Page 25 of The Unforgiven

“Key thing for me is that our first vic was stripped naked. The second is fully clothed. We know there’s no evidence of sexual assault on either, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the motivation. Another thing that’s bothering me is Brooke’s sideline – she was a social media influencer and clearly doing okay on it; she had a lot of followers and her posts got a lot of comments and likes. There were also a lot of trolls, including some from our current favourite brand of scum, incels. Could we have two separate perps who have done this as a joint project?” He tapped the board, satisfied with his scribblings.

“We’re assuming a lot there, including the perp or perps are male. I get the incel theory for Brooke – she’s what an incel would term a Stacey. Her online presence could easily have made her a target. But how does that work for Chelsea? What else do they have in common?” I could see where Vinny was coming from, and we needed to have working theories to prove or disprove to forward the case. Sometimes clutching at those straws left a golden thread between our fingers and that was all it took.

I was seven years in with the police, a DS at thirty, although it’d only been a couple of months since I’d got the promotion. Nick had been a DS for seven years, Vinny three. Vin was five years older than me, although sometimes acted like my younger brother. Nick was nearly forty. We worked well together, which was why Wrigley had made sure we stayed together, when really, he should’ve spread us apart.

“What if it’s more about what the perps have in common rather than the victims.” Nick shifted, sitting on Verity’s desk. “We know statistically, it’s more likely for a victim to know their killer than not. The locations for the murders suggest these were well-thought-out places; out of sight and lonely, but not too far to get back on a main road. Dr Miz said the weapon used on Brooke may be the same as on Chelsea, but she’s going to need longer to look at that.”

“Two perps could’ve shared a weapon, trying to make us look at a sole offender.” Vinny folded his arms. “Boss? What are your thoughts?”

Wrigley had been quiet, watching us carefully. “I think both are possibilities, along with lines of enquiry we haven’t thought of yet. We’re not going to get a ton from forensics – Jenna has a clear size ten footprint on the path where we think Brooke might’ve entered the river. There’s also blood splattering on vegetation on the way down, so it looks like Vinny was spot on.” He gave Vin a brief nod.

Vinny managed to look modest rather than smug. He wasn’t quite as big an arse as he had been a couple of years ago, I’d give him that.

“Both murders have happened in weather that’s suited erasing forensic evidence,” Wrigley said as he added a note to Vinny’s board. “I don’t think we have an opportunistic killer or killers. It feels too planned, too practiced. We should be getting the phone records through for Brooke and Chelsea bythe morning, so we can see if there have been any numbers in common. Nick, are the tech team going through internet search histories?” He looked over at Nick, who once again, was eating. “Are you not being fed at home, lad?”

Nick was trying to swallow too much dry pastry in one go, devouring what looked like something from Greggs, probably foraged around lunch time. “Sorry, sir. If I’m lucky, when I get home, the baby will be asleep, and I don’t want to dare wake him by cooking.”

“If you get home. I’ve known someone die from a steak bake before. Choked on it. Horrible way to go.” Wrigley’s tone was dead pan.

“I’d get a decent sleep though. Anyway,” he brushed pastry off from round his mouth. “The tech team has been collating websites visited by Chelsea from her iPad – still no phone and her iPad doesn’t have much on it. We do have an approximate location of where her phone was last used from cell site location, so CSI are heading there in the morning to see if they can find it – if it’s been discarded. We’ve got Brooke’s computer from home already, and we’re in it, so we’ll have data to run through, and we can get into her social networks and look to see if there were any persistent trolls. I was thinking, Sir,” he glanced at the rest of the pasty he had in his hand, “if it might be worth getting someone over from counterterrorism for a couple of days. We’re pretty up to speed about patterns and certain known groups on the dark web, but it’s morphing daily and if Vinny’s incel theory’s right then they may have intel that we’re not privy to.”

“You thinking of anyone in particular?” Wrigley watched Nick with a degree of interest.

“Lance Cook. He’s just come off a big case and was about to take leave. His girlfriend dumped him on Friday so he’s cancelled his time off and he could do with a distraction. He’swho I usually go to if I can’t get into something.” Nick tore a piece of the pastry off rather violently.

Wrigley nodded, shook his head, probably at Nick’s eating habits. “I know his manager. I’ll put a call in.” He stood up at little taller. “We have a press conference tomorrow at seven-thirty and I need my beauty sleep, plus if I’m any later, Pam’s going to use my body in a curry. Get yourselves home and rest up. Here before seven tomorrow and let’s hope we don’t have any more corpses in bodies of water.”

Class dismissed.

Most of us started to meander out. Vinny stayed at his desk, logging back in.

“You looking for brownie points from the boss?” It was always worth niggling him.

“I don’t need brownie points, Mia Mac. The boss knows I’m the best on his team.” He gave me a wink which told me he had no intention of being serious. “Want to talk psychobabble at me for ten minutes?”

“I love it when you call it that.” I sat down on a chair and wheeled it closer to his computer. “But I gave you enough therapy on the way to Liverpool yesterday.”

“Man like me, I don’t need therapy.” He grinned again, because he knew I was well aware he’d had grief counselling after his dad had died a couple of years ago. “Have Mrs Kinsella’s boys turned up?”

“Not so far, but I doubt they’re high on the priority list. There’s no link to Brooke that we’ve found yet. Nothing’s come up that she was in debt, in fact, she was doing well for herself because of the paid partnerships.” This was one line I thought we should drop.

Vinny leaned back on his chair, clicking his mouse. I watched the screen as it loaded one of Brooke’s social media pages.

He clicked on one of her most recent posts. “Look at this comment.” He scrolled down and then paused.

You fucking bitch thinking your so high and mitey. I’m coming for you.

“Who posted it?”

“Someone with the username BigKinTwo. I might be clutching at straws, but could that be the younger Kinsella brother? We know they’re both six foot four, so the big would tie in. The ‘Kin’ is Kinsella, the ‘two’ is - ”

“Too obvious. This murderer isn’t someone who’s just lost the plot after having a paddy, Vin. This is somebody or somebodies who are organised, know something about policing. I reckon when we find them, we’ll find they have an interest in true crime but from the perspective of the police – they’ll have looked at cases where the police have missed clues or made cockups. If Chelsea and Brooke have been deliberately targeted, there’s no way our killer would’ve set his username to be so obvious and leave a comment like that – unless he was trying to throw us off.”

“Fair point.”

“Vinny, what’s your username on things like this?” I did have social media, mainly for information purposes, but it was under an entirely different name, and I wasn’t friends with any of my actual friends.

He looked at me sheepishly. “HeaVinSent.”