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When Lynley and Havers arrived, they found the tu
“…serial killer?” Lynley heard one of the journalists call out as he crossed the barrier with Havers behind him.
“…kid? Adult? Male? Female?”
“Hang on, mate. Give us bloody something.”
Lynley ignored them, Havers muttered, “Vultures,” and they moved in the direction of a low-slung, paintless, and abandoned sports car sitting midway through the tu
Lynley couldn’t be troubled with unruffling the DI’s feathers. If this was indeed another victim of their serial killer, there would be far greater concerns than someone’s not liking having his patch invaded by New Scotland Yard.
He said to Hogarth, “What have we got?” as he do
“Black kid,” Hogarth replied. “Boy. Young. Twelve or thirteen? Hard to tell. Doesn’t fit the MO of the serial, you ask me. Don’t know why you lot got a call.”
Lynley knew. The victim was black. Hillier was covering his well-tailored backside in advance of his next press briefing. “Let’s see him,” he said, and he stepped past Hogarth. Havers followed.
The body had been deposited unceremoniously in the abandoned car, where the driver’s seat had over time disintegrated down to metal frame and springs. There, with its legs splayed out and its head lolling to one side, it joined Coke bottles, Styrofoam cups, carrier bags of rubbish, McDonald’s take-away containers, and a single rubber glove that lay on what had once been the rim of the car’s back window. The boy’s eyes were open, staring sightlessly at what remained of the car’s rusted steering column, short dreadlocks springing out of his head. With smooth walnut skin and perfectly balanced features, he had been quite lovely. He was also naked.
“Hell,” Havers murmured at Lynley’s side.
“Young,” Lynley said. “He looks younger than the last. Christ, Barbara. Why in God’s name…“ He didn’t finish, letting the unanswerable go unasked. He felt Havers’ glance graze him.
She said with a prescience that came from working with him for years, “There’re no guarantees. No matter what you do. Or what you decide. Or how. Or with whom.”
“You’re right,” he said. “There are never guarantees. But he’s still somebody’s son. All of them were that. We can’t forget it.”
“Think he’s one of ours?”
Lynley took a closer look at the boy, and upon a first glance, he found himself agreeing with Hogarth. While the victim was naked as had been Kimmo Thorne, his body clearly had been dumped without ceremony and not laid out like all the others. He had no piece of tatting as a modesty wrap on his genitalia, and there was no distinguishing mark on his forehead, both additional features of Kimmo Thorne’s body. His abdomen did not appear to be incised, but perhaps more important, the position of the body itself suggested haste and a lack of pla
As the SOCO team moved round him with their evidence bags and collection kits, Lynley made a closer inspection. This proved to tell him a more complete tale. He said, “Have a look at this, Barbara,” as he gently lifted one of the boy’s hands. The flesh was deeply burned, and the marks of a restraint dug into the wrist.
There was much about any serial killing that was known only by its perpetrator, held back by the police for the dual reason of protecting the victims’ families from u
Havers said, “That’s a pretty good indication of what’s what, isn’t it?”
“It is.” Lynley straightened up and glanced over to Hogarth. “He’s one of ours,” he said. “Where’s the pathologist?”
“Been and gone,” Hogarth replied. “Photographer and videographer as well. We’ve just been waiting for you lot before we clear him out of here.”
The rebuke was implied. Lynley ignored it. He asked for the time of death, for any witnesses, for the taxi driver’s statement.
“Pathologist’s given us a time of death between ten and midnight,” Hogarth said. “No witnesses to anything so far as we can tell, but that’s not surprising, is it. Not a place you’d find anyone with brains after dark.”
“As for the taxi driver?”
Hogarth consulted an envelope that he took from his jacket pocket. It evidently did duty as his notepad. He read off the name of the driver, his address, and the number of his mobile phone. He’d had no fare with him, the DI added, and the Shand Street tu
Lynley turned. A figure was coming along the tu
Havers was saying cautiously, “Sir, isn’t that…” when Lynley himself realised who it was. He drew in a breath so sharp that he felt its pressure beat within his eyes. The interloper on the crime scene was Hillier’s profiler, Hamish Robson, and there could be only one way he’d gained access to the tu
Lynley didn’t hesitate before striding towards the man. He took Robson by the arm without preamble. “You need to leave at once,” he said. “I don’t know how you managed to cross that barrier, but you’ve no business here, Dr. Robson.”
Robson was clearly surprised by the greeting. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the barrier through which he’d just come. He said, “I had a phone call from Assistant-”
“I’ve no doubt of that. But the assistant commissioner was out of order. I want you to clear out. Immediately.”
Behind his glasses, Robson’s eyes assessed. Lynley could feel the evaluation going on. He could read the profiler’s conclusion as well: subject experiencing understandable stress. True enough, Lynley thought. Each time the serial killer struck, the bar would be raised. Robson hadn’t seen stress yet, compared to what he’d see if the killer snuffed out someone else before the police got to him.