Now locals fear a perverted serial killer is stalking the city’s large homosexual community.
Today’s gruesome discovery was made by nightclub owner Danny Surtees, 37, as he arrived for a meeting with his accountant.
He said, ‘I always go into the club through the fire door at the side. I park my car in the alley. This morning, the door was blocked by something covered by a couple of black bin bags.
‘When I grabbed hold of the bags to try and pull them away from the door, they just came away in my hands and I saw there was a body under them.
‘He was horribly injured. There was no way he was still alive. I’m going to have nightmares about this for the rest of my life.’
Mr Surtees said the doorway had been clear when he locked up his club just after three this morning.
The victim, said to be in his early thirties, has not yet been identified. Police describe him as white, 5ft 11ins, slightly built, with dark-brown collar-length hair and hazel eyes. He has an old scar from an appendicectomy.
A police spokesman said, ‘We believe the man was killed elsewhere and the body dumped in the alley between three and eight a.m.
‘We would urge anyone who was in the Temple Fields area last night to come forward for the purpose of elimination. All information will be treated in the strictest confidence.
‘At this stage of our enquiry, there is no evidence to connect this killing with the murder two months ago of Adam Scott.’
Carl Fellowes, the full-time worker at the Bradfield Gay and Lesbian Centre, said today, ‘The police say that they don’t think there’s a connection between these two murders.
‘I don’t know what makes me more worried on behalf of the city’s gay community – the thought that there’s one nutter out there killing gay men, or the thought that there are two of them.’
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. One thing was clear, though. PC Plod was a long way from covering himself in glory over this case. I’d obviously done a good job covering my tracks.
I folded up my newspaper, finished my cappuccino and signalled for my bill. Any minute now, Gareth would emerge from his office and walk through the rush-hour streets to the tram. I wanted to be ready for him. I had something really special planned for him tonight, and I wanted to make sure he was home alone to enjoy it.
The world in general, gentlemen, are very bloody-minded; and all they want in a murder is a copious effusion of blood; gaudy display in this point is enough for them. But the enlightened connoisseur is more refined in his taste.
Penny Burgess topped up her glass of Californian Chardonnay from the bottle in the fridge and walked back through to her living room in time to hear the headlines on the BBC local news. Nothing fresh to worry about, she thought with relief. An armed robbery she could catch up with first thing in the morning. The police were still questioning a man in connection with the gay serial killings, but no charges had been laid yet. Penny sipped her wine and lit a cigarette.
They were going to have to move soon, she thought. By morning, they’d either have had to charge him with something or let him go. So far, no one had got a sniff of the suspect’s identity, which was pretty remarkable. The whole pack had been leaning heavily on their personal police contacts, but for once, the reservoir of information had resolutely refused to leak. Penny decided she’d better take a look at the magistrates’ court lists in the morning. There was an outside chance that the cops had something fairly innocuous to charge their suspect with so they could hang on to him while they dug around for the evidence they needed to make the serial killing charges stick.
As the news cut away to the weather forecast, the phone rang. Penny reached over to the occasional table by the sofa and grabbed the receiver. ‘Hello?’ she said.
‘Penny? It’s Kevin.’
Hallelujah, Penny thought, sitting up and grinding out her cigarette. All she said, however, was, ‘Kevin, my man. How’s it hanging?’ She raked in her handbag for a pencil and her notebook.
‘Something’s come up you might be interested in,’ the police inspector said cautiously.
‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ Penny said suggestively. Her occasional sexual encounters with the very married Kevin Matthews had provided her with more than an inside track on Bradfield Metropolitan Police. He’d turned out to be one of the best lovers she’d ever had. She just wished he could overcome his Catholic guilt more often.
‘This is serious,’ Kevin protested.
‘So was I, superstud.’
‘Listen, do you want this info or not?’
‘Definitely. Especially if it’s the name of the guy you’ve got in custody for the Queer Killings.’
She heard the sharp intake of breath. ‘You know I can’t tell you that. There are limits.’
Penny sighed. It was the story of their relationship. ‘OK, so what can you tell me?’
‘Popeye’s been suspended.’
‘He’s off the case?’ Penny asked, her mind racing. Tom Cross? Suspended?
‘He’s off the job, Pen. He’s been sent home pending disciplinary action.’
‘Who by?’ Jesus, this was a story and a half. Just what had Popeye Cross been up to this time? She felt a momentary panic. What if he’d been caught out giving the suspect’s name to one of her rivals? She almost missed Kevin’s reply.
‘John Brandon.’
‘What the hell for?’
‘Nobody’s saying,’ Kevin said. ‘But the last thing he did before he saw Brandon was to carry out a search of our suspect’s house.’
‘A legal search?’ Penny probed.
‘Far as I know he had grounds under PACE,’ Kevin said cautiously.
‘So what’s going on, Kevin? Has Popeye been planting evidence, or what?’
‘I don’t know, Pen,’ Kevin said plaintively. ‘Look, I’ve got to go. If I hear anything else, I’ll call you, OK?’
‘OK. Thanks, Kev. You’re a star, you know.’
‘Yeah, well. I’ll speak to you soon.’
The line went dead. Penny dumped the phone back on the base unit and jumped to her feet. She hurried through to her bedroom, pulling off her dressing gown on the way. Five minutes later, she was running down the two flights of stairs from her flat to the underground garage. In the car, she checked the address in her A–Z, then set off, mentally rehearsing what she was going to say on the doorstep.
It was Tony who had pulled away from the clinch first. His body withdrew from hers in a gesture that rendered four inches forty.
Trying to keep it light, to cover the awkwardness that had sprung up between them, Carol said, ‘Sorry, you just looked like you needed a hug.’
‘Nothing wrong with that,’ Tony said stiffly. ‘We use it all the time in group therapy.’
They stood for a moment, eyes not quite meeting. Then Carol moved to Tony’s side, slipped a hand through his unyielding arm and steered him forwards across the university courtyard. ‘So when do I get to look at this profile?’
The