Grind Their Bones (7 page)

He nodded his assent and we fell into easy silence for the rest of the stroll, moving along scarcely populated streets and admiring the predominantly Georgian buildings. I didn't bother to slow my pace, trying to punish him for laughing at my expense, and we covered the mile and a half to the handsome Royal Pump Rooms, responsible for Leamington's 'Spa town' tag, in a little less than half an hour.

Once seated inside I headed for a window seat in view of a flat screen television up on the wall that was playing the local news, while Lee went to sort out our breakfast order of coffee and assorted pastries. The volume was down low so I couldn't quite catch what was being said, but I recognised the background behind the stern faced reporter as being Rugby town centre, since I'd spent many days and nights on foot patrol there when I was back in uniform.

'Excuse me…'

I waited impatiently for the smiling young girl serving Lee to acknowledge my presence, but it took her a moment to finish fluttering her eyelashes at him for long enough to register my voice.

'Could you turn this up please, there's something I want to hear for a minute.'

She nodded and produced a remote control from under the counter, turning it up just enough for me to catch the detail of the report.

‘Local people are baffled as to why this particular building, home to the solicitors firm Johns Gilbert and Frankton, was targeted, but the firebomb almost completely destroyed the premises before fire-fighters were able to get it back under control.’

Lee wandered back over with a plate of croissants, Belgian buns and chocolate twists, looking up at the screen to see what had piqued my interest.

'The coffees are coming over in a minute. What's up?'

He set the plate down in front of me and helped himself to a croissant.

'Can you think of any earthly reason why somebody would want to destroy a solicitor's office?'

I eyed up one of the Belgian buns and then changed my mind and went for a chocolate twist.

'Lord knows I've wanted to every time they get some little scumbag off the hook to continue leaving a trail of destruction. But, no, it's not something you see everyday, I suppose.'

We didn't get chance to continue the conversation, as both of our phones began to ring in unison.

Chapter 21

The scene in Doctor Hardwick's office was horrifying.

Thick clots of gore had been smeared across the impressive bank of certificates on his wall and a fine spray of blood seemed to coat every available surface. I could almost taste it in the air. The windows had been left open all around the vast house, and fat summer flies danced a lazy bloated waltz around what was left of the Doctors face. I fought hard not to look at it again, but found that I was unable to keep my eyes off his corpse for more than a few moments at a time, and eventually opted to leave the room to compare notes with the crime scene investigators.

'Any initial thoughts?'

I walked up to the giant form of John Dent, who was filling out labels for items of potential evidential value that he'd seized.

'Well, don't quote me on it yet, but I'd say that he's definitely dead.'

He grinned, showing off teeth the size and general colour of tombstones.

'Why do you think he took out the eyes and tongue?'

I tried again, hoping for some spark of an idea that might tell me what the doctor's death was all about.

'If you wanted to be literal about it, it could be punishment for something he'd seen and then talked about, perhaps. Then again, he came into contact with a lot of crazies, so it could just be that they had a fixation and decided to keep those parts as trophies. You tell me, you're the Detective, I'm just here to clean up.'

Dent looked thoughtful as he replied. Many people find him caustic and difficult at times, but I didn't think there was any real malice behind the words, just statement of fact.

'Thanks John, believe it or not I think you just helped.'

I smiled at his furrowing brow.

'I assure you it was completely unintentional, Wade, so don't go spreading that around, I've got a rep to maintain.'

We were disturbed by the sound of footsteps approaching. Lee holding a plastic wallet with an envelope inside. The neat lettering on the front was immediately familiar.

'It was him.'

He didn't need to elaborate on who he was talking about, but I mentally struggled to reconcile the carnage in the office with the controlled and staged scenes that we'd grown accustomed to at the Grey Man's previous murders.

'If it was then this was entirely different for him. There was nothing in there that looked controlled to me this time.'

I thought about the pulp that now constituted a face, with empty hollows as eyes and a tongueless mouth stretched wide open, frozen into an agonised final scream. Yes he was a vicious psychopathic sadist, he excised chunks of flesh from still living victims and then cooked and ate it in front of them, but everything that we’d seen before was done in an altogether more orderly fashion. This was a different kind of butchery, not simply about excising the tasty parts. The Doctor pissed him off.

‘That answers the question about where the other bits of his face went anyway. If we can come up with something clever to explain what happened this time round then we’ll stand an infinitely better chance of catching him. Anybody got any ideas?’

Lee looked thoughtful as he spoke, looking in my general direction but straight through me at the same time.

‘The most obvious one is that he didn’t like the psych profile. Perhaps it was too close to the truth for comfort and he started to view the Doctor as a threat?’

John Dent offered over the top of his considerable shoulder, as he stuck the last of his labels on a container and then walked away.

‘Maybe, but after my chat with Hardwick I’d put my pension on it that he was hiding something, and that profile was just all wrong on every level. I guess it could be that the killer was offended by the press release, most psychopaths have egos the size of small planets, and they don’t need excuses to add to their tally.’

I felt that needling feeling that signalled the start of a connection again, but it remained maddeningly just out of reach.

‘He had a computer in his office when I visited, did you see anybody seize it?’

I didn’t see any of the tech guys at the scene, and with John Dent presiding over things, CSI wouldn’t just grab it without making us aware of that. Lee shook his head and frowned.

‘JOHN, JOHN?’

I shouted at the back of Dent who was exiting through the front door and he turned back around. The niggling feeling was growing much stronger now. Whatever had prompted this visit had been on Hardwick’s computer.

Chapter 22

The turmoil after the discovery of Alan Hardwick’s body, and the scrabble for meaning after my subsequent realisation that the Grey Man had taken his personal computer, made me all but forget about my sister’s presence in my house. Lee took the cowards way out and made his excuses at the end of a frustrating extended shift, and left me to return home to deal with her alone. It was starting to get dark as I quietly opened the door and let myself in, so I expected her to be tucked up in bed, at least I hoped she would be. So it would be an understatement to say that I was surprised when she greeted me in the hallway with a glass of wine and ushered me along to the neatly set dining table.

‘I didn’t know when you’d be home, and I didn’t want to bother you at work by calling to ask, so I’ve gone for things that are quite simple to do.’

She fussed around in a flurry of activity before disappearing back into the kitchen. I was already beginning to feel guilty about my blistering appraisal of her to Lee earlier, when she re-emerged with elegantly presented starters on my best plates, and the guilt deepened.

‘It’s pan-seared loin of tuna with a mustard and dill crust on a salad of mixed baby leaves and herbs. The main course is a mixed seafood linguini, you really are spoiled for choice with fresh ingredients around here.’

Momentarily speechless I took a mouthful of the fish and started to chew. It was absolutely delicious.

‘When did you learn to cook like this? It’s superb, by the way, thank you.’

I avoided meeting her eyes, trying hard to hang on to my resentment towards her uninvited intrusion into my world, and not wanting to watch her smile with pleasure at the first complement I’d given her in recent memory.

‘David adores fine food and drink, he’s practically obsessive about it, and my initial efforts when we first got together weren’t entirely palatable! So I took classes over the internet while he was away on business, followed by a few hands on night classes at a local catering college, and now I’m starting to get pretty good.’

I glanced up as she mentioned his name, trying to gauge her general mood after the previous night’s histrionics. She looked despondent, but mercifully the tears stayed well away this time. Ironically, for somebody in my chosen profession, I’ve never been much good at comforting distressed people. I prefer to catch the animals who cause the distress in the first place, and then see to it that they pay for their actions with years of their lives spent in a lonely cell.

‘Well you should be proud of yourself, Emily, this is as good as I’ve eaten in any swanky restaurant.’ I forced a smile this time and looked across at her. ‘I definitely didn’t get the cooking gene from Mum, I could burn water, but thankfully Lee’s more in your league in that respect so I don’t starve. Do you want to talk about what’s going on at home?’

I took another forkful of tender tuna and herbs to hide my discomfort as the silence started to stretch out.

‘No, not just yet, if that’s okay? I’m happy being here for a break and getting away from it all for a few days for now. Not that I’m planning on treating you like an hotelier.’ She took a quick sip of her wine and glanced at me before continuing. ‘Thank you for this, for letting me stay, I mean. I couldn’t face any more questions from Mum and Dad right now, and I knew you wouldn’t pry like they do, not with everything that you’ve got going on.’

I raised my own glass in acknowledgement, smiling again to let her know she was welcome. The deep red liquid looked like blood in the dim light, and I thought of the monster in human form still out there who apparently toasted his dinner companions in much this same way, and I silently promised them that I’d catch him no matter what.

Chapter 23

The Grey Man letters were never opened and read at the scenes. They were always sealed in ordinary everyday envelopes of the variety that could be purchased in any high street stationers, and so far they had all been utterly devoid of anything that could be of evidential value in identifying the killer, beyond the obvious fact that they were handwritten. However, there was always that small chance that he’d slip up, so the forensics team conducted their examinations of the documents before they were released to me. I’d tried to hard to find ways to keep myself occupied while I awaited receipt of the latest one, but patience is not one of my virtues, and I was slowly driving Lee mad with a string of unanswerable questions about the case.

‘What are the possible motives for him killing Doctor Hardwick?’

I was pretty much just thinking aloud, but Lee sighed deeply and stopped what he was doing, turning his chair away from the computer to answer me.

‘Well, we now know how much debt the doctor had managed to amass, so there could be a motive in there somewhere, but it seems highly unlikely. The smart money’s got to be on the profile and the press release pissing our psycho off, and prompting a visit either because it was too close to the truth, or because it was deemed to be offensive by the killer somehow.’

He massaged two days worth of stubble with his thumb and forefinger and looked past me into the distance.

‘So we’re agreed that the key to this one’s in that profile somewhere?’

I waited for him to nod his assent and then carried on.

‘And we’re both agreed that the profile’s got to be wrong…?’

He nodded again, more impatiently now.

‘It’s completely out of leftfield Zara, especially for a guy who’s been so accurate on almost every other notable occasion. What are you driving at, exactly?’

He started to look interested despite his apparent frustration.

‘What if it was deliberately wrong?’

We locked stares and I paused to let the suggestion sink in.

‘I want us to discreetly do our own profile of the Grey Man, one that ignores the speculation as far as possible and focuses on what the evidence tells us.’

I stopped again to check that he was still onside.

‘Okay. And what exactly is that going to achieve?’

He frowned, but at least it wasn’t outright resistance.

‘I’m not one hundred percent sure just yet, beyond clearing out the crap and clarifying what we genuinely know. But it does give us a good reason to access any records that the good Doctor himself had a look at recently, don’t you think?’