‘Horror films,’ Jools said.
‘Menstruation, childbirth,’ Jan said, to a groan from Mick Tanner.
‘Do we have to?’ he complained.
She glared at him. ‘You’ve got a female victim, a mother, posed with her child. You saw the photos. She had her trousers pulled down and Kai’s curled into her lap like a foetus. If that doesn’t say her gender mattered, you need to think harder.’
‘A&E,’ Nat said. ‘We’ve all been up there in our careers. Place is awash with it. My youngest cut his hand on a new penknife last year. I took him up there with blood leaking all over my new upholstery.’
‘Those LA gangs, Bloods and Crips,’ someone added.
Then the flood gates opened.
‘The bucket of blood in Carrie.’
‘Haemophilia.’
‘Rambo First Blood.’
‘Dracula.’
‘My Bloody Valentine.’
Ford held his hands up for quiet. ‘Well, well. I didn’t realise what a creatively out-there team I had. Well done, everyone. That was illuminating. Not sure where it gets us at the moment, but keep in mind that the blood probably means something to our killer.’ He started gathering his papers together. ‘Assignments. Jan, you’re sorted. Mick, can you take Olly and start looking into Angie’s background? Jools, I want you to run a search on the PNC, HOLMES, all the usual databases for murders and/or violent assaults where blood played a role over and above the usual spillage. I want reader/recorders for all the data we pull in.’
Ford hated the alphabet soup of acronyms spawned by modern policing. PNC, the Police National Computer, wasn’t too bad. But he reckoned whoever had thought up HOLMES – Home Office Large Major Enquiry System – should be shot.
‘Sir?’
Ford bit back a sigh. ‘Olly, yes.’
‘What about a psychologist? You said we shouldn’t focus on the weirdness, but the number painted in blood and everything. I mean, shouldn’t we call in a psychologist or a profiler?’
‘No. I’m not going to waste money on some minor-league academic out to make a name for themselves. They’ll charge a fortune then tell me what my gut does ten times better and for nothing. And it’s the easiest thing in the world to dip up some blood and do a little bit of finger painting. If I’d just killed my wife’ – he swallowed, and continued – ‘and I wanted to throw the cops off my scent, I’d give it a go.’
Olly folded his arms across his chest and looked away.
‘When’s the PM, boss?’ Jan asked as people started shuffling papers together and leaving their seats.
‘Tomorrow morning. I’ll grab a few of you to attend with me. Thanks, everybody.’
The meeting broke up with much chatter as the teams discussed their assignments.
‘Do you want me to have a word with Olly?’ Jan asked from beside Ford.
‘Why?’
‘You were a bit sharp with the lad. He’s only being keen.’
‘He’ll be fine. Just needs to learn to walk before he can run. Like we all did.’
She smiled. ‘I know, boss. But I could just . . .’ She paused. ‘. . . fill him in on why you’re extra-moody today.’
‘Because of Lou, you mean?’ Ford asked in a low, hard-edged voice. ‘Is that what you’re driving at?’
She held his gaze. ‘I’ve known you how long, boss?’
‘Eight years.’
‘Nine. I was here when it happened,’ she said. ‘Maybe you don’t remember, but I took you home a couple of times after you’d had a few too many at the Wyndham Arms. Made sure Sam was staying with your neighbours.’
He frowned. Of course he remembered. ‘What’s your point, Jan?’
‘My point is that you need to forgive yourself.’
His heart flipped. A wave of nausea rolled through him. ‘What?’
‘It’s called survivor guilt. I read a book about it. You weren’t to blame, but you feel you were because you lived and Lou – well, Lou died. And you can be a bit hard to be around on the anniversary.’
He forced himself to smile. Felt the muscles and ligaments in his jaws creaking. ‘I’m OK. Really. But don’t talk to Olly. If I’m the worst boss he ever has, he’ll look back on this time with great fondness.’
Jan shrugged. ‘You’re the guv’nor.’
She left him alone in the meeting room.
Ford checked his watch. Four hours gone out of the magic twenty-four, the so-called ‘golden hour’. Nobody knew when inflation had turned one hour into twenty-four. He had a sneaking feeling this one wasn’t going to be filed in the ‘Solved inside a day’ file, where the vast majority of brawl-based homicides and domestics resided.
THREE WEEKS EARLIER
Is there a God? he wonders, smiling, as he squats in the crook of two thick tree branches. Because if He does exist, He must have a soft spot for me.
His pleasure stems from his discovery that his chosen victim lives in the middle of nowhere. Some sort of eco-cottage on the edge of a farm. It squats between a bramble-choked copse and a boggy field cut in two by a fast-flowing river.
He is hyper-alert, senses fine-tuned. A crow hops towards a greyish-cream clump in the middle distance he suspects is a dead sheep. Stink from muck-spreading in a field three over drifts on the breeze. The bark is rough against his skin. Then he catches sight of his quarry through the lenses of his binoculars, and everything else fades away.
Marcus will be his first human. But he’s not inexperienced. Far from it. The cats will testify to that. And the rabbits, the badger and the lamb he stole from under its mother’s nose in the depths of the night. But this is different. This is for the project.
Marcus strolls towards the cottage, swishing at the long grass with a stick. He resembles a tramp, in an old army jumper and greasy-looking jeans. He’s tied his long, raggedy blond hair into disgusting tangled lumpy strings. What do they call them? Dreads?
Well, Marcus, my boy, you’ll have a lot of dreading to do when you meet me for the first time.
He waits for the tree-hugger to go inside, then climbs down, straightens his jacket and saunters over to the door.
He pastes that dopey smile on to his face, the one that charms the old dears up at the hospital, and he knocks. Three times.
The door opens. Marcus smiles at him. Stupid, trusting human beings.
‘Hi, Marcus. My name’s Harvey. From the food bank. May I come in?’
DAY TWO, 6.30 P.M.
Ford finished updating his policy book and grabbed his car keys. On the way out to the car park, a shout made him turn round. Hannah was hurrying towards him.
‘DI Ford, wait!’
He waited for her to reach him.
‘Can I speak to you, please?’
‘What is it?’
She was twisting the ring around her finger again. ‘When DS Cable asked about psychologists in the briefing, you dismissed the idea.’
‘Only because it’s unnecessary. The young ones always want to go outside for profilers at the merest sniff of something unusual, instead of doing proper coppering.’
‘I didn’t mention this before, but my PhD is in cognitive neuroscience. I went on to develop expertise in forensic psychology. I specialised in the psychology of lying. That’s what I was working on with the FBI.’