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“What do you make of that?” he asks Jamie.
But he doesn’t wait for an answer. He starts walking, searching through the wasteland, flashlight darting around the rubbish. He hears the scatter of rats, movement in the rubble. Jamie follows his lead as his eyes scan the mess.
“There,” Jamie says suddenly. “Go back.”
Adam directs the flashlight to where Jamie is pointing. Lit up in the beam are three more letters.
He slowly lowers the shaft of light to the rubbish below. It’s debris from a building site. Pallets of wood, bricks, chunks of cement. But the numerals, they’re the same. Green spray paint. “XIV.”
“Oh, shit,” Jamie mutters next to him. “You don’t think …”
Adam turns to the scene, to the bustling SOCOs, the uniforms, the technicians going about their job.
“Oi!” he shouts. Heads turn. Adam waves his arms until he has everyone’s attention. “Oi!”
The scene quietens, all eyes on him.
“Here.” He points toward the spray-painted markers. “Secure this area. Start excavating. And everyone else, scour the scene. Check all the rubbish. You’re looking for more of these letters.” Nobody moves, everybody stares.
“Now!” Adam shouts again, and people burst into life. He turns back to Jamie; his eyes are wild above his mask.
“The number fourteen,” he says. Then he points back to the first body. “And the number twelve.”
“You don’t think—” Jamie begins again.
“I fucking do,” Adam replies. “There are more of them.”
CHAPTER
2
THE BODY EMERGES. A shape, fully entombed under bricks and gravel, where the rats couldn’t find her. Wrapped in a blanket. Baby blue check. The crime scene manager calls Adam over once she’s uncovered, slowly pulling back a corner. A face is revealed. Long black curly hair. Eyes closed, features intact.
“Quite a contrast to the last one,” the CSM comments.
Adam has worked with Maggie Clarke before. An efficient woman, smart, highly organized. In a different life she’d be the chair on a PTA, planning fundraisers and village fetes, but instead she commands her brood of SOCOs, blood and mud rather than cakes and dog shows. She’s blunt in manner, but fast and accurate. Adam likes her. Not everyone does.
“She’s almost peaceful,” Adam replies.
Maggie squints at the rubbish. “If you say so.” She gives him a quick smile, then leaves, her attention diverted elsewhere.
The dog unit arrives. The black and white spaniels run around in circles, seemingly confused.
“Can’t they find anything?” Jamie asks.
“It’s not that,” the handler replies, grim faced. “It’s that they don’t know where to start.”
Another body is found. Little more than bones: scattered, dismembered limbs. “XVI” daubed above. By the time the fourth turns up, Adam’s boss has arrived at the scene. Detective Chief Superintendent Marsh stands outside the cordon and beckons with a long finger.
“It’s a multiple?” Marsh asks as Adam ducks under the tape. In the harsh glow from the floodlights, Marsh’s cheeks look more sunken than usual, his pallor gray. Adam nods as he pulls the crime scene hood from his head, the mask off his face. “And I thought those days were over,” Marsh finishes with a sigh.
Adam pats down his pockets, then curses as he realizes he’s given away his cigarettes, now regretting his altruistic gesture given how long the night’s going to be. Next to him Marsh pulls out his own packet and offers one to Adam.
“Ta,” Adam mumbles, cigarette in his lips, leaning forward as Marsh flicks the lighter into flame.
Both men stand for a moment, silent except for the crackle of burning tobacco and sighs as plumes of smoke are exhaled.
“Not the Saturday night I had planned,” Adam comments.
