Page 107 of Deadly Cry

She wasn’t surprised to see her own handwriting sample from the day before. She was even less surprised to see she was AB dominant.

‘A few more run-ins with Woody and you could always retrain as an air-traffic controller, guv,’ Bryant said, taking back the page and putting it in his pocket.

Kim ignored him and looked at the two letters from Noah side by side with the knowledge of what she’d just learned. She’d make sure Bryant destroyed that page later.

‘These are both showing a majority of BC’s and CD’s,’ she noted.

He nodded. ‘Absolutely, he shows emotion, he is logical, can tend to be overly emotional at times but has enough analytical ability to rein his emotions in when it matters.’

‘So given everything you’ve observed with your T bars, loops and this, can you draw me an overall picture?’ she asked, waving the two sheets around.

‘To perform a full character analysis, I’d want a week, but an outline sketch of your killer indicates that he, your determination not mine, is highly intelligent with reasonable ambitions. He is confident but not conceited. He is not dominant and does not procrastinate. He is not prone to quick temper but may be sensitive to criticism. He does not have a huge ego and is dignified. He is a bit of a loner; there is confusion and there is guilt. He is in touch with his emotions, considers them, but doesn’t allow them to shape his decisions.’

He paused. ‘Basically, if you were to meet him in the street you’d probably call him a nice guy.’

Yes, that was the picture Kim was starting to get, which made the one question on her mind all the more puzzling.

Why was he murdering innocent women?

Eighty-Eight

Penn placed every printed sheet on the floor in the boss’s office. He knew she wouldn’t mind her desk and chair being pushed to the wall; he needed the space to get a clearer picture.

He’d laid the pages out in date order with the oldest set of scratches first.

He stood at the foot of the seven pieces of paper, one for each set of crimes.

Immediately, he could see that they were not identical. Some had more curves and others had more straight lines. He moved around them and found commonalities in some but not all.

He took a bandana from his pocket and tied back the curls that were already breaking free from the holding gel and falling over his eyes as he looked down.

The more he observed, the more his brain became overwhelmed with data and possibilities. He moved position and looked again. Sometimes just glancing away from a situation for a few seconds was enough to offer a fresh perspective. Still nothing jumped out at him.

He stroked his chin as he realised he was trying to solve seven different puzzles at the same time.

He’d already scanned the images and googled them, trying to match them with any kind of ancient symbols or hieroglyphs, but nothing had shown as a match.

It was too much, he realised, as his eyes darted from one sheet to another. It was overload, distracting.

He gathered up the sheets and placed them on the desk, holding back the first from the burglary over ten years earlier.

His cluttered brain breathed a sigh of relief as he stared at the single sheet, but something still wasn’t right. The scratches were separate but contained on one sheet of paper. There was no fluidity, no movement.

He had an idea.

‘You got any scissors, Stace?’ he said, stepping out of the Bowl.

‘Life ain’t that bad,’ she said, reaching into her drawer. ‘And there are easier ways.’

He took the scissors and stepped back into the Bowl.

He sat on the floor and cut out the individual scratches and discarded the surplus white paper.

His legs were formed into a v shape with the cut outs set before him.

Now he had the fluidity to move them around. Place them against each other, upside down and back to front.

He changed their position time and time again like a magician performing a hidden-object-under-a-cup trick.