers, I was right about that.’ He pointed to several of the newspapers the detectives held.

‘However, in the light of this latest killing, we’re going to have to revise our strategy. As of yesterday afternoon, I have amalgamated the four murder enquiries into one major investigation.’

There was a murmur of support. Don Merrick leaned forward and murmured in Carol’s ear, ‘Changes his tune more often than a juke box.’

She nodded. ‘I wish he changed his socks as often.’

Cross glared in their direction. He couldn’t have heard the remarks, but seeing Carol’s lips move was enough of an excuse. ‘Settle down,’ he said sternly. ‘I’m not finished yet. Now, it doesn’t take much in the way of detective abilities to see that this place is too small for us and the normal activities of the station, so as soon as we’re finished here this morning, we’ll be moving this operation to the former station in Scargill Street, which some of you will remember was mothballed six months ago. Overnight, there’s been a team of maintenance workers, computer whizz kids and British Telecom engineers getting it back to temporary operational status.’

A groan went up. No one had shed a tear when the old Victorian building in Scargill Street had been closed down. Draughty, inconvenient, short of parking spaces, ladies’ toilets – everything except cells – the building had been earmarked for demolition and redevelopment. Typically, there hadn’t been enough money in the budget to push ahead with the project. ‘I know, I know,’ Cross said, cutting across their complaints. ‘But we’ll all be under one roof, so I’ll be able to keep an eye on you. I will be in overall charge of the enquiry. You’ll have two inspectors to report to – Bob Stansfield and Kevin Matthews. They’ll be sorting out your assignments in a minute. Inspector Jordan will be otherwise engaged on an initiative of Mr Brandon’s.’ Cross paused. ‘Which I’m sure you’ll all want to cooperate with.’

Carol kept her head high and looked around. The faces she could see mostly showed open cynicism. Several heads turned towards her. There was no warmth in their stares. Even those who might support the profiling initiative were brassed off that the prime job had gone to a woman rather than one of the lads.

‘So Bob will take over Inspector Jordan’s operational responsibilities for Paul Gibbs and Adam Scott, and Kevin will handle yesterday’s body as well as Gareth Finnegan. The HOLMES team have been called in, and they’ll be starting to input their data just as soon as the boffins have got the wires in place. Inspector Dave Woolcott, who some of you will remember from when he was a sergeant here, will be the enquiry manager in charge of the HOLMES team. Over to you, Mr Brandon.’ Cross stepped back and waved the ACC forward. His gesture was only just on the right side of the border between insolence and politeness.

Brandon took a moment to look around the room. He’d never had to make a more important pitch. Most of the detectives in the room were jaded and frustrated. Many of them had been working on one of the previous murders for months now, with precious little to show for it. Tom Cross’s powers of motivation were legendary, but even he was facing an uphill struggle, not least because of his pig-headed refusal to admit before now that the crimes were connected. It was time to beat Tom Cross at his own game. Bluntness had never been Brandon’s strong suit, but he’d been practising all morning. In the shower, in front of the shaving mirror, in his head while he ate his egg on toast, in the car on the way to the station. Brandon thrust one hand in his trouser pocket and crossed his fingers.

‘This is probably the toughest task of any of our careers. As far as we’re aware, this guy is only operating in Bradfield. In a way, I’m glad about that, because I’ve never seen a better bunch of detectives than we’ve got here. If anyone can nail this bastard, it’s you lot. You’ve got a hundred and ten per cent support from your senior officers, and all the resources you need are going to be made available, whether the politicians like it or not.’ Brandon’s note of belligerence won a murmur of agreement from the room.

‘We’re going to be blazing a trail here in more ways than one. You all know about the Home Office plans for a national task force for profiling repeat offenders. Well, we’re going to be the guinea pigs. Dr Tony Hill, the man who’s going to be telling the Home Office what to think, has agreed to work with us. Now, I know there are some amongst you who think that profiling is a load of crap. But like it or not, it’s part of our future. If we cooperate and work with this guy, we’re a lot more likely to see this task force end up something like we want it to be. If we piss him off, we’re liable to be lumbered with a bloody great millstone round our neck. Is that clear to everyone here?’

Brandon looked sternly round the room, not missing out Tom Cross. The nods varied from enthusiastic to barely perceptible. ‘I’m glad we all understand one another. Dr Hill’s job is to assess the evidence we provide him with and to come up with a profile of the killer to help us focus our enquiries. I’ve appointed Inspector Carol Jordan as the liaison officer between the murder squad and Dr Hill. Inspector Jordan, can you just stand up a minute?’

Startled, Carol scrambled to her feet, dropping her files on the way. Don Merrick immediately got down on his knees and grabbed the spilling papers. ‘For those of you from other divisions who don’t know Inspector Jordan, there she is.’ Nice one, Brandon, thought Carol. As if there were squads of female detectives to choose from.

‘Inspector Jordan is to have access to each and every piece of paper on this enquiry. I want her kept fully informed of any developments. Anyone who is pursuing a promising lead should discuss it with her as well as with their own inspector, or Superintendent Cross. And any requests from Inspector Jordan must be treated as urgent enquiries. If I hear that anybody’s being a smartarse, trying to freeze Inspector Jordan or Dr Hill out of the investigation, I won’t be taking prisoners. The same goes for anybody who leaks anything about this aspect of the investigation to the media. So think on. Unless you’ve got a burning ambition to climb back into uniform and walk the streets of Bradfield in the rain for the rest of your career, you’ll do everything in your power to help her. This isn’t a competition. We’re all on the same side. Dr Hill isn’t here to catch the killer. That’s your –’

Brandon stopped in mid-sentence. No one had noticed the door opening, but the words of the communications room sergeant captured everyone’s attention faster than a gunshot. ‘Sorry to interrupt, sir,’ he said, his voice tight with suppressed emotion. ‘We’ve got an ID on yesterday’s victim. Sir, he’s one of ours.’

FROM 3½″ DISK LABELLED: BACKUP.007; FILE LOVE.004

It was an American journalist who said, ‘I have seen the future and it works.’ I know just what he meant. After the dog, I knew Adam wouldn’t be any problem.

I spent the rest of the week in a state of nervous tension. I was even tempted to try one of the tranquillizers myself, but I resisted. This wasn’t the time to give in to weakness. Besides, I couldn’t afford to be anything less than completely in control of myself. My years of self-discipline paid off; I doubt if any of my colleagues noticed anything unusual in my behaviour at work, except that I couldn’t bring myself to do the weekend overtime I usually volunteer for.

By Monday morning, I was at a peak of readiness. I was primed and polished, the perfect killer-in-waiting. Even the weather was on my side. It was a crisp, clear autumnal morning, the kind of day that brings a smile even to the lips of commuters. Just before eight, I drove past Adam’s home, a new terraced three-storey town house with integral garage on the ground floor. His bedroom curtains were closed, the milk bottle still sitting on his doorstep, half a Daily Mail protruding from his letter box. I parked a couple of streets away outside a row of shops and retraced my journey. I walked down his street, satisfied that so far I was right on time. His bedroom curtains were drawn back, the milk and newspaper gone. At the end of the street, I crossed to the little park opposite and sat on a bench.

I opened my own Daily Mail and imagined Adam reading the same stories that I was staring at unseeingly. I shifted my position so I could see his front door without craning round the paper, and put my peripheral vision on alert. Right on schedule, the door opened at eight-twenty, and Adam appeared. Casually, I folded up my paper, dumped it in the litter bin by the bench and strolled off down the street in his wake.

The tram station was less than ten minutes’ walk away, and I was right behind him as he strode on to the crowded platform. The tram glided into the station moments later and he moved forward with the flow of passengers. I hung back slightly and let a couple of people come between us; I was taking no chances.

He was craning his head as he entered the carriage. I knew exactly why. When their eyes met, Adam waved and squirmed through the crowd so they could chatter mindlessly all the way into town. I watched him as he leaned forward. I knew every expression on his face, every angle and gesture of his lean, muscular body. His hair; the little curls in the nape of his neck still damp, his skin pink and glowing from his shave, the scent of his Aramis cologne. He laughed aloud at something in their conversation, and I felt the sour taste of bile rise in my mouth. The taste of betrayal. How could he? It should have been me talking to him, making his face light up, bringing that beautiful smile to his warm lips. If my fixity of purpose had ever wavered, the sight of the pair of them enjoying their Monday-morning encounter would have turned my resolve to granite.

As usual, he left the tram in Woolmarket Square. I was less than a dozen yards behind him. He turned back to wave to his soon-to-be bereaved lover. I swiftly turned away, pretending to read the tram timetable. The last thing I wanted right then was for him to notice me, to realize I was dogging his steps. I gave it a few seconds, then took up the pursuit. Left into Bellwether Street. I could see his dark hair bobbing among the shop and office workers crowding the pavements. Adam cut down an alley to his right, and I emerged in Crown Plaza just in time to see him enter the Inland Revenue building where he worked. Satisfied that this was just another Monday, I carried on through the plaza, past the squat glass and metal office block, and into the newly restored Victorian shopping arcades.

I had time to kill. The thought brought a smile to my lips.

I went off to do some studying in the Central Library. They had nothing new in, so I settled for an old favourite, Killing for Company. Dennis Nilsen’s case never ceases both to fascinate and repel me. He murdered fifteen young men without anyone even missing them. No one had the faintest idea that there was a gay serial killer stalking the homeless and rootless. He befriended them, took them home, gave them drink, but he could only cope with them once they had been perfected in death. Then, and only then, could he hold them, have sex with them, cherish them. Now that is sick. They’d done nothing to deserve their fate; they had committed no betrayal, no act of treachery.

The only mistake Nilsen made was in the disposal of the bodies. It’s almost as if subconsciously he wanted to be caught. Chopping them up and cooking them was fine, but flushing them down the toilet? It must have been obvious to a man as intelligent as he was that the drains wouldn’t be able to handle that volume of solids. I’ve never understood why he didn’t just feed the meat to his dog.

However, it’s never too late to learn from the mistakes of others. The blunders of killers never cease to amaze me. It doesn’t take much intelligence to understand how the police and forensic scientists operate and to take appropriate precautions, especially since the men who earn their living trying to catch the killers have obligingly written detailed textbooks about the precise nature of their work. On the other hand, we only ever hear about the failures. I knew I was never going to appear in those catalogues of incompetence. I had planned too well, every risk minimized and balanced against the benefits it would bring. The only account of my work will be this journal, which will not see printer’s ink until my last breath is a distant memory. My only regret is that I won’t be around to read the reviews.

I was back at my post by four, even though I’d never known Adam leave work before a quarter to five. I sat in the window of Burger King on Woolmarket Square, perfectly placed to watch the mouth of the alley leading to his office. Right on cue, he emerged at 4.47 and headed for the tram stop. I joined the knot of people waiting on the raised platform, smiling quietly to myself as I heard the tram hoot in the distance. Enjoy your tram ride, Adam. It’s going to be your last.

4

The fact was, I ‘fancied’ him, and resolved to commence business upon his throat.

When Damien Connolly failed to turn up at the start of his shift as local information officer in F Division’s station on the south side of the city, the duty sergeant hadn’t been unduly worried. Although PC Connolly was one of the best collators in the force, and a trained HOLMES officer, he was a notoriously bad timekeeper. At least twice a week, he came hurtling through the doors of the station a good ten minutes after his shift was due to start. But when he still hadn’t shown up half an hour after he was due on duty, Sergeant Claire Bonner felt a twinge of irritation. Even Connolly had enough sense to realize that if he was going to be more than fifteen minutes late, he had to phone in. Today of all days as well, when headquarters were demanding a full turnout of HOLMES officers on the serial-killer investigation.

Sighing, Sgt Bonner checked Connolly’s home number in her files and dialled it. The phone rang and rang, till finally it was automatically disconnected. She felt a prickle of concern. Connolly was something of a loner outside the job. He was quieter and maybe more thoughtful than most of the officers on Sgt Bonner’s relief, always keeping his distance when he joined in the social life of the station. As far as she was aware, there was no girlfriend in whose bed Connolly might have overslept. His family were all up in Glasgow, so there were no relatives to try locally. Sgt Bonner cast her mind back. Yesterday had been a day off for the relief. When they’d knocked off from the previous night shift, Connolly had come for breakfast with her and half a dozen of the other lads. He’d not said anything about having plans for his time off other than catching up on his kip and working on his car, an elderly Austin Healey roadster.

Sgt Bonner went through to the control room and had a word with her opposite number, asking him to have one of the patrol cars swing round by Connolly’s house to check he wasn’t ill or injured. ‘See if they can check the garage, make sure that bloody car of his hasn’t come off the jack with him underneath,’ she added as she went back to her desk.

It was after eight when the control room sergeant appeared in her office. ‘The lads have checked Connolly’s house. No answer to the door. They had a good scout round, and all the curtains were open. Milk on the doorstep. No sign of life as far as they could make out. There was only one thing a bit odd that they could see. His car was parked on the street, which isn’t like him. I don’t have to tell you, he treats that motor like the crown jewels.’

Sgt Bonner frowned. ‘Maybe he’s got somebody stopping with him? A relative, or a girlfriend? Maybe he’s let them stick their car in the garage?’

The control room sergeant shook his head. ‘Nope. The lads had a look in the garage window, and it was empty. And don’t forget the milk.’

Sgt Bonner shrugged. ‘Not a lot more we can do, then, is there?’

‘Well, he’s over twenty-one. I’d have thought he’d have more sense than to go on the missing list, but you know what they say about the quiet ones.’

Sgt Bonner sighed. ‘I’ll have his guts for garters when he shows his face. By the way, I’ve asked Joey Smith to stand in for him in the collator’s office for this shift.’

The control room sergeant cast his eyes upwards. ‘You really know how to make a man’s day, don’t you? Couldn’t you have got one of the others? Smith can barely manage the alphabet.’

Before Sgt Bonner could argue the toss, there was a knock at the door. ‘Yeah?’ she called. ‘Come in.’

A PC from the control room entered hesitantly. She looked faintly sick. ‘Skip,’ she said, the worry in her voice obvious from the single word. ‘I think you’d better have a look at this.’ She held out a fax, the bottom edge ragged where it had been torn hastily off the roll.

Being nearer, the control room sergeant took the flimsy sheet and glanced at it. He drew in his breath sharply, then closed his eyes for a moment. Wordlessly, he handed the fax to Sgt Bonner.

At first, all she saw was the stark black and white of the photograph. For a moment, her mind automatically protecting her from horror, she wondered why someone had gone over her head and reported Connolly missing. Then her eyes translated the marks on the paper into words. ‘Urgent fax to all stations. This is the unidentified murder victim discovered yesterday afternoon in the back yard of the Queen of Hearts public house, Temple Fields, Bradfield. Photograph to follow later this a.m. Please circulate and display. Any information to DI Kevin Matthews at Scargill Street Incident Room, ext. 2456.’

Sgt Bonner looked bleakly at the other two officers. ‘There isn’t any doubt about it, is there?’

The PC looked at the floor, her skin pale and clammy. ‘I don’t think so, skip,’ she said. ‘That’s Connolly. I mean, it’s not what you’d call a good likeness, but it’s definitely him.’

The control room sergeant picked up the fax. ‘I’ll get on to DI Matthews right away,’ he said.

Sgt Bonner pushed her chair back and stood up. ‘I’d better go round to the morgue. They’re going to need a formal identification as soon as possible so they can get weaving.’

‘This makes it a whole new ball game,’ Tony said, his face sombre.

‘It certainly ups the stakes,’ Carol said.

‘The question I’m asking myself is whether or not Handy Andy knew he was giving us a bobby,’ Tony said softly, swinging round in his chair to stare out of the window at the city rooftops.

‘Sorry?’

He gave a twisted smile and said, ‘No, it’s me who should apologize. I always give them a name. It makes it personal.’ He swung back to face Carol. ‘Does that bother you?’

Carol shook her head. ‘It’s better than the station nickname.’

‘Which is?’ Tony asked, eyebrows raised.

‘The Queer Killer,’ Carol said, her distaste clear.

‘That begs a lot of questions,’ Tony said noncommittally. ‘But if it helps them deal with their fear and anger, it’s probably no bad thing.’

‘I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel personal to me, calling him the Queer Killer.’

‘What does make it personal to you? The fact that he’s taken one of yours now?’

‘I felt like that already. As soon as we got the second murder, the one I was handling, I was convinced we were dealing with a serial offender. That was when it got personal for me. I want to nail this bastard. I need to. Professionally, personally, whatever.’ The cold vehemence in Carol’s voice gave Tony confidence. This was a woman who was going to pull out all the stops to make sure he had what he needed to do his job. Her tone of voice and the words she’d chosen were also a calculated challenge, showing him she didn’t give a damn what he made of her desire. She was just what he needed. Professionally, at any rate.

‘You and me both,’ Tony said. ‘And together, we can make it happen. But only together. You know, the first time I got directly involved in profiling, it was a serial arsonist. After half a dozen major fires, I knew how he was doing it, why he was doing it, what was in it for him. I knew exactly the kind of mad bastard he was, yet I couldn’t put a name or a face to him. It drove me crazy with frustration for a while. Then I realized it wasn’t my job to do that. That’s your job. All I can do is to point you in the right direction.’

Carol smiled grimly. ‘Just point, and I’ll be off like a gun dog,’ she said. ‘What did you mean when you said you wondered whether he knew Damien Connolly was a bobby?’

Tony ran a hand through his hair, leaving it spiky as a punk’s. ‘OK. We’ve got two scenarios here. Handy Andy may not have known Damien Connolly was a bobby. It may be nothing more than a coincidence, a particularly unpleasant coincidence for his colleagues, but a coincidence nevertheless. That’s not a scenario I’m happy with, however, because my reading, based on the little I know so far, is that these aren’t random victims snatched by chance. I think he chooses his victims with care, and plans thoroughly. Would you agree with that?’

‘He doesn’t leave things to chance, that’s obvious,’ Carol said.

‘Right. The alternative is that Handy Andy knows full well that his fourth victim is a policeman. That in itself leads to two further possibilities. One: Handy Andy knew he’d killed a copper, but that fact is supremely irrelevant to the meaning of the killing for him. In other words, Damien Connolly fulfilled all the other criteria that Andy needs from his victims, and he would have died at this point whether he was a bobby or a bus driver.

‘The other scenario is the one I like best, though. The fact that Damien was a copper is a crucial part of the reason why Handy Andy chose him as his fourth victim.’

‘You mean he’s thumbing his nose at us?’ Carol asked.

Thank God she was quick. That was going to make the job so much simpler. She’d done well to get as far up the ladder as she had, given she had looks as well as brains. Either attribute without the other would have made promotion easier. ‘That’s certainly a possibility,’ Tony acknowledged. ‘But I think it’s more likely to be about vanity. I think he’d started to get pissed off with Detective Superintendent Cross’s refusal to acknowledge his existence. In his own eyes, he’s very successful at what he does. He’s the best. And he deserves recognition. And that desire for recognition has been thwarted by the police’s refusal to admit there’s only one offender behind these killings. OK, so the Sentinel Times has been speculating about a serial killer since the second victim, but that’s not the same as being given the official accolade by the police themselves. And I may have unwittingly added fuel to the fire after the third killing.’

‘You mean, the interview you did with the Sentinel Times?’

‘Yeah. My suggestion that it was possible there were two killers at work will have made him angry that he wasn’t being acknowledged as the master of his craft.’

‘Dear God,’ Carol said, torn between revulsion and fascination. ‘So he went out and stalked a police officer so we’d take him seriously?’

‘It’s a possibility. Of course, it can’t have been just any police officer. Even though making his point to the powers that be is important to Handy Andy, the prime directive is still to go for victims who fulfil his very personal criteria.’

Carol frowned. ‘So what you’re saying is that there’s something about Connolly that makes him different from most other coppers?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘Maybe it’s the sexuality thing,’ Carol mused. ‘I mean, there aren’t many gays in the force. And those that there are tend to be so deep in the closet you could mistake them for a clothes hanger.’

‘Whoa,’ Tony laughed, holding up his hands as if to fend her off. ‘No theorizing without data. We don’t know yet whether Damien was gay. What might be useful, though, is to find out what shifts Damien worked recently. Say, the last two months. That’ll give us some idea of the times he was at home, which might help the officers who’ll be questioning his neighbours. Also, we should be asking around the other officers on his relief, to check out whether he always left alone, or if he ever gave anyone a lift home. We need to find out everything there is to know about Damien Connolly both as a man and as a bobby.’

Carol pulled out her notebook and scribbled a reminder to herself. ‘Shifts,’ she muttered.

‘There’s something else this tells us about Handy Andy,’ Tony said slowly, reaching for the idea that had just swum into his consciousness.

Carol looked up, her eyes alert. ‘Go on,’ she said.

‘He’s very, very good at what he does,’ Tony said flatly. ‘Think about it. A police officer is a trained observer. Even the thickest plod is a lot more alert to what’s going on around them than the average member of the public. Now, from what you’ve told me, Damien Connolly was a bright lad. He was a collator, which means he was even more on the ball than most officers. As I understand it, a collator’s job is to act like the station’s walking encyclopaedia. It’s all very well having all the local information about known villains and MOs on file cards, but if the collator isn’t sharp, then the system’s worthless, am I right?’

‘Spot on. A good collator is worth half a dozen bodies on the ground,’ Carol said. ‘And by all accounts, Connolly was one of the best.’

Tony leaned back in his chair. ‘So if Handy Andy stalked Damien without setting any alarm bells ringing, he must be bloody good. Face it, Carol, if somebody was tailing you on a regular basis, you’d pick them up, wouldn’t you?’

‘I bloody hope so,’ Carol said drily. ‘But I’m a woman. Maybe we’re just a bit more on our guard than the blokes.’

Tony shook his head. ‘I think a copper as smart as Damien would have noticed anything other than a very professional tail.’

‘You mean we might be looking for someone who’s in the Job?’ Carol demanded, her voice rising as she spoke the unthinkable.

‘It’s a possibility. I can’t pitch it more strongly than that till I’ve seen all the evidence. Is that it?’ Tony asked, nodding towards the cardboard box Carol had deposited by the door of his office.

‘That’s some of it. There’s another box and some folders of photographs still in the car. And that’s after some serious editing.’

Tony pulled a face. ‘Rather you than me. Shall we go and fetch it, then?’

Carol stood up. ‘Why don’t you get started while I go and get the rest?’

‘It’s the photographs I want to look at first, so I might as well come and help,’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ Carol said.

In the lift, they stood on opposite sides, both conscious of the other’s physical presence. ‘That’s not a Bradfield accent,’ Tony remarked as the doors slid shut. If he was going to work successfully with Carol Jordan, he needed to know what made her tick, personally as well as professionally. The more he could find out about her, the better.

‘I thought you said you left the detective work to us?’

‘We’re good at stating the obvious, us psychologists. Isn’t that what our critics on the force say?’

‘Touché. I’m from Warwick, originally. Then university at Manchester and into the Met on the fast track. And you? I’m not great on accents, but I can spot you’re a Northerner, though you don’t sound like Bradfield either,’ Carol replied.

‘Born and bred in Halifax. London University, followed by a DPhil at Oxford. Eight years in special hospitals. Eighteen months ago, the Home Office headhunted me to run this feasibility study.’ Give a little to get a lot, Tony thought wryly. Who exactly was probing whom?

‘So we’re both outsiders,’ Carol said.

‘Maybe that’s why John Brandon chose you to liaise with me.’

The lift doors slid open and they walked through the underground car park to the visitors’ parking area where Carol had left her car. Tony hefted the cardboard box out of the boot. ‘You must be stronger than you look,’ he gasped.

Carol picked up the folders of photographs and grinned. ‘And I’m a black belt in Cluedo,’ she said. ‘Listen, Tony, if this maniac is in the Job, what sort of stuff would you expect to find?’

‘I shouldn’t have said that. I was theorizing ahead of data, and I don’t want you to place any weight on it, OK? Strike it from the record,’ Tony panted.

‘OK, but what would the signs be?’ she persisted.

They were back in the lift before Tony answered her. ‘Behaviour that exhibits a familiarity with police and forensic procedure,’ he said. ‘But in itself, that proves nothing. There are so many true-crime books and TV detectives around these days that anyone could know that sort of stuff. Look, Carol, please put it out of your head. We need to keep an open mind. Otherwise the work we do is valueless.’

Carol stifled a sigh. ‘OK. But will you tell me if you still think that way after you’ve seen the evidence? Because if it’s more than a slim possibility, we might need to rethink the way we’re dealing with the enquiry.’

‘I promise,’ he said. The lift doors slid open, as if placing their own full stop on the conversation.

Back in the office, Tony slid the first set of photographs out of their folders. ‘Before you start, could you fill me in on how you want to pursue this?’ Carol asked, notebook at the ready.

‘I’ll go through all the pictures first, then I’ll ask you to take me through the investigation so far. When we’ve done that, I’ll work through the paperwork myself. After that, what I usually do is draw up a profile of each of the victims. Then we have another session with these,’ he said, brandishing his forms. ‘And then I walk out on the high wire and do a profile of the offender. Does that sound reasonable to you?’

‘Sounds fine. How long is all that likely to take?’

Tony frowned. ‘It’s hard to say. A few days, certainly. However, Handy Andy seems to work on an eight-week cycle, and there’s no sign that he’s accelerating. That’s unusual in itself, by the way. Once I’ve studied the material I’ll have a better idea of how in control he is, but I think we’ve probably got a bit of time to spare before he kills again. Having said that, he may well have already selected his next victim, so we’ve got to make sure that we keep any progress we make well away from the press. The last thing we want is to be the catalyst for him speeding up the process.’

Carol groaned. ‘Are you always this optimistic?’

‘It goes with the territory. Oh, and one more thing? If you develop any suspects, I’d prefer not to know anything about them at this stage – there’s a danger that my subconscious will alter the profile accordingly.’

Carol snorted. ‘We should be so lucky.’

‘That bad, is it?’

‘Oh, we’ve pulled in anybody who’s got form for indecent assault or violent offences against gay men, but none of them looks even a remote possibility.’

Tony pulled a sympathetic face then picked up the photographs of Adam Scott’s corpse and slowly started going through them. He picked up a pen and moved his A4 pad nearer to him. He glanced up at Carol. ‘Coffee?’ he asked. ‘I meant to ask earlier, but I was too interested in what we were talking about.’

Carol felt like a co-conspirator. She had been enjoying their conversation too, in spite of a twinge of guilt that multiple murders shouldn’t be a source of pleasure. Talking with Tony was like talking to an equal who had no axe to grind, whose primary concern was finding a path to the truth rather than a way to boost the ego. It was something she’d missed on this case so far. ‘Me too,’ she admitted. ‘I’m probably approaching the point where coffee is a necessity. Do you want me to go and fetch some?’

‘Good God, no!’ Tony laughed. ‘That’s not what you’re here for. Wait there, I’ll be right back. How do you take yours?’

‘Black, no sugar. In an intravenous drip, preferably.’

Tony took a large Thermos jug out of his filing cabinet and disappeared. He was back inside five minutes with two steaming mugs and the jug. He handed Carol a mug and gestured towards the Thermos. ‘I filled it up. I figured we might be some time. Help yourself as and when.’

Carol took a grateful sip. ‘Will you marry me?’ she asked, mock romantic.

Tony laughed again, to cover the lurch of apprehension that shifted his stomach, a familiar response to even the most idle of flirtations. ‘You won’t be saying that in a few days’ time,’ he said evasively, turning his attention back to the photographs.

‘Victim number one. Adam Scott,’ he said softly, making a note on his pad. He went through the photographs one by one, then went back to the beginning. The first picture showed a city square, tall Georgian houses on one side, a modern office block on a second and a row of shops, bars and restaurants on the third. In the centre of the square was a public garden, crossed by two diagonal paths. In the middle was an ornate Victorian drinking fountain. The park was surrounded by a three feet high brick wall. Along two sides of the garden was deep shrubbery. The ambience was slightly seedy, the stucco of the houses peeling in places. He imagined himself standing on the corner, taking in the view, smelling the fumid city air mixed with the stink of stale alcohol and fast food, hearing the night sounds. The rev of engines, the sound of high heels on pavements, occasional laughs and cries borne on the wind, the twitter of starlings, conned out of sleep by the sodium light of streetlamps. Where did you stand, Andy? Where did you watch your ground from? What did you see? What did you hear? What did you feel? Why here?

The second photograph showed a section of the wall and the shrubbery from the street side. The photograph was clear enough for Tony to make out the little iron squares on the top of the wall, which were all that remained of railings that had presumably been removed during the war to make guns and shells. A section of the bushes showed broken branches and crumpled leaves. The third shot showed the body of a man, face down on the earth, his limbs splayed at strange angles. Tony let himself be drawn into the picture, trying to put himself in Handy Andy’s shoes. How did it feel, Andy? Were you proud? Were you scared? Were you exultant? Did you feel a spasm of regret at abandoning the object of your desire? How long did you allow yourself to drink in this sight, this strange tableau that you created? Did the sound of footsteps move you on? Or did you not care?

Tony looked up. Carol was watching him. To his surprise, for once he didn’t feel uncomfortable to have a woman’s eyes on him. Perhaps because their relationship had so firm a professional base, but without direct competition. The tension in him relaxed a notch. ‘The place where the body was found. Tell me about it.’

‘Crompton Gardens. It’s at the heart of Temple Fields, where the gay village and the red-light district overlap. It’s poorly lit at night, mostly because the streetlights are always being vandalized by the sex vendors who want a bit of darkness to cover their activities. There’s a lot of sex goes on in Crompton Gardens, in the bushes and on the park benches under the trees, in the office doorways, in the basement areas of the houses. Rent, prostitution and casual pick-ups. There are people around throughout the night, but they’re not the sort who are going to come forward about anything unusual they might have seen, even if they noticed it,’ Carol explained while Tony took notes.

‘The weather?’ he asked.

‘Dry night, though the ground was pretty damp.’

Tony returned to the photographs. The body was shot from various angles. Then, following the removal of the body, the dumping ground was pictured in close-up sections. There were no visible footprints, but some scraps of black plastic were lying under the body. He pointed at them with the tip of his pen. ‘Do we know what these are?’

‘Bradfield Metropolitan Council bin bags. Standard issue to businesses, blocks of flats … anywhere wheelie bins are inappropriate. That grade of bag has been in use now for the last two years. There’s apparently nothing to indicate whether they were already there or if they were dumped at the same time as the body,’ Carol said.

Tony raised his eyebrows. ‘You seem to have assimilated a helluva lot of detail since yesterday afternoon.’

Carol grinned. ‘It’s tempting to pretend I’m Superwoman, but I have to confess that I’d already made a point of finding out what I could about the other two enquiries. I was convinced they were linked, even if my boss wasn’t. And in fairness to my colleagues, the inspectors leading the other two enquiries had an open mind. They didn’t object to me making the occasional trawl through their stuff. Ploughing through it all overnight just refreshed my memory, that’s all.’

‘You’ve been up all night?’

‘Like you said, it goes with the territory. I’ll be fine till about four this afternoon. Then it’ll hit me like a sledgehammer,’ Carol admitted.

‘Message received and understood,’ Tony replied, turning back to the photographs. He moved on to the series of shots from the postmortem. The body lay on its back on the white slab, the hideous wounds visible for the first time. Tony went slowly through the whole sequence of pictures, sometimes flicking back to previous shots. When he closed his eyes, he could picture Adam Scott’s intact body, slowly breaking out in wounds and bruises like alien blooms. He could almost conjure up the slo-mo vision of the hands that brought flesh to such a pass. After a few moments, he opened his eyes and spoke again. ‘These bruises on the neck and chest – what did the pathologist say?’

‘Suck marks. Like love bites.’

A head descending, predatory, a bizarre parody of love. ‘And these sections of the neck and chest. Three places where the flesh has been cut away?’ Tony asked distantly.

‘They were removed postmortem. Maybe he likes to eat them?’

‘Maybe,’ Tony said doubtfully. ‘Was there any trace of bruising in the remaining tissues, can you remember?’

‘I think there was.’ Carol’s surprise showed in her voice.

Tony nodded. ‘I’ll check the pathologist’s report. He’s a clever lad, our Handy Andy. My first reaction is that these aren’t souvenirs, or indications of cannibalism. I think they might have been bite marks. But Handy Andy knows enough about forensic dentistry to realize that identifiable bite marks would be enough to put him away. So once the frenzy’s spent, he’s cooled down and removed the evidence. These cuts to the genitals – pre or postmortem?’

‘Post. The pathologist remarked that they seemed quite tentative.’

Tony gave a small smile of satisfaction. ‘Did the pathologist say what has caused the trauma to the limbs? The shots at the site look like a rag doll.’

Carol sighed. ‘He didn’t want to be pushed to an official conclusion. All four limbs were dislocated, and some of his vertebrae were out of alignment. He said …’ She paused and imitated the pathologist’s portentous delivery, ‘“Don’t quote me, but I’d expect to see injuries like this after the Spanish Inquisition had put someone on the rack.”’

‘The rack? Shit, we’re really dealing with a messy mind here. OK. Next set. Paul Gibbs. This one’s yours, I think?’ Tony asked as he replaced Adam Scott’s photographs and took out the contents of the second folder. He repeated the process he’d gone through before. ‘So where is this scene in relation to the first one?’ Tony asked.

‘Hang on a minute. I’ll show you.’ Carol opened one of the boxes and picked out the large-scale map she’d thought to bring with her. She unfolded it and spread it out on the floor. Tony got up from his desk and crouched down beside her. She was instantly aware of the smell of him, a mixture of shampoo and his own faint, animal scent. No macho aftershave, no cologne. She watched his pale, square hands on the map, the short, almost stubby fingers, with their neatly trimmed nails and a sparse scattering of fine black hairs on the bottom section of each finger. Appalled, she felt a stirring of desire. You’re pathetic as an adolescent, she savagely chided herself. Like a teenager who fancies the first teacher who says anything nice about your work. Grow up, Jordan!

Under the guise of pointing out the sites on the map, Carol inched away. ‘Crompton Gardens is here,’ she said. ‘Canal Street is about half a mile away, over here. And the Queen of Hearts pub is just along here, about midway between the two.’

‘Is it safe to assume he knows the area well?’ Tony asked, making his own mental map of the murder sites.

‘I think so. Crompton Gardens is a pretty obvious dumping ground, but the other two imply quite a high degree of familiarity with Temple Fields.’ Carol sat back on her haunches, trying to work out if the pattern of sites implied an approach from one specific direction.

‘I need to take a look at the scenes. Preferably around the time the bodies were dumped. Do we know when that was?’ Tony said.

‘We don’t know about Adam. Estimated time of death is an hour either side of midnight, so not before then. With Paul, we know the doorway was clear just after three a.m. Gareth’s time of death is estimated at between seven and ten p.m. the evening before his body was found. And with Damien, the yard was clear at half past eleven,’ Carol recited, closing her eyes to recall the information.

Tony found himself staring at her face, glad of the freedom her shuttered eyelids gave him. Even without the animation of her blue eyes, he could see that she’d be classified beautiful. Oval face, broad forehead, clear pale skin, and that thick blonde hair, cut slightly shaggy. A strong, determined mouth. A furrow that appeared between her brows when she concentrated. And his appreciation was as clinical as if she were a photograph in a casebook. Why was it that, faced with a woman any normal man would regard as attractive, something in him closed down? Was it because he refused to allow himself to feel the first stirrings that might lead him to a place where he was no longer in control, where humiliation lurked? Carol’s eyes opened, registering surprise when she saw him watching her.

He felt his ears tingle with a blush and turned back to the map. ‘So he’s a night owl,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’d like to take a look at the area tonight, if I can. Maybe you can get someone else to show me round so you can catch up on your sleep.’

Carol shook her head. ‘No. If we can get through here by five, I’ll go home and grab a few hours’ shut-eye. I’ll pick you up around midnight and we can go then. Is that OK?’ she asked, belatedly.

‘Perfect,’ Tony said, getting to his feet and retreating behind his desk. ‘As long as you don’t mind.’ He picked up the photographs and forced himself back behind Handy Andy’s eyes. ‘He’s made a real mess of this one, hasn’t he?’

‘Paul’s the only one who’s been beaten up like this. Gareth has cuts to his face, but nothing as extreme. Paul’s face has been smashed to a pulp – broken nose, broken teeth, broken cheekbone, dislocated jaw. The anal injuries are horrendous as well; he’s been partially disembowelled. The degree of violence is one of the reasons why the Super felt we were looking at a different perpetrator. Also, none of his limbs are dislocated, unlike the other three.’

‘This is the one the papers said was covered up with bin bags?’

Carol nodded. ‘Same variety as the scraps found under Adam’s body.’

They moved on to Gareth Finnegan. ‘I’m going to have to give some serious thought to this one,’ he said. ‘He’s changed his pattern in at least two significant ways. First, the dumping ground moves from Temple Fields to Carlton Park. It’s still a gay cruising area, but it’s an aberration.’ He stopped himself short and gave a hollow laugh. ‘Listen to me. As if his whole behaviour isn’t wildly aberrant. The second thing is his letter and video to the Sentinel Times. Why did he decide to announce this body and none of the others?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Carol said. ‘And I wondered if it had something to do with the fact that it could have lain there for days, even weeks, otherwise.’

Tony made a note on his pad and gave her the thumbs-up sign with the other hand. ‘These wounds to the hands and feet. I know it sounds off the wall, but it almost looks like he was crucified.’

‘The pathologist wasn’t crazy about going on the record with that one either. But the hand wounds, coupled with the dislocation of both shoulders, makes crucifixion a conclusion that’s hard to resist, especially when you remember this probably happened on Christmas Day.’ Carol got to her feet, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She couldn’t manage to stifle a jaw-cracking yawn. She paced round the small office, shrugging her shoulders to loosen the taut muscles. ‘Sick bastard,’ she muttered.

‘The genital mutilations are getting more severe,’ Tony observed. ‘He’s virtually castrated this one. And the fatal wounds, the cutting of the throat. That’s getting deeper too.’

‘Does that tell us anything?’ Carol asked, almost unintelligible through another yawn.

‘Like your pathologist, I’m reluctant to speculate just yet,’ Tony said. He moved on to the final set of pictures. For the first time, Carol saw his professional mask slip. Horror swept across Tony’s face, widening his eyes, drawing his lips back in a hissed intake of breath. She wasn’t surprised. When they’d turned Damien Connolly over, a six-foot rugby-playing detective had keeled over in a dead faint. Even the experienced police pathologist had turned away momentarily, visibly struggling not to be sick.

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