Savage Moon

'You play?'

'Yeah, fly half. You?'

'Flanker.'

'Ah right. You guys reckon you're gonna win the world cup this year?'

Jon knew he should resist the temptation of slipping into informality. He smiled, happy to fail for the moment. 'I think we could do it.'

Andrew tilted a hand. 'You're in with a shout if you protect

Wilkinson. He kicks anything.'

Jon spotted Carmel's eyes glazing over and he stood up. 'I'll send an officer in to take a full statement. And could I request that you don't leave the area without letting Inspector Clegg know first? This is an ongoing murder enquiry.'

'Can I take him to our offices in Manchester?' Carmel asked. Jon directed his answer at Andrew. 'Yes. Don't say a word until she's given you a signed contract, understand?'

Carmel widened her eyes, as if surprised by his insinuation.

'When can we expect another statement, DI Spicer?'

Jon held a hand to his ear, thumb and little finger extended.

'Contact the press office.'

He headed for the back door of the station, crossing the car park to where Sutton's trailer was parked. Clegg and a couple of other officers were standing by it. Jon went over and lifted up the tarpaulin. The coppery smell of blood hit him. He looked at the panther for a few seconds, taking in the massive paws and imagining the size of the claws sheathed inside them. Even stretched out in death with blood matting its coat, the animal was magnificent. It must have measured six feet in length and he couldn't guess how much it weighed. The same as an adult human, easily. With a twinge of sadness, he let the cover fall back. His eyes settled on the semi-congealed drips of blood on the trailer's side. 'We'll need a DNA test to confirm it matches the hairs recovered from both victims. And we'll need an autopsy. See if there's any human tissue floating around in her stomach.'

Twenty-Four

'DCI Summerby.'

'Morning, boss, it's DI Spicer.'

'Jon, where are you?'

'At Mossley Brow nick. I assume you've heard?'

'Yes, is this for real?'

'Afraid so. I've seen the carcass myself. A bloody great panther.'

'Ye gods!'

'I'm arranging for an analysis of its stomach contents and we're getting a DNA profile too. See if there's a match to the hairs found on Peterson and Sutton.'

'You think there will be?'

Jon hooked a finger into the telephone cord and stretched the coils taut. The panther was a major development but, in his view, nothing more than a distraction. Danny Gordon still needed to be caught. 'Not really.' He twisted his finger free and the length of plastic sprang back into shape.

'How so?'

'I questioned the guy who shot it. South African called Du Toit, nephew of Ken Sutton. He's worked on game reserves all his life and he reckons the animal was a geriatric. I'm still very much of the opinion Danny Gordon is our killer.'

'It would make things a damn sight simpler if it turns out to have been that cat.'

'True, but I'm not convinced.'

'What's the progress with finding Gordon?'

'He's of no fixed abode, but we'll get scent of him soon. If not we could consider naming him in an appeal for information.'

'Talking of which,' Summerby replied, 'we need to get a statement out about this panther straight away, the phones are going mad here.'

Jon nodded. 'I'll get on to Gavin Edwards.'

'Fine, I'll relay your news to the incident room. Will you be heading back soon yourself?'

'I'll be there in an hour.'

Jon was about to call the press office when his finger hesitated over the buttons. He called home instead, a slight sense of unease mounting with each unanswered ring. Bollocks, he cursed as the answer phone clicked in. She's probably upstairs feeding. 'Ali, it's me. Sorry to miss you this morning. Give us a call on my mobile.' He replayed the message in his head. Too unemotional.

'I love you, babe,' he quickly added, before hanging up.

The incident room at Longsight was subdued and Jon sensed the news about the panther had sucked the urgency away. Why bust a gut until it was confirmed the cat wasn't a man-eater? Time to dispel that notion, he decided, clapping his hands together.

'Right! Let's have some fucking action.' He started firing questions about. 'What's going on with the door-to-doors? Have Rhea and Ashford got to Aberdeen yet? Is DC Murray at Strangeways? What's the news from the team dredging Crime Lake? Any responses to our appeal for witnesses? Sergeant Biggs, a progress report on the interviews taking place around Mossley Brow.'

As activity broke out across the room, he dropped the evidence bag with the sample of panther blood on his desk. Rick caught his eye from his desk alongside. 'You look halfway through an exercise in sleep deprivation.'

Jon took in his colleague's immaculately styled hair and crisp pale blue shirt. He managed a quick smile. 'Probably because I am.'

'What's in the evidence bag?'

'Panther blood. We need to get it tested.' He picked up the phone, noticing the file at the top of his in-tray. It was a report from Richard Matthews, the CSM for the car park where Peterson was found. He replaced the handset. 'Shit, he's already finished up?' The report listed various findings from the spot, confirming that the dredging of the lake and fingertip search of the surrounding fields had failed to find the murder weapon. 'I was hoping he'd run this test for me.'

He sat down, his mind going over who else could ensure that the blood sample would be treated as a genuine priority over samples from other investigations that also would have been filed as urgent. Nikki Kingston. She'd never failed him before. Then again, that was before she'd made a pass that he'd turned down. He dialled her number. 'Nikki, it's Jon Spicer.'

'DI Spicer, what a pleasure.'

He heard the note of reservation in her voice. 'How's it going? You keeping busy?'

'It's not too manic at the moment.'

Great, he thought. Deciding it was too early to come out with his request, he continued with the small talk. 'Where are you?'

'At the scene of a rape in Openshaw. The carpet in the front room where it happened is infested with fleas and I've just been crawling about swabbing for semen. Some people live like bloody animals. Anyway, I'm sure that's not why you're ringing. A favour, is it?'

'Well, yeah. A DNA test on a sample of panther blood.'

'Really?' Enthusiasm now flooded her voice. 'Of course, you're on that case, there was stuff on the news. What was the creature like? Big as a tiger?'

'Not far off. You wouldn't like to have met it in a dark alley, put it that way. Beautiful animal. Shame it got shot really.'

'I'd love to see it up close.'

'Well, I'm trying to arrange an autopsy for it. We're storing it in the morgue at the MRI until a vet with the necessary experience can be found. I'll see if you can pop in.'

'So you need to see if its blood matches the samples of hair recovered from the victims?'

'You got it,' he replied, always impressed with her sharpness.

'How easy will that be?'

'Should be straightforward, as long as the hairs contained sufficient DNA for a profile.'

'They did,' Jon replied, recalling the report. The hairs themselves had been scored into wafer thin slices, mounted on glass slides and analysed under a microscope. Characteristics on the cuticle, cortex and medulla had led to their being identified as those of a panther. But, crucially, a DNA profile had also been obtained from the keratin proteins that forms the hairs themselves.

'Listen, I've got a kit in my car outside. It's not acceptable to use as evidence in court, but it'll do until the lab can give you an official result. How's that?'

'I'll get it biked over.' After taking her address, he replaced the receiver and looked up, the smile still on his face. Rick was staring at him accusingly. 'That was the Nikki you said you'd be steering clear of?'