‘But it is,’ Stansfield insisted. ‘This kid had his throat cut, same as the other ones. And this bastard had made a right mess of him. How can you say he wasn’t tortured when you look at the state of his arse?’
‘If I was a betting man, I’d lay you a hundred to one that Chaz Collins didn’t die from having his throat cut. I’d bet he was manually strangled and his throat cut afterwards to make it look like he’s one of the serial-killer victims. I think what happened here is that some rough sex got a bit out of hand. Chaz was struggling while he was being sodomized, and his sex partner grabs him round the throat to get him to calm down. In the frenzy of orgasm, he squeezes too tight and he has a corpse on his hands. He figures his only chance of getting away with it is making it look like the serial killer’s handiwork, and just in case we don’t get the message, he dumps last night’s paper on the body.’
‘It’s certainly plausible,’ Brandon said, fastidiously wiping his greasy fingers on a paper tissue from a pack in his pocket.
‘I think Tony’s right,’ Carol said decisively. ‘My first reaction was that this was the fifth victim, but the more I think about it, the more I think I was wrong. You know what really clinches it for me?’ Four pairs of eyes looked quizzically at her. She felt under as much pressure as she ever had in the witness box. ‘Last night wasn’t Monday.’
Tony grinned. Stansfield cast his eyes upwards. Kevin nodded reluctantly, and Brandon said, ‘You think the night of the week’s that important to him?’
Carol nodded. ‘There’s obviously some very strong reason why he goes for Monday, whether it’s practical or superstitious. And whatever it is, it means a lot to him. I don’t think he’d break it just to stick two fingers up to us.’
‘I agree with Carol,’ Kevin chipped in. ‘Not just because of the night of the week. The other stuff, too.’
Stansfield looked surprised. ‘Well, I’m obviously outvoted here,’ he said good-naturedly. ‘Separate job it is. Who’s going to handle it, then?’
Brandon sighed. ‘I’ll have a word with Chief Superintendent Sharples at Central, pass the buck on to him. If it’s not one of ours, it’ll be down to their chief inspector.’
‘He’s off sick,’ Kevin reminded him absently.
‘So he is. Well, it’ll be passed on to whichever inspector drops unlucky this morning. Now, I know the events of last night deprived us of the chance to give Dr Hill’s profile the attention it demands, but I think we should –’ Brandon was cut short by a knock at the door. ‘Come in,’ he said, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.
The uniformed desk sergeant came in with a couple of envelopes. ‘These have just come in, sir. One from Forensic, one from the path lab,’ he said, laying them on the desk in front of Brandon. He was gone by the time Brandon had taken a sheaf of papers from each.
The others hid their impatience as Brandon skimmed through the pathologist’s preliminary findings. ‘“Dear John”,’ he read out, ‘“I know you’ll be screaming for something on this one, since on the face of it, it looks like your serial killer has finally left some forensic traces. The bad news is, I don’t think this is your man’s handiwork. The victim was already dead from asphyxiation before his throat was cut. He was probably strangled manually. Also, I don’t think he was cut with the same blade as your four earlier victims. From the look of it, this was a longer and thicker blade, more like a chef’s vegetable chopping knife. Whereas, as you know, I reckon the earlier ones were done with something more like a filleting knife. Time of death I’d put between eight and ten p.m. last night. I’ll let you have a full report as soon as …” blah, blah, blah. Well, looks like you were right, Tony.’
‘Just as well I’d agreed to go along with you in time, otherwise I’d have looked a right prat,’ Bob Stansfield said, extending a hand to Tony. ‘Nice one, Doc.’ Carol smiled secretly. Thank God the rest of the team were finally starting to accept Tony had something worth saying. It was amazing how different the atmosphere was now that Cross had gone.
Kevin shifted uncomfortably in his chair and said, ‘What have Forensic got to say? Anything about our cases, or is it all preliminary stuff on Chaz Collins?’
Brandon flicked through the other papers. ‘Prelims … prelims … prelims …’ He drew his breath in sharply. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, baffled disgust in his voice.
‘What is it, sir?’ Carol asked.
Brandon rubbed a hand over his long face and stared at the paper again, as if checking that he hadn’t misread it. ‘They’ve been looking at the burns on Damien Connolly’s body. Trying to work out what caused them.’
Tony stopped moving, the last bite of his sandwich halfway to his mouth. ‘So what’s the verdict?’ Bob Stansfield demanded bluntly.
‘This is totally bloody mental,’ Brandon said. ‘The only thing the lads in Forensic can come up with is the attachments for a cake-icing kit.’
‘Of course,’ Tony breathed dreamily, a distant smile lighting up his eyes. ‘All the different star shapes. It’s obvious, once it’s pointed out.’ He was suddenly aware that the other four were staring at him. Carol alone looked concerned. On the other faces, he saw expressions he’d seen before. Wariness, repugnance, disgust, incomprehension.
‘Twenty-four-carat head banger,’ Stansfield said bitterly. No one was quite certain whether he meant the killer or Tony.
The day Penny Burgess took over the Bradfield Evening Sentinel Times’s crime beat, she resolved that she was going to have better contacts than any of her male predecessors had managed. She realized that the male rituals of the masonic lodge and the smoker were going to remain closed worlds to her, but she determined that nothing was going to happen of any significance even there without her knowledge.
It wasn’t surprising, then, that her home phone had rung twice between six and seven that morning. Both calls were from police officers, telling her that the man who’d been questioned earlier in connection with the Queer Killings had been arrested trying to skip the country. No names, no pack drill, but the anonymous suspect would be up before the magistrates that morning to be remanded in custody on a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice. Following on from the discovery of a fifth body that had kept Penny out of her bed till gone two that morning, the connection was obvious.
Penny smiled dreamily to herself over her second cup of strong Earl Grey. It would be another front page for her tonight. Provided the editor and the lawyer didn’t lose their bottle. She dumped her cup and cereal bowl in the sink and picked up her coat. Either way, it was going to be an interesting day.
Carol had drawn the short straw when it came to going to court to make sure everything went according to plan before the magistrates. Stansfield and Kevin had a backlog of routine enquiries to pursue, and Tony had gone to Leeds to keep a long-standing appointment with a Canadian academic psychologist who was attending a conference in the city. They needed, said Tony, to discuss some esoteric aspect of his task-force study. ‘Conceptual mapping,’ he’d told her as they’d snatched a few moments together after the group briefing.
He might as well have said ‘quantum mechanics,’ she thought ironically as she ran up the steps of the court building, her collar turned up against an east wind that promised sleet before dinner. She was going to have to learn a lot if she was going to get anyone to consider her seriously for this task force, that much was clear.
Any thoughts of the task force vanished as soon as she cleared the security check and turned into the