Lucy had a quick nosey through the mail. Mostly takeaways, but there were a couple of leaflets for the local church’s outreach coffee mornings and a handful of fliers from the university about various psychological studies you could take part in for extra credit and a bit of cash in hand. The money wasn’t great, but looking at the state of this place, Craig probably needed all the help he could get.
She opened the sideboard’s doors: a DVD player lurked inside, along with a collection of unmarked jewel cases — all of which contained plain disks with film names printed on them in blue Sharpie. Craig hadn’t even pirated the latest blockbusters; this lot were at least two years old. Oh, and there was some pretty nasty porn in there too, going by the titles. God knew what Shitty Titty Gangbang was like, but Lucy had no intention of finding out. And no intention of ever sitting on that couch again, given what he must’ve been doing while watching it.
The heavy breathing coming from that direction settled down to sub-pervert levels, then the Dunk cleared his throat. ‘Right. OK. Craig Thorburn, thirty-one, studying philosophy. So a mature student. Had a part-time porter’s job at Straik Infirmary. Used to work as a mechanic down by MacKinnon Quay.’
Which explained how a philosophy student could afford his own place. Even if it was tiny. And crappy. She put the DVD back with the others. ‘But the hospital didn’t report him missing?’
‘Nah. No one gives a toss about part-timers. Next of kin’s down as his mum, but we all know how that worked out.’
The joy of families.
The Dunk turned to the next stapled lump of paperwork, lips moving silently as he traced a finger down the page. ‘Post-mortem says he died from blood loss. Then his heart, both kidneys, and about a third of his liver got hacked out. Looks like our boy’s worked on his blood-extraction technique, but hasn’t really bothered improving his knife skills.’
‘Why would he, if it works?’ Lucy shut the sideboard doors and stood. To be honest, given the porn collection, it was probably best not to touch anything else in here. Even with gloves on. But when she went to put her hands in her pockets, the left one scrunched into all those fliers, leaflets, and the three mortgage demands.
No point taking them with her.
‘True.’ The Dunk nodded. ‘But it probably means we can rule out anyone who knows what they’re doing: butchers, surgeons, anatomists, vets, or anything like that.’
She dumped the lot on the sideboard, where the pile promptly slithered apart, half of it falling straight onto the floor. ‘Sodding hell.’
‘You want the Behavioural Evidence Analysis, too, or shall we take the babbling run-on sentences and lack of proper punctuation as read?’
‘Go for it.’ Lucy scooped the junk mail up and deposited it back on the sideboard. Frowned.
‘Gluttons for punishment, we.’ He dragged out another stapled-together wodge of paper. ‘So... Rambling introduction. Blah, blah. Meandering summary of previous profiles, et cetera...’
There were only two letters from the building society now. She dug in her pocket, but it was empty.
‘Warning that this is all supposition and not to be taken as gospel...’
Perhaps the third letter had fallen down the back of the sideboard and got stuck?
‘Here we go: “The Bloodsmith demonstrates further learning in his exsanguination methodology,” because why use normal words when you can sound like you’ve just had a thesaurus suppository, “suggesting he has either started giving blood recently, or has befriended someone who works for the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service and a possible line of inquiry will be to examine records appertaining to those—”’
‘Did we?’ Lucy hunkered down and peered underneath the sideboard. ‘Look into the blood-donor angle?’
‘Yeah, Angus got a team on it. No prizes for guessing what that turned up.’
There were a couple of bits of paper poking out between the wall and the bottom edge, but the sideboard’s legs were too short to get her arm in there and pull them out.
‘Where was I? OK: “...to those activities, it may also be beneficial to see if official blood-transfusion clinics have experienced any thefts of equipment, especially needles and blood bags, as it is unlikely that having become more proficient and professional in his extraction of the blood”’ — the Dunk hauled in a big pantomime breath — ‘“he is still using old jam and pickle jars to store it.” Ladies and gentlemen, we have a full stop!’
Scuff marks scarred the floorboards where the sideboard had clearly been moved many, many times. Which meant that losing stuff down the back of it must’ve been a regular occurrence for Craig.
Only one thing for it, then: Lucy went round to the end of the sideboard, grabbed it with both hands and half lifted, half dragged that side away from the wall. An avalanche of trapped papers tumbled to the floorboards.
‘“Given the increase in the volume of tissue removed from his victims after death, it is tempting to say that the Bloodsmith’s possible earlier experimentation with cannibalism has proven fruitful for him, and now that he has a taste for it is looking to take away as much comestible material from the bodies as can practically be consumed while fresh”’ — another exaggerated breath — ‘“however it is also possible that the Bloodsmith is removing these organs for another, more ritualistic purpose, or doing it as a diversionary tactic in order to purposefully mislead the investigation into following avenues not applicable to the series of crimes at hand...”’ Silence. ‘Did that make any sense to you at all?’
She picked up the papers.
The missing building-society letter had been joined by a flier for a kebab shop, one for an exhibition at Oldcastle Art Gallery, a hand-written shopping list, another leaflet about taking part in a psychological study — into loneliness this time — and a birthday card from the old lady next door.
Not much to show for a life, was it? Some scraps of paper and a mutilated corpse.
Lucy placed the lot back on the sideboard.
‘New sentence: “Clearly we can’t ignore the fact that Operation Maypole has been widely reported on in the media, therefore the Bloodsmith may well be monitoring the coverage and adapting his behaviour in order to mislead or even discredit the investigation, as such, all evidence, in addition to being taken at face value, must also be evaluated as if it has been purposefully staged by the offender.”’
She wandered over to the window, looking down at the miserable whirligigs. Little blue bags dangled from the sagging washing lines, where dog walkers had decided a bit of festive faecal decoration was needed. Imagine standing here, every day, looking out at that depressing vista. Estranged from your family, no friends, no one to even notice you’ve been dead for three weeks.
A horrible death, in a horrible little flat.
‘You know, Sarge, I’m thinking of retraining as a forensic psychologist. Apparently you can spend your days churning out nonsensical rubbish and Police Scotland will pay you a fortune for the privilege. You don’t even have to get anything right: load your reports up with enough weaselly caveats, and you can get away with murder.’ A snort. ‘It’s like being a weather forecaster, only with more dead bodies.’
Lucy narrowed her eyes and moved closer to the glass.
There was a figure down there, a man in a corduroy jacket, high forehead surrounded by curly brown hair. Staring right back up at her.
Her back tightened. Jaw, too.
No point charging down there: he’d be long gone by the time she’d even reached the third floor, and they both knew it. He was mocking her.