Page 13 of First Blood

‘Tell me something, Inspector,’ he said, fixing her with a stare. ‘Are you a prime example of what I’ve got to look forward to working with here at West Midlands Police?’

‘Not at all. You’ll find some of them are dead miserable so enjoy me while…’

To her surprise he threw back his head and laughed out loud.

She hadn’t even been joking.

He checked his watch. ‘I have something to finish up so make it 2p.m. on the dot.’

She nodded her thanks as she headed back to the car. Once there she stopped and turned to her team.

‘Okay, we have a male victim, nailed to the ground, naked and no possessions. What’s the very first thing we need to do?’

No one spoke.

‘Jeez, guys, there’s no penalties or punishments for wrong answers.’

Again, she asked the question and Dawson was the first to speak.

‘We need to give our guy a name.’

‘And that’s the answer I wanted.’

Chapter Ten

‘Okay,’ Kim said, heading back into the squad room. ‘DCI Woodward has been briefed so let’s get cracking on trying to identify our guy.’

In every case it was her top priority. As a product of the care system she had been called ‘child’ or ‘hey’ or ‘girl’ or something that took no effort from her carers to know her name and it had always stayed with her. Being nameless made you irrelevant and their victim was certainly not that.

The trip out to the crime scene had eaten away at a chunk of the morning but she’d learned a great deal about the small team she was managing.

‘And thank you to whoever got the coffee,’ she said, seeing the collection of canteen disposable cups.

Bryant raised his hand in acknowledgment.

‘Right, Stacey, it’s a long shot but I want you to start looking at any potential CCTV leads in the area. We have a rough time of death so work your way back from that. And don’t forget that there are a couple of different routes to that location, so we want to cover private residences, petrol stations, industrial buildings.’

Stacey nodded and turned towards her screen.

‘Dawson, I want you to get on to missing persons and see if anyone matching his description has been…’

‘Bit early for that, isn’t it, boss?’ he questioned.

She had thought the same thing herself. He was an adult male who had been killed less than twelve hours ago but you never knew what might come up.

‘Yeah, but do it anyway.’

He hesitated then nodded.

‘Bryant, start checking into our witness and see if there are any nasty skeletons in his closet.’

‘On it, guv,’ he said.

She took her coffee into the bowl and fired up her own computer but she had the feeling that wasn’t where the information she sought was stored. She’d seen that tattoo before; it may be a coincidence, or it may have a connection to the crime. Some tattoos were more common than others.

She’d seen plenty on folks she’d put away time and time again. The numbers 1488 were common on white supremacist prisoners, representing fourteen words of a quote by Nazi leader David Lane and the ‘88’ standing for the eighth letter of the alphabet repeated: HH for Heil Hitler.

The cobweb she knew typically represented a lengthy term in prison and the teardrop often signified that the wearer had committed murder, or attempted murder if it was simply an outline.