‘Next of kin’s listed as one Shona Porter, ex-fiancée. They interviewed her: said she hadn’t seen him since way before Christmas. And they found the poor sod’s body halfway through April. God, it gets sadder and sadder, doesn’t it?’
Suppose the surrounding houses explained why the search team had left the blinds down — didn’t trust Bruce’s neighbours not to let the press have a go with their telephoto lenses. Taking sneaky shots of the blood-spattered crapshow left behind, including the only clue O Division had managed to keep secret on this case: ‘HELP ME!’
The Dunk went to park his bum on the edge of the desk, took one look at all the dried blood and stood up straight again. ‘So, while Abby Geddes was the first victim, Bruce Malloch was the first one to be discovered. You want the psychological profile too?’
‘Might as well.’ Lucy frowned at the two words, daubed on the plain magnolia wall. A photo hung next to it: Bruce Malloch on the pitch at City Stadium, shaking hands with someone wearing a blue-and-white Oldcastle Warriors strip. Going by the way Bruce was grinning, whoever it was, they were some sort of big deal. As if he was meeting his hero.
The Dunk groaned. Then puffed out a breath. ‘Who wrote this? It’s like one big run-on sentence that’s allergic to punctuation... OK. Blah, blah, blah, “insufficient evidence or incidents to be certain at this early stage, but markers at the scene suggest that our killer’s primary motive was not to kill Bruce, but to create a dead body that would then allow our killer to live out his fantasy, making it a subcategory of necrophilia, even though there’s no sign that the remains have been sexually interfered with, stripping the body implies a degree of voyeurism that may be used to fuel masturbatory fantasies later,” deep breath, “which in conjunction with the message left behind, written in Bruce’s blood, does suggest that our killer is probably from a dysfunctional home...”’ The Dunk looked up from the report and grimaced. ‘I can see why we pay these academics the big bucks. And here was me thinking normal well-adjusted people carve strangers up all the time. “...where parental or inter-sibling emotional affirmation were irregular features of his childhood, if they existed at all, causing him to internalize his need for that emotional affirmation...” Has this bloody psychologist never heard of a full stop?’
‘Nope, and you’ve got three more pages to go.’
‘Sod.’ He skimmed through to the end. ‘Hey: there’s a summary at the back! “Killer is most likely an IC-One male,” which doesn’t exactly narrow it down, does it? Most of Oldcastle’s white and northern European. Anyway, “IC-One male, late twenties to early forties, in steady employment, with a position of trust. He’s not in a relationship, but when questioned will have had a string of one-night stands.” Suppose that’ll be him looking for “emotional affirmation” in all the wrong bedrooms. “It is highly likely that the individual will currently be reliving his kill and preparing to select another victim” — brackets — “assuming he hasn’t already.” Close brackets.’
‘Not a huge amount of help, then.’
‘Yeah.’ The Dunk stuck the report back in the folder. ‘But, to be fair, they only knew about Bruce Malloch, by then. Abby Geddes’s remains didn’t turn up till May.’
True enough.
He went back into the folder. ‘You want to see the photos?’
‘Not really.’
The Dunk produced them anyway, holding the things out as if they were infected. ‘What bothers me is: how does our boy walk out of here without anyone spotting he’s clarted head to toe in blood?’
Lucy puffed out a breath and accepted the proffered eight-by-ten.
It was a top-down picture of the room, in hideous technicolour. No skeletal remains here. Instead Bruce Malloch lay split open on the scarlet-sodden carpet: naked, head thrown back, mouth open, eyes half shut. One arm was hooked over the base of his office chair, the other lay out at ninety degrees to his body, hand curled into a loose fist — wrist slashed all the way down to the pale bone below. His legs were bent, knees splayed, the heels of his feet pressed together, like a frog in science class. Dark glistening coils looped out of his split stomach, draped across his thighs; a big chunk of purple liver by his left side; a slab of lung by his right.
She handed it back. ‘Poor sod.’
‘There’s more photos, if you want?’
‘No. I’m good.’ Lucy shook her head. Swallowed. Stepped out onto the tiny landing.
Breathe normally.
Don’t let the Dunk see.
Keep that tartiflette down, where it’s meant to be.
The Dunk followed her, tucking the pictures into the file again. ‘Next up: post-mortem. “Three blows to the back of the head caused catastrophic damage to Mr Malloch’s parietal and occipital lobe, but it is unlikely that death would have been instantaneous. The head wound is of sufficient severity to suggest that Mr Malloch must have been, at the very least, rendered incapable of independent movement, otherwise we would expect to see defensive wounds to the hands and forearms. Note this does not include the deep incision across Mr Malloch’s left wrist as that appears to have been deliberate rather than as the result of any struggle.”’
Just a photograph. That’s all. Seen hundreds of pictures just like it. Attended post-mortems of victims who’d suffered much, much worse.
‘“However, even if Mr Malloch was minimally aware of his surroundings when his assailant began eviscerating him, the sheer volume of blood lost in the first few minutes of this procedure would have been sufficient to cause cardiac arrest. As such, it is unlikely that his heart was still functioning when it was removed.” Urgh... See what I mean? The Bloodsmith would’ve been swimming in it. How come no one notices?’
So why this photograph? Why did this one make snakes writhe and knot deep in her stomach? Make her pulse thrum in her chest. Make sweat prickle between her shoulder blades. Make her hands tremble like someone in their nineties.
Maybe DI Tudor was right? Maybe it was time to go see her shrink again.
‘Sarge? You OK?’
She nodded, kept her eyes on the stairs. ‘Close the window, shut the blinds, and lock up will you, Dunk? I’ve got to make a call.’
6
She was putting her phone away when the Dunk shambled out of Bruce Malloch’s house and locked the door. To be honest, the wee lad looked more than a little disreputable, with his black-and-grey outfit clarted in streaks of pale brown and dark green. As if he’d recently crawled out of a septic tank.
He slipped the key back in its evidence bag, then fiddled a slightly crumpled cigarette from the pack. Puffing away as he stared at her, one eyebrow raised. ‘You sure you’re OK, Sarge? Only you look a bit peaky.’
Lucy forced a smile. ‘Think it was the tartiflette: all that cheese and ham and cream. Bit rich for lunch.’
‘Knew I should’ve got you the potato and fennel galette.’ He kicked his heels on the top step, smoking his fag. ‘Where next? Craig Thorburn’s closer, but if we’re going in order of death it’s Adam Holmes next.’
She edged around till she was upwind, because the smell of burnt tobacco definitely wasn’t helping her roiling stomach. ‘Neither — drop me back at my car, then you can go home and get changed. Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate the hedge-backwards look as much as the next person, but perhaps not while we’re on duty?’