Free Bloodline-9 by Mark Billingham Page B

beneath the fingernails of Catherine Burke in Leicester to that taken from hairs on Emily Walker’s clothing. So we’re now official y looking for the same individual in connection with both of these murders.’ Russel Brigstocke took a moment, looked from face to face.
    Said, ‘One kil er.’
    Karim moved his fist from beneath his chin and raised a finger. ‘Are we releasing this?’ he asked.
    ‘Not yet,’ Brigstocke said.
    ‘And we know the Leicester lot won’t, do we?’
    ‘They know they’re not supposed to.’ Brigstocke shrugged. ‘Look, an inquiry like this means there’s obviously double the chance of something being leaked. Some idiot in uniform out to impress a reporter he’s trying to get into bed, whatever.’ He raised his hands to quiet the predictable reaction. ‘So, al we can do is try to keep the lid on at our end. We al know how the press works, how mental things can get if they catch a sniff of a serial kil er.’ He scanned the faces again, pausing for a second or two when he reached Thorne’s, before carrying on.
    Thorne knew that Brigstocke was at least half right. The tabloids would certainly go to town. While the broadsheets would use the phrase sparingly and probably use inverted commas, the red-tops would show no such restraint. Same with TV: the BBC would at least want to be seen to avoid sensationalism, while for the likes of Sky News and Channel Five those two words would become something of a mantra.
    He also knew very wel why Brigstocke had sought him out to push home his point. He guessed that, were he to Google his own name, he would find it cropping up on more than one of those websites he had come across the previous week. His name, alongside those of the men and women he had hunted.
    Palmer. Nicklin. Bishop.
    One who took the lives of strangers because he was afraid not to; a man who got others to murder for him; a kil er whose unluckiest victim did not die at al . . .
    Thorne’s mind was yanked back from its wandering as the lights went out and an image appeared on the screen.
    ‘The FSS in Leicester sent us the fragment of X-ray found on Catherine Burke’s body.’ Brigstocke pointed up at the screen. ‘And we can see how it fits alongside the piece that Emily Walker was holding.’ The smal black pieces of cel uloid had been blown up, and though it was stil not clear what had been X-rayed, the magnification clearly showed where the ful -
    sized image had been cut - a jagged line that almost disappeared when they were pushed together. ‘The fact that the kil er left these for us to find would indicate that he wants us to piece them together. Although, as yet, we’re none the wiser about these .’ He pointed to a barely legible series of letters and numbers that ran in three lines along the top of each piece, then nodded to the back of the room.
    The slide changed and an image appeared showing the conjoined sequence of letters and numbers magnified stil further: VEY48
    ADD
    PHONY
    ‘Write them down,’ Brigstocke said. He watched as eyes dropped to notebooks al around the room. ‘Now, there are obviously pieces missing on either side . . .’
    Next to Thorne, Kitson scribbled and mumbled, ‘Like a jigsaw puzzle.’

    ‘Except we don’t have a box with the picture on,’ Thorne said.
    ‘Right, let’s crack on.’ Brigstocke took one last look at the screen. ‘But if anyone fancies doing some major arse-licking and spending every minute of their spare time trying to figure that out for us, I’l be extremely grateful.’
    ‘Better than a bloody sudoku,’ Karim said.
    Brigstocke smiled. ‘Not that anyone’s going to have any spare time, you understand.’
    As exaggerated groans broke out either side of him, Thorne stared, unblinking, at the picture. The sequence of numbers and letters.
    ‘ As yet, we’re none the wiser . . .’
    He imagined the kil er working with nail scissors, his face creased in concentration. Pictured him later sweating and