Free Death & the City Book Two by Lisa Scullard Page A

promoted to Forensics, and they want you moved into Psychological Profiling. Which I know to you feels the same as old school stuff."
    It's quite a list of revelations, but I don't find any of it surprising. Even hearing that Adam followed me. I guess he just considered that he owed me a bit of stalking. I just feel relieved that he didn't try to interfere.
    "For one thing, you're still asking questions about the guy, before deciding whether it's safe to get more involved with him," Warren continues, and grins at me across the car roof. "So you're doing most of the psychological profiling for yourself already."
    "Yeah, when head office want it done, though, they expect to get the answers from five minutes' observation of someone across a crowded room," I grumble.
    "Yes, but that's because you're the best," he remarks. "Don't add any stickers or vinyl decals to your car. Sunlight, remember."
    "What about heat transfer from the engine and electrics?" I ask. "Any concerns about the bodywork heating up and cooking the paint from the inside?"
    "Could have happened in the FTO," he agrees, giving me a slightly surprised glance. He picks up the piece of rogue FTO, and passes it to me to have a look. I get the impression he's a little impressed by my input, and isn't above deferring a conclusion or two. "That's a cross-section of your paintwork magnified on the screen now. Microscopic crystalline cultured metallic rods in the primer and topcoat speed up heat dissipation to the surface, plus you've got a sort of Kevlar mesh skin bonded on underneath the paint which increases proportional internal to external bodywork surface area for heat transfer and hugs the car like a body stocking, increasing over-all stability."
    I look at the reverse of the fragment.
    "There's something there," I point out. "Looks like they tried to insulate it from heat on the inside with a reflective coating or something. The engine must have run really hot with limited heat transfer to the outside."
    Warren clicks on another image on the computer screen, and points to a satellite image of the FTO.
    "Bonnet vent," he says. "That explains why that was added. Trying to cool the engine. It certainly wouldn't have made it go faster."
    "In the woods around here, more like a dead leaf vac and bug scoop," I joke.
    "Yeah," he ponders. "Anyway, the bodywork detonated the live rounds in the trunk, as well as what looks like additional detonator electrics running through the rest of the car set up for some sort of small missile or rocket-launcher, but no arms signatures found for those, so either it wasn't loaded or designed to fire something else. Like a harpoon or net-launcher. Can't put a missile in a regular car anyway. Not unless you want to completely invalidate the warranty on your tyres, and the burglar alarm to go off and trigger all sorts of other problems."
    "Not to mention the Scotchguarding guarantee on the upholstery would automatically expire," I agree politely.
    "And don't even get me started on what would happen to the sub-woofers and tweeters," he chuckles.
    "What if it had a flamethrower?" I suggest. I'm looking over his shoulder at what the computer has simulated as the blast radius. "Something created an instant fireball which burned itself out just as quickly. Any evidence of gas tanks?"
    "Not yet." He shakes his head and taps the twisted fragment with a pencil. "We only found this bit so far, because it fell out of a tree on Sparky's head while he was metal-detecting for bullets on the ground. But Forensics could test soil and plant samples for chemical evidence of a gas. I'll get them to send your boyfriend down there with the team to do a bit of Gardener's World . A few walking wounded animal casualties are coming in. Most with gunshot or shrapnel wounds and minor singeing. Drury's been over at Forestry Rescue logging them in, if you stop by and see her afterwards, you can find out if any have sustained what look like gas burns."
    "Why do you think