Page 43 of First Blood

He took the plastic seat nearest the desk. Kim nodded for Bryant to take the other and she stood in the doorway.

‘Not sure what I can tell you but…’

‘Aren’t you heading the murder investigation?’ Kim asked. It was his name that had been mentioned.

‘Ha, I wish,’ he said, bitterly. ‘Attended the scene, got the first look and an identity before the case got handed over.’

‘To who?’ Bryant asked.

‘Joint task force; with bloody West Mercia.’

Kim had almost forgotten about the most recent merger where an alliance had been made sharing back office facilities, force systems, support teams and staff below the grade of Deputy Chief Constable.

‘So, they’re running it from Worcester?’ Kim asked.

He nodded. ‘A few of our lot are over there but…’ He opened his hands without finishing the sentence. He didn’t need to.

West Mercia had pretty much taken over the case. And no one was going to welcome further intrusion from them.

Kim’s first priority was in trying to establish if this case was even related to the murder of Luke Fenton. So far she had a lot of similar cases but still only one victim of her own.

‘So, what you got?’

He reached for a file on the top of an overcrowded stack of trays.

‘That it?’ Bryant asked. It looked as though the folder was empty.

‘’Fraid so. A total of three hours I had the case.’

Kim struggled not to feel annoyed on his behalf. As an Investigator, it took only minutes to make a case your own. It was almost immediate upon arrival. Once you laid eyes on the victim, assessed the body position, wound, circumstances, there was a bond, a connection, not only to the victim but to the killer. It was that instinct; that need to know every detail, to find the person responsible.

To have it whipped away after just a few hours was degrading and soul destroying.

‘Victim was a fifty-four-year-old male named Lester Jackson, stabbed multiple times, final wound to the heart.’

‘Beheaded?’ Kim asked.

He shook his head. ‘Nothing above the collar bone but a bloody mess below.’

‘Below…’ Bryant said, indicating between his legs.

‘Oh yeah, the murderer had gone to town there.’

So, the only similarity so far was the genital mutilation.

‘How was he found?’ Kim asked.

‘Tatters,’ he explained. ‘All checked out and clean from what I understand. The estate was bequeathed to the National Trust a few years ago but they’ve not got around to doing anything with it. Place has been a source of income to local shits for a while now. The whole site is huge and difficult to secure.’ He shuddered. ‘Bloody horrible place.’ He narrowed his gaze. ‘You’re not thinking of going there, are you?’

‘’Course not,’ she answered. ‘It’s not our case, but just out of interest, where was the body found?’

‘Well, that’s the thing I found weird; of all the places, rooms and halls, hundreds of them, this guy was killed in a tiny, poky hole concealed under the stairs.’

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Dawson hoped he was going to have better luck at the next house he tried, but as he moved further away from Luke Fenton’s property he was losing the will to live.

He’d had no luck at Fenton’s workplace. The supervisor had said only that the man had kept to himself. He’d attended no Christmas parties, no laddish nights out and barely passed the time of day with his colleagues, all of whom had got the message and left him alone. They had known nothing about the man himself and even less about any women or children in his life. Dawson guessed if they knew the truth about him they’d now like him a whole lot less than they had before.