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?’
