Free The Murder Code by Steve Mosby Page B

lined them up the best way to leave space for the next.’
    ‘Christ,’ Laura said.
    I stared at the bodies, neatly filling the alcove.
    ‘And maybe that,’ I said, ‘is the only reason he stopped at three.’

Thirteen
    W E HELD THE EARLY-AFTERNOON briefing in the largest operation room on the first floor of the department. There were whiteboards and projectors, twenty desks, room for rows of seats. Laura and I had also moved down there. Young had relieved us of extraneous cases; we would work from desks in here for the foreseeable future. He had also granted us ten extra sergeants, and them as many officers from the grunt pool as they wanted. As of today, this case was the department’s number-one priority.
    Because we had a serial killer.
    We waited for the room to settle, and then Laura led the briefing.
    ‘As of today,’ she told the assembled officers, holding out a splayed hand, ‘we are working on the assumption that we have five victims. Vicki Gibson and Derek Evans were killed two nights ago.’
    She gestured at one of the whiteboards, where photographs were pinned along the top. We had a former photo of Vicki Gibson, but not Evans. The crime-scene photos for both were pinned below, standing out stark red against the white background.
    ‘Details are below the photos, and on the information we’ve circulated, which you’ll all be familiar with by now.’
    I watched the room as she spoke. Many of the officers were making notes. That was good: I wanted everyone one hundred per cent intent, everyone alert. I also wanted ideas . I still had the same feeling I’d had back on the waste ground. A kind of dazed, sleepy feeling, but somehow also on edge. As though at some point I was going to start shaking slightly.
    ‘As you’ll be aware,’ Laura said, ‘this morning three further victims were discovered on waste ground beside the Garth estate. The first is believed to be Sandra Peacock, a working girl from the estate. The second is John Kramer, a door supervisor from the Foxton area; we’ll come back to him in a moment. The third victim is yet to be identified.’
    She moved to the projector and then clicked through a series of photographs: hideous shots from the crime scene. I kept my expression implacable, but heard a few half-suppressed gasps from around the room. For many of them, this was their first encounter with the extent of the violence close up. The victims’ heads had almost literally been smashed to pieces.
    ‘Injuries are consistent with those inflicted on Gibson and Evans. The likely weapon is a standard hand-held hammer. As you can see, the victims have been struck so many times that their features have been obliterated.’
    She flicked through most of the photos quickly, but paused on the final one, which showed the carrier bag believed to have belonged to John Kramer. Inside, hidden beneath tangles of tatty old clothes, we had discovered a machete, a hammer, ammonia and a ski mask.
    ‘As of this moment,’ Laura said, ‘we have no explanation for these items being in John Kramer’s possession. One of you will be following that up, but in the meantime, it’s important we separate them out. None of the weapons were used in this attack. As far as we can tell, the killer didn’t even look beneath the clothes.’
    A hand shot up: a male officer at the front.
    ‘Shout out,’ Laura told him. ‘This isn’t a schoolroom.’
    ‘The blood on the clothes?’
    ‘Yes. As you can see, there is a substantial amount of blood on the clothes Kramer brought with him in the bag. We believe—though again, this has yet to be confirmed—that the blood belongs to one or more of the victims. We believe the killer used the clothes to clean his own weapon following the murders.’
    The same officer: ‘You say he didn’t look in the bag. So no robbery at all?’
    ‘Nope. Not only does robbery not appear to be our killer’s motive, he doesn’t seem to even consider it. As far as we can tell, nothing