Free Redemption of the Dead by Luke Delaney Page B

where things would happen. His mother too frightened to intervene – thoughts of reaching for a knife in the kitchen drawer swirling in her head, but fading away as her courage deserted her. But the curse of his childhood had left him a rare and dark insightfulness – an ability to understand the motivation of those he hunted.
    All too often the abused become the abusers as the darkness overtakes them, evil begetting evil – a terrible cycle of violence, virtually impossible to break – and so the demons of Sean’s past were too deeply assimilated in his being to ever be rid of. But Sean
was
different in that he could control his demons and his rage, using his shattered upbringing to allow him insights that other cops could only dream of into the crimes he investigated. He understood the killers, rapists and arsonists – understood why they had to do what they did, could interpret their motivation – see what they had seen, smell what they had smelt, feel what they had felt – their excitement, power, lust, revulsion, guilt, regret,
fear.
He could make leaps in investigations others struggled to understand, filling in the blanks with his unique imagination. Crime scenes came alive in his mind’s eye, playing in his head like a movie. He was no psychic or clairvoyant, he was just a cop – but a cop with a broken past and dangerous future, his skill at reading the ones he hunted born of his own dark, haunted past. Where better for a failed disciple of true evil to hide than amongst cops? Where better to turn his unique tools to good use than the police? He swallowed the bile rising in his throat and headed for the crime scene – the murder scene.
    Sean stopped briefly to acknowledge another uniformed officer posted at the front door of the flat. The constable lifted the tape across the door and watched him duck inside. He looked down the corridor of the flat. It was bigger than it had seemed from the outside. Detective Sergeant Donnelly waited for him, his large frame filling the doorway, his moustache all but concealing the movement of his lips as he talked. Dave Donnelly, twenty-year plus veteran of the Metropolitan Police and very much Sean’s old school right-hand man. His anchor to the logical and practical course of an investigation and part-time crutch to lean on. They’d had their run-ins and disagreements, but they understood each other – they trusted each other.
    ‘Morning, guv’nor. Stick to the right of the hallway here. That’s the route I’ve been taking in and out,’ Donnelly growled in his strange accent, a mix of Glaswegian and Cockney, his moustache twitching as he spoke.
    ‘What we got?’ Sean asked matter-of-factly.
    ‘No sign of forced entry. Security is good in the flat, so he probably let the killer in. All the damage to the victim seems to have been done in the living room. A real fucking mess in there. No signs of disturbance anywhere else. The living room is the last door on the right down the corridor. Other than that we’ve got a kitchen, two bedrooms, a separate bathroom and toilet. From what I’ve seen, the victim kept things reasonably clean and tidy. Decent taste in furniture. There’s a few photies of the victim around the place – as best I can tell, anyway. His injuries make it a wee bit difficult to be absolutely sure. There’s plenty of them with him, shall we say,
embracing
other men.’
    ‘Gay?’ Sean asked.
    ‘Looks that way. It’s early days, but there’s definitely some decent hi-fi and TV stuff around the place, and I notice several of the photies have our boy in far-flung corners of the world. Must have cost a few pennies. We’re not dealing with a complete loser here. He had a decent enough job, or he was a decent enough villain, although I don’t get the feel this is a villain’s home.’ Both men craned their heads around the hallway area, as if to confirm Donnelly’s assessment so far. He continued: ‘And I’ve found a few letters all