Free Cold Grave by Craig Robertson Page A

nostrils.
    The cut through the animal was remarkable. It couldn’t have been neater if it had been carried out on a vet’s surgery table and performed by a laser. Winter wondered if that had been the case and the animal had been moved after a dissection elsewhere. There were already signs of partial lividity though and Winter knew enough about forensics to realise that the tell-tale purple marks meant the dog hadn’t been moved.
    The blood had rushed through the cut like water through the opening in a dam, making a dark, sticky blanket that would never be enough to keep the dog warm. Winter knew it was the sight of the dog, split asunder and swimming in its own juice, that was startling the watching throng of local neds and making their own blood boil. Winter dropped low to shoot across the body, knowing full well it would let him get the snarling, gawping, roaring, fearful faces in the same frame. Neither element made a pretty sight but together it made the peculiar beauty he sought.
    There was still more. He was directed twenty yards away, where he was treated to the sight of a lower arm, cut just below the elbow, the job done as neatly as it had been with the dog, sheared off as if by some precision-mastered machine. The arm was skinny and white, pale even before it had been emptied of the blood that had flowed through it and now lay pooled all around. There was the blotchy stain of a homemade tattoo on the forearm, a declaration of love to Mary, which had been scrubbed over in an afterthought. The nails were dark and chipped and painted with nicotine.
    Winter stalked his new prey, photographing from every angle, dropping yellow number markers as he went. On his periphery, he sensed cops and forensics closing in on him, anxious to get to work but having to wait till he had finished his. They circled him like hyenas waiting for a lion to have his fill and silently devising a strategy to drag him away from the kill. With a reluctance that growled deep in the pit of his stomach, he knew he’d have to give it up and let them in.
    He dropped his arm to his side, camera in hand, signalling the end of his feasting and immediately bodies rushed past him. They all had their game faces on, suitably serious and intent on getting out of there as soon as possible. It was a routine they had danced far too often, the inevitable consequences of letting bored kids run around with recreational drugs and deadly weapons.
    Winter backed off to the edge of the circus, casually firing off shots at the crowd and the cops but knowing he was sated by his photographic feed. A detective sergeant he knew from London Road, Aaron Sutton, was standing nearby, hands rooted in his pockets but his eyes scanning the crowd for likely suspects. Winter sidled over and Sutton greeted him with a despairing nod.
    ‘Never ends, does it?’
    ‘Never,’ Winter agreed, failing to mention that a dark corner of his heart hoped it never did. ‘So who do the dog and the hand belong to?’
    ‘Ah, the Great British pet-loving public. I expected better of you though, Tony. Mention the dog before the severed arm because it seems the worse of the two?’
    Winter laughed, conceding there might be some truth in it.
    ‘Maybe. More likely just that the dog is the more unusual of the two.’
    ‘Aye, maybe. The dog is called Klitschko after the boxers. The forearm belongs to a local ned cum drug dealer who apparently goes by the name of Casper. Named, ironically enough, after the friendly ghost. Real name Jason Hewitt and he’s on the way to hospital. After he was separated from his arm, he was running round like a headless chicken screaming for his mammy, spurting blood everywhere, making it a friggin’ nightmare for your forensic pals. It was his screaming that drew the crowd but it was the dog that got them angry. If Hewitt doesn’t bleed to death, then he won’t be scratching his arse with his right hand for the rest of his crappy life.’
    ‘What the fuck cut