Page 101 of Deadly Cry

‘Both,’ he said, standing to the left of the trolley.

Kim followed suit and moved towards the body.

He took the right arm and turned it so the wrist was facing up.

‘Scratches,’ Kim noted.

‘There was no watch or jewellery on this wrist, so could not have come from that and definitely inflicted after death.’

‘Just like Katrina,’ Bryant noted. ‘But why on the wrist?’

‘Easy place to get to,’ Kim answered. ‘It’s October, it’s cold, and all our victims have been heavily clothed. It’s almost like he doesn’t want to violate the body, but that’s not what’s puzzling me.’

‘I’ve already checked and there’s nothing,’ Keats said, reading her thoughts.

What the hell were the scratches and why were they only present on two of the three victims?

Eighty-Two

Penn ended the call from the boss and wrote the word ‘scratches’ against the name of Nicola Southall.

‘Okay, why every other one?’ Stacey asked, staring at the board, hoping for some kind of inspiration.

No one answered, and she could feel a sense of frustration growing in the room.

‘Anybody else feel like we have all the puzzle pieces on the table but just can’t find the corners to get it started?’

Both Alison and Penn nodded at her miserably.

‘We’ve got post-mortem reports, incident reports, letters from the killer. We’ve got dates of incidents we think are connected and we’ve got…’ her words trailed away as those last words kicked at something in her brain.

‘Hang on one sec,’ she said, rifling for one single piece of paper.

She looked at the phone records of the phone that had called Nicola Southall the morning before.

‘Penn, have you got the exact dates for all those incidents?’ she asked. Just the month of the incidents he’d listed was not detailed enough for what she wanted to check.

‘Somewhere,’ he said. ‘Why, is it important?’

‘Might be,’ she said, looking at the list on the board and the paper in her hands.

‘Okay, what do you?…’

‘Call out the date and stand by the board with your marker pen.’

‘You know it’s a good job I don’t mind being bossed around,’ he said, pushing a roll of curls out of his eyes.

‘Okay, first burglary, twenty-second of May.’

‘Put a tick by that one,’ Stacey said.

‘Second burglary, twenty-third of May.’

‘Put a cross by that one,’ Stacey said as he added the symbols beside the crime.

‘First Peeping Tom, eleventh of August.’

‘Tick.’