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“And soon after death too, as none of the usual decomposition processes kicked in until he started thawing out properly in the mortuary.”
Cara looks at Deakin. He seems as confused as she is.
“So when did he die?” she asks.
“Impossible to tell. Could have been days ago. Could have been months. But one thing I do know for sure,” Ross finishes, turning back to the cadaver, “is there’s no way Michael Sharp shot Elizabeth Roberts last night. This guy was dead, then kept on ice. You’re looking for someone else.”
CHAPTER
44
DEAKIN SHAKES WITH anger. Cara’s mute, almost in a daze. It had been staged. The whole goddamn thing had been staged, and the only thing going through her mind is it’s not over, it’s not over. One thing is clear: this guy is going to carry on killing until they stop him.
They drive back to the station in silence. Cara hears the noise from the incident room before she even opens the door, people talking, the electronic hiss of playback from CCTV, but none of the usual banter she expects from an investigation. Libby’s death has silenced them all, eradicating the black humor she’s used to.
Cara takes command of the room and tells the team about the results from the postmortem. She sees their shocked faces. There are no questions. She tells them all to go back to work.
She knows crime scene teams are still at Sharp’s apartment and the one next door, plus in the woodland, working the car. Marsh pokes his head around the door, then disappears again. He looks stressed, and she knows why. He’s been told to prioritize resources, but how can they? They’ve never known murder on this scale before. The overtime chews up the budget. They have no idea which bit of police work could turn up a lead, which piece of evidence at the lab will point them in the right direction. So many samples of blood, so many fingerprints. So many people dead.
Journalists clamor at the door. They call the PR department constantly. But what can they say? They’ve put out press releases warning people to be careful, that there’s a dangerous killer on the loose and not to go anywhere alone, but this guy is everywhere. The only thing they can rely on is his dedication to the cause.
She feels her stomach churning. She’s constantly scrabbling to keep up; he’s always one step ahead of them.
She needs to think. It seems mad that someone would be carrying this all out, but she knows she’d be wrong to assume they’re insane. It’s clear they know what they’re doing.
This man is cold and calculated and organized. He knows enough about police procedure to be forensically savvy, but anyone with access to the internet and a few episodes of CSI would know what to avoid nowadays. He has a plan, but to what end? Cara can’t even imagine.
She sees Shenton in the incident room. Working alone, he’s surrounded by the case files, putting his psychological profile together. It could give them something, she tells herself. Something, anything, she thinks with a silent prayer.
But Cara’s relief is short-lived as Griffin arrives back, a box of evidence in his hand. He stands in the doorway to her office.
“That the notebooks?” she asks.
He nods. “And the tapes. You want to take a look?”
No, Cara thinks, I really don’t. But she pushes her chair away from her desk and indicates her monitor. “Be my guest,” she says.
Griffin has luckily had the foresight to bring the VHS player from the apartment, and he sends Shenton off for the right cables. She waits, going through the box of tapes, all bagged up individually. She pulls a few out, looking at the writing.
“What do you think this means?” she asks, holding it out so Griffin can see. It’s a six-digit number, scrawled in ballpoint pen on the label.
“One of the SOCOs said it might be illegal porn.” Shenton comes back into the room with the cable, and Griffin plugs it into the monitor. “The numbers are a code so the punter knows what they’re ordering.”
“How entrepreneurial,” Cara replies with a frown.
Griffin plugs the VHS player into the wall, and at last the machine whirrs into life. Cara gestures to Deakin and he walks in to join them.
“Shut the door,” she says once he’s in the room. He realizes what they’re doing and pulls a chair around to sit in front of the screen on the other side of Cara. She notices he’s still keeping his distance from Griffin. No love lost there, she notes.
She sees Shenton hovering against the wall. “Toby, you should probably go,” she says to him, and he shuffles out.
“Poor kid needs to make some friends,” Cara mutters.
“He’s not so young,” Noah says. “I’m only two years older than him, you know.”
Cara smirks. “You look more than that.”
“Fuck off. Life’s been hard.”
