COLD KILL. Neil White

to come tumbling out of the mouth.

      Laura peered closer to try and see the face, so that she could see more of the person and less of the corpse, but it was dirty and disfigured, and so they wouldn’t get a better idea until the post-mortem clean-up later. Laura tried to be scientific and dispassionate, but she knew that the sight of a healthy young woman who had been mutilated was something that would come back to her in quieter moments.

      Laura took a deep breath, more heat through the mask, and tried to take in what she could.

      The woman was naked, the clothes taken away, no sign of them torn up and thrown to one side. Just like with the other one. There were bruises on her body, grazes and scrapes that might have come from a struggle, along with small cuts on her stomach and legs, but it wasn’t those that drew her eye. It was her mouth. It was stretched, with soil and leaves jammed in so that it looked like the dead woman had choked on the ground, her cheeks puffed out. There were bruises around the neck, so Laura guessed that it was another strangulation case. Laura looked down at the woman’s hips, and she didn’t need to look too closely in order to see the dirt trails and scratches where soil and leaves had been jammed between her thighs.

      It was the tears that made her angry though. The woman’s face was dirty, but there were streaks where her tears had run through the dirt as she choked on the leaves and looked up at the man who ended her life.

      ‘Is it another one of our own?’ Laura said.

      Carson just shrugged that he didn’t know.

      The first victim had been the daughter of a Blackley police officer. Gangland revenge had been ruled out, because her father was just uniform, seeing out his career patrolling in a van and doling out advice to young officers who would soon overtake him. Tales of the woman’s private life had made everyone think that it was a jealous ex-lover, or a frightened husband worried about his affair leaking out.

      ‘What do you think?’ Carson said.

      Laura saw that his eyes were fixed on her, and she knew that it was a test. Carson was checking whether Joe had been right to ask for her to be on the team.

      She took a deep breath and had another look along the body.

      ‘She was alive when all of that was jammed in there,’ Laura said, and pointed to the woman’s genitals.

      ‘Why do you say that?’

      ‘Those scratches and scrapes along the woman’s legs have drawn blood,’ she said, and pointed towards trails of ragged skin that had since dried brown. ‘They will have been caused when he jammed the leaves and dirt up there, inside her, and so it must have happened when she was still alive. The dead don’t bleed.’

      Carson gave a nod. ‘Why is that important?’

      ‘It makes it more likely that she was killed here rather than just dumped,’ she said. ‘And we might get some of his DNA from her thighs or face.’

      ‘Provided he wasn’t wearing gloves.’

      Laura raised her eyebrows. ‘That goes without saying.’

      Carson nodded. ‘What about the clothes?’ he said. ‘She didn’t walk down here naked.’

      ‘He’s got some forensic awareness, because he realised that his DNA would be all over her,’ Laura said. ‘He took the clothes away to stop him from being identified, which makes it more likely that he wore gloves, as a precaution. And he’s cool.’

      ‘What do you mean?’ Carson asked.

      ‘Look around,’ Laura said, and she pointed towards the houses that overlooked the scene. ‘All it would take is for someone to look out of their bedroom window, or even hear the struggle, and we would be down here. An eye-witness is the best we can hope for right now, unless he’s slipped up.’

      ‘Anything else?’

      Laura looked at the body, and as she felt Carson’s stare bore into her, she tried to think of something she might have missed. Or maybe he was just trying to make her spout wild theories to use against her later. She wasn’t the only woman on the team, but she still felt like she had to prove herself for spoiling the macho party, and she’d heard the little digs that she was Joe’s new favourite.

      Then it struck her.

      ‘If she was alive when he was filling her with soil, it meant that she wasn’t being raped when she died,’ Laura said. ‘If all of that was in there, he couldn’t have been, and so whatever he did afterwards was just to degrade her.’

      Carson tilted his head and Laura saw the skin around his eyes crinkle. It looked like there was a smile there. Test passed.

      Laura looked at Joe and saw that he was still staring intently at the corpse.

      ‘What is it, Joe?’ Carson asked.

      Joe didn’t respond at first. That was just his way, quiet, contemplative, but then he rose to his feet, his knees cracking, and looked down.

      ‘This isn’t going to end,’ he said, his voice quiet.

      ‘Why do you say that?’ Laura said.

      ‘Because he has attacked before, and once you start, you don’t stop,’ he said.

      ‘We know he’s done this before,’ Carson said, his brow furrowed. ‘Three weeks ago.’

      ‘No, even before then,’ Joe said, and gestured towards the body with a nod of his head. ‘The signature is so fixed. The debris and soil in the vagina, the mouth, the anus. Too much like the last one. But why does he do it? No one just chances on that, the perfect method. Signatures grow and develop. This one? It’s a replica of the first.’

      Carson sighed behind his mask. ‘This is sounding like a long haul,’ he said, almost to himself.

      Joe shot worried glances at Laura and Carson. ‘We haven’t got the time for that,’ he said. ‘We need to catch him quickly, because the gap will shorten.’

      ‘Are you sure about that?’

      Joe nodded. ‘These murders are three weeks apart, but identical methods were used. He’s found his style and likes it.’

      ‘Why is all that dirt in there?’ Laura asked.

      Joe looked down at the body, then he looked at Carson, and then at Laura.

      ‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘And we will need to work that out if we are going to catch whoever did this, but I do know one thing: he’s going to want to do it again.’

      Chapter Four

      Jack put his camera away as he watched the activity at the crime scene.

      He had managed some shots of the white suits as they were bent over the body, knowing that Dolby would like those. And as he’d zoomed in, he’d recognised one of the white suits as Laura McGanity, his partner.

      He smiled to himself. No, not partner. Fiancée. They had been engaged for a few months now, but things had changed since he’d proposed. Laura had thrown herself back into her career, and it seemed they saw each other only briefly in the house, pit-stops between her shifts. She complained that he was showing no commitment, that he was stalling about the wedding, but it was more that they didn’t have the time to talk about it. Laura wanted it low-key, because she had been married before, a marriage that produced a son, Bobby, the main brightness in their lives, eight years old now. Both of Jack’s parents were dead and so he had no one to offend by keeping it small, but it felt like it wasn’t the same big deal for her, because Laura had already had the big white wedding with all the trimmings.

      As he watched her, Jack knew that Laura was the reason why Dolby had asked him to cover the story, hoping for an inside line, maybe a loose word over supper. But Jack knew better: Laura wouldn’t give anything crucial away. Having a reporter as her squeeze had caused her enough trouble before, hints and jibes that she was whispering secrets