Page 9 of Twisted Lies

Her feet stopped moving as her eyes took in the scene before her.

‘What the fucking hell is this?’ were the only words that came out of her mouth.

Five

Kim tried to make sense of the image that greeted her.

A man of indeterminate age had been cuffed by his hands and feet to a roller cage, similar to ones used by stores to transport supplies around the business. The man was naked. His arms and legs had been spread so that he formed a grotesque star shape.

Every inch of his skin that she could see was burned and blistered with raised white sores, varying from the size of a fingernail to a golf ball. There were areas where the blisters had burst, revealing angry red skin beneath.

She forced herself to look away from the horrific scene to where Keats was standing.

Three metal burning bins stood in a triangle, their exterior coloured brown from the intense heat they’d contained. The lids had been placed on the bins so that the smoke would have come out in funnels, slowing its exit from the bin.

Kim looked around the vast space and wondered how long it would have taken to fill with smoke.

She opened her mouth and closed it again.

‘Yes, speechless,’ Keats observed. ‘Which is a first for me and even rarer for you, I should imagine, Inspector.’

Kim ignored the jab, pleased to see that his voice had returned to normal.

She took another good look around the space, which was empty, except for the incongruous sight right before her eyes and a single metal chair twenty feet away.

‘What the hell went on here?’

‘This man was slowly and horrifically tortured,’ Keats stated.

‘No shit, Keats?’

Yes, she’d worked that out for herself.

‘Guv, shall I?’ Bryant asked, nodding towards the entrance.

He didn’t wait for a reply before heading out to the guy sitting on the ground. She didn’t blame him. If she could have left she would have.

Most crime scenes stayed in the memory of police officers. Some were closer to the forefront of the conscious mind and were harder to file away. She knew many officers who had turned to alcohol or drugs to numb the horror and offer some respite to the images they’d seen. But there were some crime scenes you knew would remain with you until the day you died, no matter what you used to try and erase it. And this was most definitely one of those.

She took a slow walk around the body that was tied to the steel cage with four sets of handcuffs. One on each wrist and one on each ankle, spreading his body as wide and open as it could be spread.

The stench of the charred flesh had hit her the second she’d entered the property. As she’d stepped into the warehouse, the acrid smell had mixed with the lingering aroma of smoke and the dirty, ashy waft from the bins.

Every inch of the visible flesh was flame red or blistering. His hair remained remarkably intact. Kim remembered reading somewhere that hair didn’t undergo physical change until it was subjected to radiated heat in excess of 240 degrees Celsius.

‘May I?’ Kim asked, pointing to the cage.

Keats handed her a pair of latex gloves.

She pushed gently on the roller cage.

‘Jesus,’ she said, realising how easy it was to push around, even with the dead weight of an average-sized male on board.

It was obvious that the man had been cuffed to the cage for ease of movement and to continually turn his flesh towards the heat. The three bins had remained in place, and the victim had been turned and wheeled around it.

Even more offensive to her was the chair. The bastard responsible had taken the trouble to bring a chair and watch the spectacle, as though sitting beside a barbecue waiting for the steak to cook.

‘Sick, absolutely sick,’ she breathed, walking around the immediate area again.