Free The Stranger You Know by Jane Casey

Godley said, disappointment colouring his tone very slightly. ‘You’d expect him to miss a few.’
    I reached over and took the torch out of his hand, shining it directly on what I had seen. Caitriona swooped in with tweezers and drew the hair out, holding it up so she could slip it into an evidence collection envelope. Now that I could see it properly, I could tell it was maybe fourteen inches long. It hung in an elongated ‘S’, the bottom curling out and up as if it had been styled to flick up. It was pure gold in colour.
    ‘Not one of hers,’ Kev said happily. ‘Where did that come from?’
    ‘Him?’ I said, dubious. My mental image of a serial killer didn’t really include styled, shoulder-length hair.
    ‘One of the other victims?’ Burt suggested.
    ‘They weren’t blondes either,’ Godley said. ‘Let’s hope it’s relevant.’
    ‘We’d have got it on the bedclothes,’ Caitriona pointed out, as defensive as if someone had told her she’d failed. ‘We were going to take the sheets away once the body was moved.’
    ‘No one is moving anything without my say-so.’ Glenn Hanshaw’s voice was grating as it cut through the room. We scattered away from the bed like cockroaches surprised by a light going on. ‘I’m sorry I’m late.’
    He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded livid. I edged back, towards the door, as he folded his tall, bony frame into a crouch beside the bed and began unpacking his equipment. I appreciated that he was good at his job, but the snap of his rubber gloves going on and the rattle of the thermometer as he took it out of its case made me clench. He was exceptionally professional but his patients were beyond feeling and he was businesslike about the way he examined them, quick and somehow brutal. I felt it was uncomfortably close to a violation and as I watched him lever Anna Melville’s legs apart – moving quickly because he was late, and angry, and she was beyond caring if he was gentle – I felt a wave of unease that was close to distress. I went and stood in a corner of the hall, taking deep breaths, waiting for my heart rate to drop.
    ‘Are you okay?’ Una Burt’s face was close to mine when I looked up.
    ‘I hate that bit.’
    ‘So do I. But it’s not Hanshaw’s fault. He’s not the one who put her there.’
    ‘I know.’ And I did know it. ‘I don’t blame him. It’s just – this case feels a bit close to home. You were right. I do feel something for these victims. Not that it could be me.’ Although it nearly had been me when I’d thought my stalker Chris Swain was just a friendly neighbour. He had got closer than I liked to recall. ‘It could be someone I know. One of my friends. Someone more trusting than me.’
    ‘You think he gains their trust.’
    ‘She wasn’t tied up. She wasn’t beaten up. She was killed. How did he control her before that? The only thing I can think is that he had some authority over her. She did what he said because he asked her to.’
    ‘You could be right.’ She looked away from me, into the room where Anna Melville still lay, and the next thing she said proved I wasn’t following her train of thought at all, because I couldn’t tell why it had occurred to her. ‘If DI Derwent attempts to talk to you about this case, refer him to me.’
    She was gone before I could ask why.

Chapter 7
    I was just about to go back in to confront the body and whatever Glenn Hanshaw was doing to it when I heard voices outside the front door. I scooted down the hall to see four men pulling on protective suits, watched by a crime-scene technician who had his arms folded. His name was Pierce, I recalled, and his voice was both camp and carrying.
    ‘It’s even more important for you guys to be careful about what you’re walking into the property, given who you are. One of you brings in some material from another crime scene and we are screwed, do you know what I’m saying?’
    ‘Yes, I think we have the idea.’ The testy response