‘That would be a budget buster, then?’ Tony raised his glass in a cynical toast. ‘You’d think it came out of a different pot altogether, not just a different department in the same organisation. It’s amazing how many cases have had “Major Incident Team” stamped on them since the Chief Constable’s austerity drive.’

‘Even more so since the word got around that I’m leaving.’ Carol sighed. ‘This one, though … in less frugal times, we’d have been fighting Northern for it anyway.’

‘A bad one?’

Carol swallowed a mouthful of vodka and topped up her glass. ‘The worst kind. Your kind. Somebody nailed a prostitute to a cross. Upside down. Then he cut her throat.’ She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Northern think he’s done it before. Not like that, obviously. We would have heard before now if he had. But they’ve had two dead sex workers recently. Different methods. One strangled, one drowned.’

Tony was leaning forward in his chair, elbows on knees, eyes as far from sleep as could be. ‘I had a call from Penny Burgess earlier. I think it might have been about this.’

‘Really? What did she have to say?’

‘I don’t know, I wasn’t listening. But she seemed to think I should be involved. That there’s something serial going on.’

‘She could be right. All three of the victims have what looks like a tattoo on the inside of their wrist. “MINE”, it says.’

‘They didn’t connect the first two?’ Tony sounded incredulous.

‘To be fair, they only got the chance to make the connection yesterday. The one who was drowned, she wasn’t in the best condition. Grisha’s not had the body long, and it took a bit of time for them to be sure what they were looking for.’ Carol shrugged, running her fingers through her shaggy blonde hair. ‘It was hard to pick up any significance on the first body – she had other tatts on her arms and torso, no reason to think MINE had any greater significance than the tramp stamp that said BECKHAM.’

‘And this latest one? She’s got MINE on her wrist too? Interesting.’

‘It looks like it. There’s a lot of blood and swelling, because he nailed her to the wood through her wrist—’ Carol shuddered. ‘But there’s definitely something there. So Reekie called me and handed it off to us. They’ll do the footslogging.’

‘But it’ll still come out of your budget. Make you look the extravagant one, not Reekie. The women, the victims – were they local to Northern? Or were they working somewhere like Temple Fields and just got killed outside the city centre?’

‘Both local. Small time, on the street, not indoor workers.’

‘Young? Older?’

‘Young. Drug users, not surprisingly. And of course, because of the way they earned their money, we can’t be sure if they were sexually assaulted.’ She held up a hand. ‘I know, I know. Chances are, sex will come into it somewhere.’

‘Just not always in the obvious way.’ Tony sniffed his glass and made a face. ‘It’s always better where you buy it, isn’t it? This stuff smelled wonderful in Brittany. Now it’s like lighter fluid.’ He took a tentative sip. ‘Tastes better than it smells. So will you be looking at using a profiler?’

‘It would be the obvious port of call. But Blake won’t want to pay for you, and I don’t want to work with the homegrown products of the national academy.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You remember the idiot they sent us on the RigMarole killings? All the emotional intelligence of a brick wall. I promised the team I’d never go down that road again. Better to do without than let the Chief Constable foist another one of those on us.’

‘Would you like me?’ Tony said. His raised eyebrows promised the faintest possibility of double entendre, but Carol wasn’t buying.

‘It’s the sensible option, if we want to get a result sooner rather than later.’ She reached for the bottle and topped up her glass. ‘But there’s no way I’ll be allowed to spend that kind of money.’

‘What if it didn’t cost you anything?’

Carol frowned. ‘I’ve told you before. I refuse to take advantage of our personal relationship—’

‘Whatever it is … ’

‘Whatever it is. You’re a professional. When we use expertise from outside the police service, we should pay for it.’

‘The labourer is worthy of his hire,’ he said, softening the darkness of his tone with a lopsided smile. ‘We’ve had this out before, and neither of us is going to shift our ground. You say tomato and I say potato.’ He waved one hand as if he was batting away an insect. ‘I think there’s a way of doing this that means I get paid and you get my expertise.’

Carol frowned. ‘How do you work that out?’

Tony tapped the side of his nose. ‘I need to talk to someone at the Home Office.’

‘Tony, it may have escaped your notice, but we have a new government. There is no money. Not for essentials, never mind luxuries like psychological profilers.’ Frustrated, Carol sighed.

‘I know you think I live on another planet, Carol, but I did know that.’ He pulled a sad clown face that emphasised the lines his job had carved there. ‘But my go-to guy at the Home Office is above the political fray. And I think he owes me.’ Tony paused for a moment, his eyes drifting to the top left corner of the room. ‘Yes, he does.’ He shifted in his seat and stared directly at Carol. ‘All those years ago, we started something in this city. Reekie’s right. You should go out in a blaze of glory. And I should be there at your side, just like I was that first time.’

8

Dawn came and he had not slept. But Jacko Vance was wired, not tired. He listened to the small noises of the wing coming to life, happy in the thought that this would be the last time he was forced to start his day in the company of so many. He checked Collins’ watch every few minutes, waiting for the right moment to rise and start

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